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Writings
of Runoko Rashidi
Introduction to African Civilizations /
African Presence in Early Asia /
Introduction to the Study of African Classical Civilizations
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A Tribute to Ivan Van Sertima
By Runoko Rashidi
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We have come to reclaim
the house of history. We are dedicated to
the revision of the role of the African in
the world's great civilizations, the
contribution of Africa to the achievement of
man in the arts and sciences. We shall
emphasize what Africa has given to the
world, not what it has lost.—Ivan
Van Sertima |
With absolute
certainty it can stated that, due to his consistent and
unrelenting scholarship over the past twenty-five years
in the rewriting of African history and the
reconstruction of the African's place in world history,
particularly in the field of the African presence in
ancient America, Ivan Van Sertima has cemented his
position as one of our greatest living scholars. Indeed,
during this turbulent and exciting period, he has been
in the vanguard of those scholars fighting to place
African history in a new light.
Simply put, Van Sertima's clarion call has been: "We
shall follow the trail of the African in Europe, in
Asia, and in every corner of the New World, seeking to
set the record straight. This is no romantic exploration
of antiquities. It is a search for roots."
Ivan Van Sertima was born in Kitty Village, Guyana,
South America on January 26, 1935. He was educated at
the School of Oriental and African Studies at London
University where he graduated with honors. From 1957 to
1959, he served as a Press and Broadcasting Officer in
the Guyana Information Services. During the decade of
the 1960s, he broadcasted weekly from Britain to both
Africa and the Caribbean. He came to the United States
in 1970, where he completed his post graduate studies at
Rutgers University in New Jersey. Dr. Van Sertima began
his teaching career as an instructor at Rutgers in 1972,
and remained Professor of African studies in the
Department of Africana Studies until recently.
Van Sertima is a literary critic, a linguist, and an
anthropologist, and has made a name for himself in all
three fields. As a linguist, he is the compiler of the
Swahili Dictionary of Legal Terms, based on his field
word in Tanzania, East Africa in 1967. As a literary
critic, he is the author of Caribbean Writers, a
collection of critical essays on the Caribbean novel. He
is also the author of several major literary reviews
published in Denmark, India, Britain, and the United
States. He was recognized for his work in this field by
being requested by the Nobel Committee of the Swedish
Academy to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize in
Literature from 1976 to 1980.
The cornerstone of
Dr. Van Sertima's legacy will probably be his authorship
of They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in
Ancient America. According to Van Sertima:
The African presence in America before
Columbus is of importance not only to
African and American history, but to the
history of world civilizations. The African
presence is proven by stone heads, terra
cottas, skeletons, artifacts, techniques and
inscriptions, by
oral traditions and documented history, by
botanical, linguistic and cultural data. |
They Came Before Columbus is a groundbreaking
historical work and a literary hallmark. The ideas and
themes presented in They Came Before Columbus
were not novel. Indeed, many people had written on the
African presence in pre-Columbian America before Van
Sertima, notably Leo Wiener, Kofi Wangara, R.A.
Jairazbhoy, Legrand H. Clegg II, and Floyd W. Hayes III,
but Van Sertima's book was the first such work of its
type written by an African to comprehensively address
the subject. In his own words, Van Sertima notes that:
| What I have sought to do in this book,
therefore, is to present the whole picture
emerging from these disciplines, all the
facts that are now known about the links
between Africa and America in pre-Columbian
times. |
They Came Before Columbus
has now gone through more than twenty printings. It was
published in French in 1981, and in the same year was
awarded the Clarence L. Holt Prize, a prize awarded
every two years "for a work of excellence in literature
and the humanities relating to the the cultural heritage
of Africa and the African diaspora." In 1979 Dr.
Chancellor Williams received the Clarence L. Holte prize
for the Destruction of Black Civilization.
Following upon the publication of They Came Before
Columbus, and equally momentous, in 1979 Dr. Van
Sertima founded the Journal of African Civilizations
which quickly gained "a reputation for excellence and
uniqueness among historical and anthropological
journals. It is recognized as a valuable information
source for both the layman and student." The late St.
Clair Drake described the Journal of African
Civilizations as "one of the most important events in
the development of research and publication from the
perspective of Pan-African scholarship." Van Sertima set
the tone early on when he stated that:
The destruction of African high-cultures
after the massive and continuous invasions
of Europe left many Africans surviving on
the periphery or outer ring of what
constituted the best in African
civilizations. New facts that challenge this
image create such
consternation and incredulity that an
extraordinarily emotional campaign is
mounted by some of the most respected voices
in the scientific establishment to explain
away the new data.
That drift of dynastic Egypt from Africa has
now dramatically slowed. Recent
archeological finds have caught up with the
mythmakers. More and more the history of
Africa is being reconstructed upon the basis
of hard, objective data rather than upon the
self-serving speculations and racist
theories about the black barbarians |
From 1979 the
Journal of African Civilizations published works by
and about many of the world's finest Africanist scholars
in a series of magnificent anthologies. These works
include Blacks in Science, Nile Valley
Civilizations, African Presence in Early America,
Black Women in Antiquity, Egypt Revisited,
Egypt: Child of Africa, African Presence in
Early Europe, Golden Age of the Moor,
African Presence in the Art of the Americas,
Great Black Leaders, Great African Thinkers (coedited
with Larry Obadele Williams), and African Presence in
Early Asia (coedited with Runoko Rashidi). In 1998
Transaction Press produced produced Van Sertima's newest
text—Early America Revisited—the definitive
statement on the subject.
On July 7, 1987 Dr. Van Sertima appeared before a
Congressional Committee to challenge the Columbus myth.
In November 1991 he defended his thesis in an address to
the Smithsonian Institute. In this arena Ivan Van
Sertima has emerged as an undefeated champion.
Ivan Van Sertima.
They Came Before Columbus (video)
Make liberal use also of
The
Global African Presence
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Dr. Ivan Van Sertima: The Afrikan Presence in Ancient America
 |
Ivan Gladstone Van Sertima (26
January 1935 - 25 May 2009) was a historian, linguist and
anthropologist
at Rutgers University in the United States.[1]
He was noted for his controversial Afrocentric theory
of
pre-Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas. |
 |
Ivan Van
Sertima was born in Guyana, South America. He was
educated at the School of Oriental and African
Studies (London University) and the Rutgers Graduate
School and holds degrees in African Studies and
Anthropology. From 1957-1959 he served as a Press
and Broadcasting Officer in the Guyana Information
Services. During the decade of the 1960s he
broadcast weekly from Britain to Africa and the
Caribbean. He is a literary critic, a linguist, an
anthropologist and has made a name in all three
fields.
As a literary critic, he is the
author of
Caribbean Writers, a collection of critical essays on the
Caribbean novel. He is also the author of several major literary reviews
published in Denmark, India, Britain and the United States. He was
honored for his work in this field by being asked by the Nobel Committee
of the Swedish Academy to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize in
Literature from 1976-1980. He has also been honored as an historian of
world repute by being asked to join UNESCO's International Commission
for Rewriting the Scientific and Cultural History of Mankind.
As a linguist, he has published essays on the dialect of the Sea Islands
off the Georgia Coast. He is also the compiler of the Swahili Dictionary
of Legal Terms, based on his field work in Tanzania, East Africa, in
1967.
He is the author of
They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America,
which was published by Random House in 1977 and is presently in its
twenty-ninth printing. It was published in French in 1981 and in the
same year, was awarded the Clarence L. Holte Prize, a prize awarded
every two years "for a work of excellence in literature and the
humanities relating to the cultural heritage of Africa and the African
diaspora."
He also authored
Early America Revisited, a book that has enriched the study of a
wide range of subjects, from archaeology to anthropology, and has
resulted in profound changes in the reordering of historical priorities
and pedagogy.
Professor of African Studies at Rutgers University, Dr. Van Sertima was
also Visiting Professor at Princeton University. He is the Editor of the
Journal of African Civilizations, which he founded in 1979 and
has published several major anthologies which have influenced the
development of multicultural curriculum in the United States. These
anthologies include
Blacks in Science: ancient and modern,
Black Women in Antiquity,
Egypt Revisited,
Egypt: Child of Africa,
Nile Valley Civilizations (out of print), African Presence in
the Art of the Americas (due 2007),
African Presence in Early Asia (co-edited with Runoko Rashidi),
African Presence in Early Europe,
African Presence in Early America,
Great African Thinkers,
Great Black Leaders: ancient and modern, and
Golden Age of the Moor.
As an acclaimed poet, his work graces the pages of River and the Wall,
1953 and has been published in English and German. As an essayist, his
major pieces were published in Talk That Talk, 1989, Future
Directions for African and African American Content in the School
Curriculum, 1986, Enigma of Values, 1979, and in
Black Life and Culture in the United States, 1971.
Dr. Van Sertima has lectured at more than 100 universities in the United
States and has also lectured in Canada, the Caribbean, South America and
Europe. In 1991 Dr. Van Sertima defended his highly controversial thesis
on the African presence in pre-Columbian America before the Smithsonian.
In 1994 they published his address in Race, Discourse and the Origin of
the Americas: A New World View of 1492.
He also appeared before a Congressional Committee on July 7, 1987 to
challenge the Columbus myth. This landmark presentation before Congress
was illuminating and brilliantly presented in the name of all peoples of
color across the world.
* * * * *
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Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance
By
Marshall Stearns and Jean Stearns
Marshall Stearns, who
taught college English, specializing in Chaucer, loved jazz,
thought about jazz, taught about jazz, wrote about jazz,
and, as the foundation of all this, took jazz seriously. His
The Story of Jazz became a standard work in its
field, and he then went on to document the dancing that went
with the music. With his wife Jean, he spent seven years
doing research, not only in libraries but among the living
archives of dancers' memories. They conducted interviews
with every jazz dancer they could find, at a time when jazz
dancers seemed to be members of an endangered species.
Now, thanks to Da Capo
Press,
Jazz Dance is again available, as a paperback
($16.95), augmented with a new foreword and afterword by
Brenda Bufalino, artistic director of the American Tap Dance
Orchestra.
Although the book takes its subject only
up to 1966—when
Marshall Stearns died of a heart attack shortly after
the manuscript was completed—it's
still essential reading for anyone interested in jazz,
in dance, and in the American musical theater.—FindArticles
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Lynchsong
By Lorraine Hansberry
I can hear Rosalee
See the eyes of Willie McGee
My mother told me about
Lynchings
My mother told me about
The dark nights
And dirt roads
And torch lights
And lynch robes
The
faces of men
Laughing white
Faces of men
Dead in the night
sorrow night
and a
sorrow night
1951
Source:
AmericanLynching |
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Writer Lorraine Hansberry's
sober eulogy of the death of Willie McGee weighed heavy on the
hearts and minds of the American Left. On May 8, 1951, a crowd of
five hundred lingered outside the courthouse of Laurel, Mississippi,
to witness the execution of yet another black man convicted for
allegedly raping a white woman. His 1945 lightning trial resulted in
a guilty conviction delivered in less than two and a half minutes by
an all-white, male jury, setting off a heated five-year legal
struggle that drew national headlines. Despite an aggressive appeals
defense team who attempted every legal maneuver in the book, the US
Supreme Court ultimately chose not to intervene. With the legal
lynching of the Martinsville Seven in February, Ethel and Julius
Rosenberg's conviction in March, followed by the execution of McGee
in May, 1951 was a bad year for Left-leaning lawyers (Parrish 1979;
Rise 1995). Most discouraging, national news sources like the New
York Times and Life magazine red-baited the "Save Willie
McGee" campaign and—as Life reported—its "imported" lawyers (Popham
1951a; Life 1951). Few felt McGee's passing with as heavy a heart as
his chief counsel, thirty-one-year-old Bella Abzug. |
Before Abzug became a representative in
Congress and a leader in the peace and women's movements, she confronted the
Southern political and legal system at the height of the early Cold War.
Retained in 1948 by the Civil Rights Congress (CRC)—a New York-headquartered
Popular Front legal defense organization—the novice labor lawyer honed her civil
rights . . .
Source:
https://Litigation-Essentials.LexisNexis
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The Eyes of Willie McGee
A
Tragedy of Race, Sex, and Secrets in the Jim
Crow South
By
Alex Heard
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Kamau Daoud
performs Live with The Pan Afrikan People's Arkestra /
Kamau Daoud recites
his poem written for Horace Tapscott
Kamau Daaood - Liberator Of The Spirit (for John Coltrane)
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.—WashingtonPost |
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Incognegro: A Memoir of
Exile and Apartheid
By Frank B. Wilderson, III
Wilderson, a professor,
writer and filmmaker from
the Midwest,
presents a gripping account
of his role in the downfall
of South African apartheid
as one of only two black
Americans in the African
National Congress (ANC).
After marrying a South
African law student, Wilderson reluctantly
returns with her to South
Africa in the early 1990s,
where he teaches
Johannesburg and Soweto
students, and soon joins the
military wing of the ANC.
Wilderson's stinging
portrait of Nelson Mandela
as a petulant elder eager to
accommodate his white
countrymen will jolt readers
who've accepted the
reverential treatment
usually accorded him. After
the assassination of
Mandela's rival, South
African Communist Party
leader Chris Hani, Mandela's
regime deems Wilderson's
public questions a threat to
national security; soon,
having lost his stomach for
the cause, he returns to
America.
Wilderson has a
distinct, powerful voice and
a strong story that shuffles
between the indignities of
Johannesburg life and his
early years in Minneapolis,
the precocious child of
academics who barely
tolerate his emerging
political consciousness.
Wilderson's observations
about love within and across
the color line and cultural
divides are as provocative
as his politics; despite
some distracting
digressions, this is a
riveting memoir of
apartheid's last days.—Publishers
Weekly
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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