Kenneth Simmons Architect Professor and
activist, Dies at 77
After a long illness,
Ken Simmons, a professor emeritus of architecture at the
University of California, Berkeley, died of cancer in
Johannesburg, South Africa, on Tuesday
July 6 at the age of 77. His son, Ken Harlan Simmons
III, also an architect, was with him.
Kenneth Harlan Simmons was known for his work in
equal rights, urban planning and community development
from San Francisco to Detroit, Harlem, and South Africa.
Simmons was born June 28, 1933, in Muskogee, Okla. His
father, Jacob Simons Jr., who attended the Tuskegee
Institute and founded the Simmons Royalty Company, was
considered the most successful African American in the
history of the oil industry. During Simmons’ summer
breaks from high school and college, he worked as an oil
field hand and tool dresser on family-owned oil drilling
rigs.
Simmons earned a
bachelor’s degree in biology from Harvard University in
1954 and a bachelor’s degree in architecture from UC
Berkeley in 1963. He joined UC Berkeley a lecturer in
architecture in 1968 and became an associate professor
there in 1969. Simmons played a lead role in helping the
university to divest from South Africa and helped
establish the Black Environmental Student Association at
UC Berkeley.
Simmons also worked
as an architect and planner. He was a partner with
Ishimaru, Oneill, and Simmons and the Community Design
Collaborative, both in Oakland, Calif., and with the Bay
Group Associates architectural, planning, environmental
research and design firm in San Francisco. Some of his
most noted work included the Dock of the Bay restaurant
near the Berkeley Marina, the Black Repertory Community
Center in Berkeley, and the Robert Pitts public housing
development in San Francisco.While an architect and
professor at UC Berkeley, Simons was appointed to the
East Bay Municipal Utility District Board of Directors,
where he helped to establish the district’s affirmative
action program and contract equity program.
Simmons also was a
director of the New Oakland Committee civic
organization; co-director of the Architects Renewal
Committee of Harlem, New York; coordinator for housing
and community development for the San Francisco Equal
Opportunity Council; and project director of the Urban
America Hunts Point Multi-Service Center in South Bronx,
New York.
“We were both on
the faculty at UC Berkeley, where he was an inspiration
to students and was of crucial practical help to many of
them in following whatever goals they set out for
themselves,” said Sara Ishikawa, one of Simmons’
Community Design Collective partners and a UC Berkeley
professor emerita of architecture.
John Liu, a former
UC Berkeley lecturer and a partner of Community Design
Collaborative with Simmons in the 1980s, said Simmons
inspired some of his own work in Taiwan involving social
justice and community participation. “Right ideas have
no boundaries,” Liu said.
Henry Ramsey Jr., a
retired Alameda County Superior Court judge who met
Simmons while Ramsey was a UC Berkeley law student,
called Simmons “a powerful force for meaningful social
and political change throughout his adult life.”
Shortly after
retiring from UC Berkeley in 1994, Simmons began
teaching at University Of The Witwatersrand in
Johannesburg, first at the School of Town and Regional
Planning and later at the School of Architecture. He
also worked for the city planning department in Sandton,
near Johannesburg.
At Witwatersrand,
Simmons advocated for increasing the numbers of black
students enrolling at the previously mostly white
university. At a public speaking engagement, he recalled
how he advised students: “First, I gave my students
actual academic credit if they could demonstrate they
were helping other students…And then I would try to
address their feelings of inadequacy. ‘How many
languages do you speak?’ I would ask them. Almost
always, the black kids would say five, six or eight or
nine.” Simmons said he would tell the students that some
of their teachers and fellow students who might try to
make them feel stupid speak two languages at the most.
Simmons loved jazz,
books and art, and was well known for supporting
community artists. He was a lifetime member of the Alpha
Phi Alpha fraternity. Kenneth married his first wife,
Christine Morgan, in 1955, and they had two children,
Margot and Kenneth II. With Joyce Redmond, he had one
daughter, Annette. He married Gloria Burkhalter in 1988,
and they had one daughter, Jalia.
Simmons is survived
by his companion, Sebiletso Mokone of Johannesburg; four
children, Margot Simmons of Baltimore, Md.; Kenneth II
of Johannesburg, Annette Redmond-Simmons of San Jose,
Calif., and Jalia Burkhalter-Simmons of Oakland, Calif.;
five grandchildren; and many nieces, nephews and
friends. A memorial service for Simmons will be held at
3 p.m. on Aug. 21 in the Newton-Seale Conference Room in
the R-Building of Merritt College, 12500 Campus Dr.,
Oakland.
Source:
Berkeley News* * *
* *
An American
Pioneer in South Africa—By
Kenneth Walker—July
20, 2010—For
more than 15 years, architect and entrepreneur Kenneth
Harlan Simmons was the role model for African Americans
who wanted to live in South Africa.—JOHANNESBURG—For
many black Americans, Professor Ken Simmons was the
father of the African-American community in South
Africa—not just because of his 77 years or because he
had been coming here longer than just about every other
member of that group. His leadership was by example.
By the time Simmons
died in July after a battle with cancer, he had become
the role model for African Americans adopting South
Africa as their homeland. During increasingly infrequent
visits to the United States, three weeks was about his
limit before he began feeling ''homesick'' for South
Africa. He would also recall trying to dissuade certain
African Americans from going there. ''Those bloods would
be up to no good in South Africa,'' he said. ''So when
they would ask, how was life here? I would lie and say,
'No, brother, you don't want to live there. It's awful,
really bad.'''
Although he came to
South Africa to stay in 1996, he had visited several
times in previous years. The seeds for uprooting a full
life in the United States to move to South Africa had
been planted many years before. His appetite was first
whetted in his staunchly Pan-Africanist and affluent
family. Simmons' father, Jacob, was virtually
the only successful African-American oil company owner
in America during the early 20th century. He was
born in 1901 to the granddaughter of Crow Tom, one of
the few black chiefs of a Native American tribe in the
United States. Jacob was personally recruited to attend
Tuskegee Institute by its legendary founder, Booker T.
Washington.
Kenneth Harlan
Simmons was born June 28, 1933, in Muskogee, Okla., to
Jacob and Eva Simmons. Simmons earned a bachelor's
degree in biology from Harvard University in 1954 and an
architecture degree from the University of California,
Berkeley in 1963. He practiced architecture and later
taught at Berkeley. His family's ties to Africa were
deep. Jacob Simmons made several trips to West Africa to
facilitate the entry of American oil companies there.
South Africa has
overtaken Ghana as the preferred point of return for
African Americans living on the continent. An estimated
3,000 now call South Africa home. African Americans have
been coming to South Africa for more than 150 years --
first as missionaries, then sailors and educators, and
later in business and the professions. In recent
decades, they have come for a variety of reasons, but
most feel the pull of Africa as well as the push from
America.
Kenneth Simmons II,
a prominent businessman, says this applied to him and
his father. ''We felt the attraction of wanting to
contribute to a young, African democracy, he said.
''There was also something of wanting to leave the
United States behind.''
Professor Simmons
learned about South Africa from several expatriates
living in exile in the United States during apartheid.
Willie Kgositile, South Africa's poet laureate, was one
of the first South Africans Simmons met in the 1960s.
''He was seriously involved in progressive politics,
especially those of Africans and the Diaspora,''
recalled Kgositile. ''He also was seriously involved in
community development and establishing affirmative
action for minority businesses in California.
Involvement in the struggle was what brought us
together. He saw the South African struggle as part of
his struggle, and I saw the struggle of African
Americans as part of my struggle.''
Dr. Wally Serote,
executive chairman of the Freedom Park Trust, South
Africa's premier cultural, history and heritage
institution, also met Simmons in the United States, but
their relationship began in earnest once they were both
in South Africa. Serote credits Simmons with helping
prepare him for his present position. ''As our
friendship developed, he was teaching architecture at
Wits (Witwatersrand) University, and we started talking
architecture,'' he said. ''Ken made me become extremely
interested in architecture. I didn't know it at the
time, but he was preparing me for my new job at the
Freedom Park.''
Not long after
Serote arrived to oversee the construction of Freedom
Park, he asked Simmons to join him as a technical
adviser. ''Ken took that very seriously. He always made
constructive, positive interventions coming from
technical aspects of architecture to the extent that we
relied heavily on him. Many times he unraveled things
which could have easily mystified us.''
Trevor Fowler,
former CEO in the Office of the President of South
Africa, shared many friends with Simmons during his time
in exile but only came to know him once he moved to
South Africa. ''There were many things I came to respect
and admire about Ken,'' Fowler said. ''He had two
overarching principles,'' Fowler continued. ''One was
that he had a very passionate commitment about
developing the potential of young black children in
architecture and education generally. And secondly, Ken
was passionate about bringing South Africans, Africans
and African Americans together.''
These passions were
on display during Simmons' last public presentation. He
spoke at an education workshop at a Symposium of the
South African American Partnership Forum -- a new
organization founded by South Africans and Americans to
recapture the unprecedented people-to-people exchanges
and support that reached their zenith during the
anti-apartheid era.
Simmons spoke of
trying to help young black South African students at the
University of Witwatersrand adjust to a mostly white
environment that was hostile to them. ''They were often
made to feel marginalized,'' Simmons told the crowd at
the University of Johannesburg. ''They sometimes felt
they had no right to be there.
''I did two
things,'' Simmons said. ''First, I gave my students
actual academic credit if they could demonstrate they
were helping other students who were having problems.
And then I would try to address their feelings of
inadequacy. 'How many languages do you speak?' I would
ask them. Almost always the black kids would say five,
six or eight or nine.'
''Some of your
teachers and fellow students who may try to make you
feel like you are stupid -- at the very most -- speak
two,'' he continued. ''Now tell me who is the bright one
here, and who is not? To a person,'' Simmons concluded,
"the students wound up responding: 'I never thought of
it like that.' " To which Simmons
would respond: ''Exactly!''—TheRoot
* * *
* *
 |
Jake Simmons, Jr.
Joseph
Jacob Simmons, Jr. (January 17, 1901 –
March 24, 1981) was a prominent African
American
oilman. He "rose above humble beginnings
to become the most successful and most
recognizable black entrepreneur in the
history of the petroleum industry."[1]
As an internationally known oil
broker he partnered with
Phillips Petroleum Company and
Signal Oil and Gas Company to open up
African oil fields in
Liberia,
Nigeria and
Ghana. In 1969, he became the first
black to be appointed to the
National Petroleum Council. . . .
Simmons' son J. J. "Jake" III was vice
president of the family business before
being recruited to work at the
Interior Department during the
Kennedy administration. He served as
undersecretary of the Interior Department
during the first
Reagan administration and a member of
the
Interstate Commerce Commission in the
1980s and 1990s. Donald, an
economist, took over Simmons Royalty
Company. Blanche was a
social worker and Kenneth, a
Harvard-educated professor of
architecture at the University of
California, Berkeley.
Wikipedia |
.* * *
* *
|
Staking a Claim: Jake Simmons, Jr.
and the Making of an African-American Oil
Dynasty
By
Jonathan Greenberg
Simmons, an oil broker, entrepreneur and
civil rights activist who often applied
Booker T. Washington's principles to his
business practices, became the world's first
internationally recognized black oilman.
According to PW , this is a "crisply
written, sympathetic biography."—Publishers
Weekly
Greenberg, a freelance journalist, has
written a thoroughly researched biography of
the late Jake Simmons Jr., the most
successful African-American entrepreneur in
the history of the petroleum industry.
Simmons's ancestors were slaves of the
Oklahoma-based Creek Indian tribe, which
treated their slaves with unusual dignity;
this may have helped Simmons's ancestors to
strike out on their own when given the
opportunity. |
 |
Upon the
uprooting of the Creek nation, many of the former slaves
became wealthy landowners in the Tulsa area, leasing
their lands for oil exploration at the turn of this
century. Simmons, a graduate of Tuskegee Institute, was
greatly influenced by its founder and president, Booker
T. Washington, and in addition to an analysis of
Simmons's business expertise, Greenberg also details
Simmons's civil rights activities. This is a
complementary work to another African-American business
biography, John H. Johnson's Succeeding Against the Odds
( LJ 6/1/89), and is highly recommended for most
libraries.—Library Journal
* * *
* *
How to Create a Park
By Frederick Law
Olmsted
In May 1895, landscape architect
Frederick Law Olmsted, best known for
Central Park in New York, wrote in Engineering
Magazine about city parks, or "pleasure-grounds."
To "plan" something
means to devise ways of effecting some particular
purpose. It has not always been thought necessary to
"plan" the various kinds of pleasure-grounds. With no
consistent end or purpose in mind, the members of some
park commissions attempt to direct from day to day and
from year to year such "improvements" as they may from
time to time decide upon.
That the results of
this method of procedure are confused, inadequate, and
unimpressive is not to be wondered at. In order to be
able to devise a consistent plan, such as may be
followed during a long period of years with surety that
the result will be both useful and beautiful, it is
necessary, in the first place, to define as accurately
as possible the ends or purposes to be achieved. As
already remarked, these ends or purposes are as numerous
as are the various modes of recreation in the open air.
Thus a small tract
of harbor-side land at the North End of Boston has been
acquired by the park commission, in order to supply the
inhabitants of a poor and crowded quarter with a
pleasant resting-place overlooking the water, and with
opportunities for boating and bathing. Accordingly, the
plan provides a formal elevated stone terrace,
connecting by a bridge spanning an intervening
traffic-street with a double decked pleasure-pier, which
in turn forms a breakwater enclosing a little port, the
shore of which will be a bathing beach.
In the adjacent
city of Cambridge a rectangular, level, and
street-bounded open space has been ordered to be
arranged to serve as a general meeting-place or
promenade, a concert-ground, a boys' playground, and an
out-door nursery. Accordingly, the adopted plan suggests
a centrally-placed building which will serve as a
shelter from showers and as a house of public
convenience, in which the boys will find lockers and the
babies a room of their own, from which also the head
keeper of the ground shall be able to command the whole
scene.
South of the house
a broad, but shaded, gravel space will provide room for
such crowds as may gather when the band plays on a
platform attached to the veranda of the building. Beyond
this concert-ground is placed the ball-field, which,
because of the impossibility of maintaining good turf,
will be of fine gravel firmly compacted. Surrounding the
ball-ground and the whole public domain is a broad,
formal, and shaded mall. At one end of the central
building is found room for a shrub-surrounded playground
and sand-court for babies and small children. At the
other end of the house is a similarly secluded out-door
gymnasium for girls.
Lastly, between the
administration house and the northern mall and street,
there will be found an open lawn, shut off from the
malls by banks of shrubbery and surrounded by a path
with seats where mothers, nurses, and the public
generally may find a pleasant resting-place. Plans for
those larger public domains in which scenery is the main
object of pursuit need to be devised with similarly
strict attention to the loftier purpose in view. The
type of scenery to be preserved or created ought to be
that which is developed naturally from the local
circumstances of each case.
Rocky or steep
slopes suggest tangled thickets or forests. Smooth
hollows of good soil hint at open or "park-like"
scenery. Swamps and an abundant water-supply suggest
ponds, pools, or lagoons. If distant views of regions
outside the park are likely to be permanently
attractive, the beauty thereof may be enhanced by
supplying stronger foregrounds; and, conversely, all
ugly or town-like surroundings ought, if possible, to be
"planted out." The paths and roads of landscape parks
are to be regarded simply as instruments by which the
scenery is made accessible and enjoyable. They may not
be needed at first, but, when the people visiting a park
become so numerous that the trampling of their feet
destroys the beauty of the ground cover, it becomes
necessary to confine them to the use of chosen lines and
spots.
These lines ought
obviously to be determined with careful reference to the
most advantageous exhibition of the available scenery.
The scenery also should be developed with reference to
the views thereof to be obtained from these lines. This
point may be illustrated by assuming the simplest
possible case—namely, that of a landscape park to be
created upon a parallelogram of level prairie. To
conceal the formality of the boundaries, as well as to
shut out the view of surrounding buildings, an informal
"border plantation" will be required.
Within this
irregular frame or screen the broader the unbroken
meadow or field may be, the more restful and impressive
will be the landscape. To obtain the broadest and finest
views of this central meadow, as well as to avoid
shattering its unity, roads and paths should obviously
be placed near the edges of the framing woods. In the
typical case a "circuit road" results.
It is wholly
impossible to frame rules for the planning of rural
parks; local circumstances ought to guide and govern the
designer in every case; but it may be remarked that
there are few situations in which the principle of unity
will not call for something, at least, of the "border
plantation" and something of the "circuit road." Within
large rural parks economy sometimes demands that
provision should be made for some of those modes of
recreation which small spaces are capable of supplying.
Special playgrounds for children, ball or tennis
grounds, even formal arrangements such as are most
suitable for concert-grounds and decorative gardens, may
each and all find place within the rural park, provided
they are so devised as not to conflict with or detract
from the breadth and quietness of the general landscape.
If boating can be
provided, a suitable boating-house will be desirable;
the same house will serve for the use of skaters in
winter. In small parks economy of administration demands
that one building should serve all purposes and supply
accommodations for boating parties, skaters,
tennis-players, ball-players, and all other visitors, as
well as administrative offices. In large parks separate
buildings serving as restaurants, boat-houses,
bathing-houses, and the like may be allowable. It is
most important, however, to remember that these
buildings, like the roads and paths, are only
subsidiary, though necessary, adjuncts to the park
scenery; and, consequently, that they should not be
placed or designed so as to be obtrusive or conspicuous.
Large public buildings, such as museums, concert halls,
schools, and the like, may best find place in town
streets or squares. They may wisely perhaps be placed
near, or facing upon, the park, but to place them within
it is simply to defeat the highest service which the
park can render the community. Large and conspicuous
buildings, as well as statues and other monuments, are
completely subversive of that rural quality of landscape
the presentation and preservation of which is the one
justifying purpose of the undertaking by a town of a
large public park—ArchitectureWeek
* * *
* *
Landscape Architecture: The Magazine of
the American Society of Landscape Architects
Effective use of citizen participation in
planning decision-making processes
By Willis, Angela
V., M.C.R.P., Morgan State University, 2008, 129 pages
* * *
* *
|
Fairness and Competence in Citizen
Participation
Evaluating Models for Environmental
Discourse
Edited by Ortwin Renn, Thomas Webler, and
Peter Wiedemann
A vital
issue facing the citizens and governments of
modern democracies is the direct
participation of the public in the solution
of environmental problems. Governments are
increasingly experimenting with approaches
that give citizens a greater say in the
environmental debate. Fairness and
Competence in Citizen Participation
addresses a crucial question: How can we
measure the performance of the citizen
participation process? A novel approach to
the problem is taken by viewing public
participation as an act of communication.
Drawing on Jurgen Habermas' Critical Theory
of Communication, a normative framework is
developed around the central area of citizen
participation and competence in knowledge
verification. |
 |
A milestone on the road of citizen
participation and applied critical theory, the book
provides a sound theoretical and methodological basis
for the systematic evaluation of models for
environmental discourse. Eight models of citizen
participation are studied, from North America and
Europe. Each model is evaluated and criticized in paired
chapters written by prominent scholars. Audience:
Planners and citizens alike will find pragmatic advice
in the evaluations.
Springer, Publisher
* *
* * *
 |
Mary Anne Alabanza Akers,
Dean & Professor
Morgan State University, School of
Architecture and Planning
Dr.
Akers "encourages minority students
interested in environmental careers to take
a holistic approach to the environmental
field and integrate the needs of diverse
peoples and communities into their approach.
'Build as much of a knowledge base about
‘the environment’ as you can,' she advises.
'But at the same time, working in the
environmental field, you also need to be
aware of people’s relationships with the
environment . . . not just their consumption
needs, but their health, spiritual, and
cultural connections with natural and built
environments. It is similarly important to
consider these things within the context of
sustainable economic development'."
UMichigan
|
Addressing
Design Disparities: The Role of Historically Black
Colleges and Universities— A database operated by
the Center for the Study of Practice at the University
of Cincinnati indicates that only 1.5 percent of
licensed architects are black, notwithstanding
statistics showing that African Americans account for
over 12.1 percent of the US population.1 Also
discouraging is the miniscule number of minorities in
landscape architecture and interior design practice.
According to David Rice, founder of the Organization of
Black Designers, only about 2 percent of interior
designers are black.2 And these percentages are not
significantly improving in spite of the AIA, ASLA, ASID
and other national organizations’ official commitment to
address diversity and inclusivity. How then should the
design professions fulfill this purpose?
As we delve deeper
into these issues of design disparity and in spite of
traditional, mainstream academic institutions’ efforts
at implementing strategies to increase the number of
underrepresented groups in design education, the
question continues to be asked, “Why is there minimal
progress in graduating minorities for successful careers
in design?” An often overlooked partner that can help to
address this disparity in design education and practice
are Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
Of the 117 HBCUs in the United States, seven have
accredited architecture programs, three offer landscape
architecture degrees, and two have urban planning
programs (see sidebar on page 55). Apart from this
challenge of a few design programs, HBCUs continue to be
the vehicle for successfully producing minority design
graduates. For example, the seven HBCUs still graduate
approximately 45% of all African American students with
professional architecture degrees.Design
Intelligence
About the HBCUs
project—The high rate of disabilities in U.S.
minority populations, particularly the disproportionate
rate for African Americans, has a pronounced impact on
independence and social participation in many
communities. The gap is likely to grow as aging,
obesity and related medical conditions increase rates of
disabilities. Universal design in architecture means
designing all buildings to increase usability, safety
and health to reflect the diversity of the human
population. It goes beyond accessible design to support
a higher level of independence and social participation
as well as unmet needs of diverse groups, not just
people with disabilities. Emphasizing universal design
components in architectural curricula can help build
healthy and supportive communities that reduce the
constraints of disability.
Schools with large
African American populations clearly have a greater
stake in addressing this gap. But they also have much to
contribute to the evolving knowledge base of universal
design through their unique cultural perspective.
Although UD grew out of the American disability rights
movement, its focus has been broadened to making the
design of built environments, products, and communities
more inclusive for populations of all ages, ethnicities,
and cultural backgrounds. It is here that HBCUs can
bring a unique and important perspective to universal
design that promises to enrich the body of knowledge in
this field and in architecture in general.
In her article, “Addressing
Design Disparities: The Role of Historically Black
Colleges and Universities”, the Dean of Morgan
University’s School of Architecture, Mary Anne Alabanza-Akers,
Ph.D., notes that while 12.1 percent of the U.S.
population is African American, only 1.5% of licensed
architects and 2 percent of interior designers are
Black.Universal
Design World
* *
* * *
Designing
Healthy Communities: The Health Impact of Street Vendor
Environments—A
conventional solution would be to construct a bypass
around the urban core – but that approach is far from
being sustainable. To preserve the character of the
city’s centre, highways should not be built because
these structures will only increase the dark and cold
tunnel effect of urban spaces beneath them. Rather, a
framework that encourages satellite service centres
around the city will decrease the number of vehicles
entering the urban core. Banks, professional offices,
medical offices and other businesses can relocate to
disperse services around the city. An important part of
the environmental design plan is to ‘pedestrianise’
several streets in the CBD. This move will decongest the
sidewalks and encourage the use of urban spaces for more
community-oriented (social, leisure, cultural, and arts)
activities and active living, while increasing their
economic vitality.
Several cities in India and Indonesia have closed major
streets to accommodate pedestrians9.
Evaluations of these planning strategies have yielded
positive results. Businesses have increased their sales,
air quality improves, users are more encouraged to stay
in these places, crime decreases and urban spaces are
enlivened. Lastly, to improve the health of street
vendors and urban residents living, working or visiting
in the CBD, a greening movement should be embarked upon.
Restoring existing parks to better health and planting
vegetation around the CBD will improve air quality and
decrease the effects of the urban heat during the hot,
summer months.World
Health Design
* *
* * *
DVD Description of
Wonders of the African World
Africa is a continent of magnificent
treasures and cultures—from the breathtaking stone architecture
of 1,000-year-old ruins in South Africa to an advanced 16th
century international university in Timbuktu. However, for
centuries, many of these African wonders have been hidden from
the world, lost to the ravages of time, nature and repressive
governments. Uncover the richness of these African Wonders with
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as he explores the many cultures,
traditions and history of the African continent.
* *
* * *
 |
Mr. R. R. Taylor, Director of
Industries of Tuskegee Institute, and the first colored
graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
is the architect who drew the plan of the library, which
has received much praise from various parts of the
country.
The library is open from 7 A. M. to 10 P. M., and
is at all times under the supervision of a competent
librarian. Free access to the shelves is allowed, and
liberal privileges are permitted to both teachers and
students in taking out books for use in their rooms.
An
effort has been put forth to make Tuskegee a center of
information regarding negro literature, and to that end
living negro authors are asked to contribute their
works, and pamphlets and books of every description
written by negroes are obtained whenever possible.
Tuskegee
Library and Carnegie
|
* *
* * *
The State of African Education
(April 200)
Attack On Africans Writing Their Own
History Part 1 of 7
Dr Asa Hilliard III speaks on the assault of academia on
Africans writing and accounting for their own history.
Dr Hilliard is A
teacher, psychologist, and historian.
Part 2 of 7
/
Part
3 of 7 /
Part 4 of 7
/
Part 5 of 7 /
Part 6 of 7 /
Part 7 of 7
*
* * * *
 |
John Henrik Clarke—A Great and Mighty Walk
This
video chronicles the life and times of the
noted African-American historian, scholar
and Pan-African activist
John Henrik Clarke
(1915-1998). Both a biography of Clarke
himself and an overview of 5,000 years of
African history, the film offers a
provocative look at the past through the
eyes of a leading proponent of an Afrocentric view of history. From ancient
Egypt and Africa’s other great empires,
Clarke moves through Mediterranean
borrowings, the Atlantic slave trade,
European colonization, the development of
the Pan-African movement, and present-day
African-American history. |
 |
* * *
* *
 |
The Slave Ship
By Marcus Rediker
In this
groundbreaking work, historian and scholar
Rediker considers the relationships between
the slave ship captain and his crew, between
the sailors and the slaves, and among the
captives themselves as they endured the
violent, terror-filled and often deadly
journey between the coasts of Africa and
America. While he makes fresh use of those
who left their mark in written records (Olaudah
Equiano, James Field Stanfield, John
Newton), Rediker is remarkably attentive to
the experiences of the enslaved women, from
whom we have no written accounts, and of the
common seaman, who he says was a victim of
the slave trade . . . and a victimizer.
Regarding these vessels as a strange and
potent combination of war machine, mobile
prison, and factory, Rediker expands the
scholarship on how the ships not only
delivered millions of people to slavery,
[but] prepared them for it. He engages
readers in maritime detail (how ships were
made, how crews were fed) and renders the
archival (letters, logs and legal hearings)
accessible. Painful as this powerful book
often is, Rediker does not lose sight of the
humanity of even the most egregious
participants, from African traders to
English merchants.—
Publishers
Weekly |
Marcus Rediker
is professor of maritime history at the University of
Pittsburgh and the author of
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (1987),
The Many-Headed Hydra (2000), and
Villains of All Nations (2005), books that
explore seafaring, piracy, and the origins of
globalization. In The Slave Ship, Rediker
combines exhaustive research with an astute and highly
readable synthesis of the material, balancing
documentary snapshots with an ear for gripping
narrative. Critics compare the impact of Rediker’s
history, unique for its ship-deck perspective, to
similarly compelling fictional accounts of slavery in
Toni Morrison’s
Beloved and Charles Johnson’s
Middle Passage. Even scholars who have written
on the subject defer to Rediker’s vast knowledge of the
subject. Bottom line:
The Slave Ship is sure to become a
classic of its subject.— Bookmarks
Magazine
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posted 18 August 2010 |
