by Dr. John Henrik Clarke
Africa and its people are the most written about and the least
understood of all of the world's people. This condition started in the
15th and the 16th centuries with the beginning of the slave trade
system. The Europeans not only colonialized most of the world, they
began to colonialize information about the world and its people. In
order to do this, they had to forget, or pretend to forget, all they
had previously known abut the Africans. They were not meeting them for
the first time; there had been another meeting during Greek and Roman
times. At that time they complemented each other. The African, Clitus
Niger, King of Bactria, was also a cavalry commander for Alexander the
Great. Most of the Greeks' thinking was influenced by this contact
with the Africans. The people and the cultures of what is known as
Africa are older than the word "Africa." According to most records,
old and new, Africans are the oldest people on the face of the earth.
The people now called Africans not only influenced the Greeks and the
Romans, they influenced the early world before there was a place
called Europe.
When the early Europeans first met Africans, at the crossroads of
history, it was a respectful meeting and the Africans were not slaves.
Their nations were old before Europe was born. In this period of
history, what was to be later known as "Africa" was an unknown place
to the people who would someday be called, "Europeans." Only the
people of some of the Mediterranean Islands and a few states of what
would become the Greek and Roman areas knew of parts of North Africa,
and that was a land of mystery. After the rise and decline of Greek
civilization and the Roman destruction of the city of Carthage, they
made the conquered territories into a province which they called
Africa, a word derived from "afri" and the name of a group of people
about whom little is known. At first the word applied only to the
Roman colonies in North Africa. There was a time when all dark-skinned
people were called Ethiopians, for the Greeks referred to Africa as,
"The Land Of The Burnt-Face People."
If Africa, in general, is a man-made mystery, Egypt, in particular, is
a bigger one. There has long been an attempt on the part of some
European "scholars" to deny that Egypt was a part of Africa. To do
this they had to ignore the great masterpieces on Egyptian history
written by European writers such as, Ancient Egypt. Light of the
World, Vols. I & II, and a whole school of European thought that
placed Egypt in proper focus in relationship to the rest of Africa.
The distorters of African history also had to ignore the fact that the
people of the ancient land which would later be called Egypt, never
called their country by that name. It was called, Ta-Merry or Kampt
and sometimes Kemet or Sais. The ancient Hebrews called it Mizrain.
Later the Moslem Arabs used the same term but later discarded it. Both
the Greeks and the Romans referred to the country as the "Pearl Of The
Nile." The Greeks gave it the simple name, Aegyptcus. Thus the word we
know as Egypt is of Greek Origin. Until recent times most Western
scholars have been reluctant to call attention to the fact that the
Nile River is 4,000 miles long. It starts in the south, in the heart
of Africa, and flows to the north. It was the world's first cultural
highway. Thus Egypt was a composite of many African cultures. In his
article, "The Lost Pharaohs of Nubia," Professor Bruce Williams infers
that the nations in the South could be older than Egypt. This
information is not new. When rebel European scholars were saying this
100 years ago, and proving it, they were not taken seriously.
It is unfortunate that so much of the history of Africa has been
written by conquerors, foreigners, missionaries and adventurers. The
Egyptians left the best record of their history written by local
writers. It was not until near the end of the 18th century when a few
European scholars learned to decipher their writing that this was
understood.
The Greek traveler, Herodotus, was in Africa about 450 B.C. His
eyewitness account is still a revelation. He witnessed African
civilization in decline and partly in ruins, after many invasions.
However, he could still see the indications of the greatness that it
had been. In this period in history, the Nile Valley civilization of
Africa had already brought forth two "Golden Ages" of achievement and
had left its mark for all the world to see.
Slavery and colonialism strained, but did not completely break, the
cultural umbilical cord between the Africans in Africa and those who,
by forced migration, now live in what is called the Western World. A
small group of African-American and Caribbean writers, teachers and
preachers, collectively developed the basis of what would be an
African Consciousness movement over 100 years ago. Their concern was
with African, in general, Egypt and Ethiopia, and what we now call the
Nile Valley.
In approaching this subject, I have given preference to writers of
African descent who are generally neglected. I maintain that the
African is the final authority on Africa. In this regard I have
reconsidered the writings of W.E.B. DuBois, George Washington
Williams, Drusilla Dungee Houston, Carter G. Woodson, Willis N.
Huggins, and his most outstanding living student, John G. Jackson. I
have also re-read the manuscripts of some of the unpublished books of
Charles C. Seifert, especially manuscripts of his last completed book,
Who Are The Ethiopians? Among Caribbean scholars, like Charles C.
Seifert, J.A. Rogers (from Jamaica) is the best known and the most
prolific. Over 50 years of his life was devoted to documenting the
role of African personalities in world history. His two-volume work,
World's Great Men of Color, is a pioneer work in the field.
Among the present-day scholars writing about African history, culture
and politics, Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan's books are the most
challenging. I have drawn heavily on his research in the preparation
of this article. He belongs to the main cultural branch of the African
world, having been born in Ethiopia, growing to early manhood in the
Caribbean Islands and having lived in the African-American community
of the United States for over 20 years. His major books on African
history are: Black Man of the Nile, 1979, Africa: Mother of Western
Civilization, 1976, and The African Origins of Major Western
Religions, 1970.
Our own great historian, W.E.B. DuBois tells us,
"Always Africa is giving us something new . . . On its black bosom
arose one of the earliest, if not the earliest, of self-protecting
civilizations, and grew so mightily that it still furnishes
superlatives to thinking and speaking men. Out of its darker and more
remote forest vastness came, if we may credit many recent scientists,
the first welding of iron, and we know that agriculture and trade
flourished there when Europe was a wilderness."
Dr. DuBois tells us further that,
"Nearly every human empire that has arisen in the world, material and
spiritual, has found some of its greatest crises on this continent of
Africa. It was through Africa that Christianity became the religion of
the world . . . It was through Africa that Islam came to play its
great role of conqueror and civilizer."
Egypt and the nations of the Nile Valley were, figuratively, the
beating heart of Africa and the incubator for its greatness for more
than a thousand years. Egypt gave birth to what later would become
known as "Western Civilization," long before the greatness of Greece
and Rome.
This is a part of the African story, and in the distance it is a part
of the African-American story. It is difficult for depressed African-
Americans to know that they are a part of the larger story of the
history of the world. The history of the modern world was made, in the
main, by what was taken from African people. Europeans emerged from
what they call their "Middle-Ages," people-poor, land-poor and
resources-poor. And to a great extent, culture-poor. They raided and
raped the cultures of the world, mostly Africa, and filled their homes
and museums with treasures, then they called the people primitive. The
Europeans did not understand the cultures of non-Western people then;
they do not understand them now.
History, I have often said, is a clock that people use to tell their
political time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find
themselves on the map of human geography. History tells a people where
they have been and what they have been. It also tells a people where
they are and what they are. Most importantly, history tells a people
where they still must go and what they still must be.
There is no way to go directly to the history of African-Americans
without taking a broader view of African world history. In his book,
Tom-Tom, the writer John W. Vandercook makes this meaningful
statement: A race is like a man.
Until it uses its own talents, takes pride in its own history, and
loves its own memories, it can never fulfill itself completely. This,
in essence, is what African-American history and what African-American
History Month is about. The phrase African-American or African-
American History Month, taken at face value and without serious
thought, appears to be incongruous.
Why is there a need for an African-American History Month when there
is no similar month for the other minority groups in the United
States. The history of the United States, in total, consists of the
collective histories of minority groups. What we call 'American
civilization' is no more than the sum of their contributions. The
African- Americans are the least integrated and the most neglected of
these groups in the historical interpretation of the American
experience.
This neglect has made African-American History Month a necessity.
Most of the large ethnic groups in the United States have had, and
still have, their historical associations. Some of these associations
predate the founding of the Association For The Study of Negro Life
and History (1915). Dr. Charles H. Wesley tells us that, "Historical
societies were organized in the United States with the special purpose
in view of preserving and maintaining the heritage of the American
nation."
Within the framework of these historical societies, many ethnic
groups, Black as well as white, engaged in those endeavors that would
keep alive their beliefs in themselves and their past as a part of
their hopes for the future. For African-Americans, Carter G. Woodson
led the way and used what was then called, Negro History Week, to call
attention to his people's contribution to every aspect of world
history. Dr. Woodson, then Director of the Association For the Study
of Negro Life and History, conceived this special week as a time when
public attention should be focused on the achievements of America's
citizens of African descent.
The acceptance of the facts of African-American history and the
African-American historian as a legitimate part of the academic
community did not come easily. Slavery ended and left its false images
of Black people intact. In his article, "What the Historian Owes the
Negro," the noted African-American historian, Dr. Benjamin Quarles,
says:
"The Founding Fathers, revered by historians for over a century and a
half, did not conceive of the Negro as part of the body of politics.
Theoretically, these men found it hard to imagine a society where
Negroes were of equal status to whites. Thomas Jefferson, third
President of the United States, who was far more liberal than the run
of his contemporaries, was never the less certain that "the two races,
equally free, cannot live in the same government."
I have been referring to the African origin of African-American
literature and history. This preface is essential to every meaningful
discussion of the role of the African-American in every aspect of
American life, past and present. I want to make it clear that the
Black race did not come to the United States culturally empty-handed.
The role and importance of ethnic history is in how well it teaches a
people to use their own talents, take pride in their own history and
love their own memories. In order to fulfill themselves completely, in
all of their honorable endeavors it is important that the teacher of
history of the Black race find a definition of the subject, and a
frame of reference that can be understood by students who have no
prior knowledge of the subject. The following definition is
paraphrased from a speech entitled, "The Negro Writer and His Relation
To His Roots," by Saunders Redding, (1960): Heritage, in essence, is
how a people have used their talent to created a history that gives
them memories that they can respect, and use to command the respect of
other people. The ultimate purpose of history and history teaching is
to use a people's talent to develop an awareness and a pride in
themselves so that they can create better instruments for living
together with other people.
This sense of identity is the stimulation for all of a people's honest
and creative efforts. A people's relationship to their heritage is the
same as the relationship of a child to its mother. I repeat: History
is a clock that people use to tell their time of day. It is a compass
that they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It
also tells them where they are, and what they are. Most importantly,
an understanding of history tells a people where they still must go,
and what they still must be.
Early white American historians did not accord African people anywhere
a respectful place in their commentaries on the history of man. In the
closing years of the nineteenth century, African- American historians
began to look at their people's history from their vantage point and
their point of view. Dr. Benjamin Quarks observed that "as early as
1883 this desire to bring to public attention the untapped material on
the Negro prompted George Washington Williams to publish his two-
volume History of The Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. The
first formally trained African-American historian was W.E.B. DuBois,
whose doctoral dissertation, published in 1895, The Suppression Of The
African Slave Trade To The United States, 1638-1870, became the first
title to be published in the Harvard Historical Studies. It was with
Carter G. Woodson, another Ph.D., that African world history took a
great leap forward and found a defender who could document his claims.
Woodson was convinced that unless something was done to rescue the
Black man from history's oversight, he would become a "negligible
factor in the thought of the world. " Woodson, in 1915, founded the
Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Woodson believed
that there was no such thing as, "Negro History. " He said what was
called "Negro History" was only a missing segment of world history. He
devoted the greater portion of his life to restoring this segment.
Africa came into the Mediterranean world, mainly through Greece, which
had been under African influence, and then Africa was cut off from the
melting pot by the turmoil among the Europeans and the religious
conquests incident to the rise of Islam. Africa, prior to these
events, had developed its history and civilization, indigenous to its
people and lands. Africa came back into the general picture of history
through the penetration of North Africa, West Africa and the Sudan by
the Arabs. European and American slave traders next ravaged the
continent. The imperialist colonizers and missionaries finally entered
the scene and prevailed until the recent re-emergence of independent
African nations.
Africans are, of course, closely connected to the history of both
North and South America. The African-American's role in the social,
economic and political development of the American states is an
important foundation upon which to build racial understanding,
especially in areas in which false generalization and stereotypes have
been developed to separate peoples rather than to unite them. Contrary
to a misconception which still prevails, the Africans were familiar
with literature and art for many years before their contact with the
Western World. Before the breaking-up of the social structure of the
West African states of Ghana, Mali and Songhay and the internal strife
and chaos that made the slave trade possible, the forefathers of the
Africans who eventually became slaves in the United States, lived in a
society where university life was fairly common and scholars were held
in reverence.
To understand fully any aspect of African-American life, one must
realize that the African-American is not without a cultural past,
though he was many generations removed from it before his achievements
in American literature and art commanded any appreciable attention.
Africana, or Black History, should be taught every day, not only in
the schools, but also in the home. African History Month should be
every month. We need to learn about all the African people of the
world, including those who live in Asia and the islands of the
Pacific.
In the twenty-first century there will be over one billion African
people in the world. We are tomorrow's people. But, of course, we were
yesterday's people, too. With an understanding of our new importance
we can change the world, if first we change ourselves.
The late Dr. John Henrik Clarke, a pre-eminent African-American
historian, author of several volumes on the history of Africa and the
Diaspora, taught inthe Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at
Hunter College of the City University of New York.
Originally published in THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine (1997).
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