[Black Lion]

THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY

H I S T O R Y N O T E S

RACE MEN AND RACE WOMEN
LIVES AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF GREAT AFRICAN HISTORIANS:

ABSTRACT OF A SLIDE-PRESENTATION LECTURE

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

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"Let me forever be discarded by the Black race, and
let me be condemned by the White, if I strive not with
all my powers, if I put not forth all my energies to
bring respect and dignity to the African race."
--Edward Wilmot Blyden

Race Men and Race Women: Lives and Contributions of
Great African Historians is a slide-presentation
overview detailing and summarizing the times and
contributions of many of the most significant
chroniclers of the African past and the global
community of African people. These were the sisters
and brothers who in difficult conditions managed to
keep alive the tradition of what has been been called
"that other African." This is not the African
typically portrayed in the media and educational
institutions of the western world. Rather, "that other
African" refers to the African people who gave birth
to and nurtured humanity and produced and refined
civilization itself. The presentation is magnificently
brought to life through the use of rare and brilliant
photographs.

After an initial discussion of such writers as
Imhotep, Manetho, Al-Jahiz, Ahmed Baba, Mahmud Kati,
Abderrahman es-Sadi, Leo Africanus, Aleksandr
Sergeyevich Pushkin and Alexander Dumas brother Runoko
allows us to sojourn with some of the great
contributors of the nineteenth century beginning with
Henry Highland Garnet, who demanded that our "motto be
resistance." The overview is continued with the
dynamic Martin Robison Delany, who told us "Africa for
the Africans" and the great Edward Wilmot Blyden.
Added to the list are Rev. Rufus Lewis Perry, George
Washington Williams (who did research in Belgian king
Leopold's Congo) and Bishop Henry McNeil Turner of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church.

From the beginning of the nineteenth century we are
joined by such pioneers as Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins,
Rev. James Marmaduke Boddy (the first African to write
a comprehensive article on the African presence in the
ancient Far East), Charles C. Seifert, William Henry
Ferris, Alphonso Orenzo Stafford, Arthur Alfonso
Schomburg and the great George Wells Parker. While in
the decade of the1920s we are introduced to Dr. Carter
G. Woodson, master historian Drusilla Dunjee Houston,
the brilliant Joel Augustus Rogers and the Honorable
Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

In the 1930's we are connected with Dr. Willis
Nathaniel Huggins, Professor William Leo Hansberry,
Nnamdi Azikiwe and in the 1940s we visit with Sterling
Means and W.E.B. DuBois, There is no let up. In the
1950s we encounter George G.M. James, the author of
Stolen Legacy, and J.C. DeGraft-Johnson, who gave us
African Glory. In the 1960s we hear from Malcolm X and
by the early 1970s we are prominently introduced to
our beloved John Henrik Clarke, John G. Jackson, Dr.
Charles B. Copher, Cheikh Anta Diop, Yosef
ben-Jochannan, Chancellor Williams, Edward Scobie and
Jan Carew. In the late 1970s and 1980s we walk with
Ivan Van Sertima and examine the impact of Dr.
Theophile Obenga. More recently we note the the
contributions of Queen Mother Kefa Nepthys, Jacob
Carruthers, Anderson Thompson, Charsee McIntyre,
Leonard Jeffries and Asa Grant Hilliard III.

Of course, the presentation is not all about
historians and scholars and we look proudly at the
lives and contributions of such giants as Mary Ellen
Pleasant, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick
Douglass, Alexander Crummell, Booker T. Washington,
Nanny Helen Burroughs, Anna Julia Cooper, Hubert Henry
Harrison, Duse Mohammad Ali, Ida B. Wells, Kwame
Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon, Queen Mother Audley Moore,
Richard B. Moore, Fannie Lou Hamer, Mary McLeod
Bethune, Septima Clark, Kwame Ture and a whole
calvacade of mighty and distinguished soldiers in the
army of African victory. Many of them are well known.
Others hover in obscurity. All of them deserve
recognition. So travel with us through time and space
with brother Runoko Rashidi as we sojourn and pay
tribute to this grand genealogy of African giants.

[HatHaruhotep]

Thanks for this very valuable information. Bump clp)

[Black Lion]

Sounds like there should be more... gonna check see if I missed a link.