WHY AFRICANA HISTORY?

BY JOHN HENRIK CLARKE (JANUARY 1987)
POSTED BY RUNOKO RASHIDI

Africa and its people are the most written about andthe least understood of all of the world's people.This condition started in the 15th and the 16thcenturies with the beginning of the slave trade andthe colonialism system. The Europeans not onlycolonialized most of the world, they began tocolonialize information about the world and itspeople. In order to do this, they had to forget, orpretend to forget, all they had previously known aboutthe Africans. They were not meeting them for the firsttine; there had been another meeting during Greek and Roman times. At that time they complemented eachother. The African, Clitus Niger, King of Bactria, was also aCavalry Commander for Alexander the Great. Most of theGreeks' thinking was influenced by this contact withthe Africans.

The people and the cultures of what isknown as Africa are older than the word "Africa."According to most records, old and new, Africans arethe oldest people on the face of the earth. The peoplenow called Africans not only influenced the Greeks andthe Romans, they influenced the early world beforethere was a place called Europe. When the early Europeans first met Africans, at the crossroads of history, it was a respectful meeting andthe Africans were not slaves. Their nations were oldbefore Europe was born. In this period of history,what was to be later known as "Africa" was an unknownplace to the people who would someday be called,"Europeans." Only the people of some of theMediterranean Islands and a few states of what wouldbecome the Greek and Roman states knew of parts of North Africa, and that was a land of mystery.

Afterthe rise and decline of Greek civilization and theRoman destruction of the City of Carthage, they madethe conquered territories into a province which theycalled Africa, a word derived from "afri," and thename of a group of people about whom little is known.At first the word applied only to the Roman coloniesin North Africa. There was a time when alldark-skinned people were called Ethiopians, for theGreeks 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 Egyptianhistory 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 properfocus 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 whichwould later be called Egypt, never called their country by that name. It was called, TA-MERRY or KAMPTand sometimes KEMET or SAIS. The ancient Hebrewscalled it MIZRAIN. Later the Moslem Arabs used thesame term but later discarded it. Both the Greeks andthe Romans referred to the country as the "Pearl ofthe Nile." The Greeks gave it the simple nameAEGYPTCUS. Thus the word we know as Egypt is of Greekorigin. Until recent times most Western scholars have beenreluctant to call attention to the fact that the NileRiver is 4,000 miles long. It starts in the south, inthe heart of Africa, and flows to the north. It wasthe world's first cultural highway. Thus, Egypt was acomposite of many African cultures. In his article,"The Lost Pharaohs of Nubia," Professor Bruce Williamsinfers that the nations in the South could be olderthan Egypt. This information is not new. When rebel European scholars were saying this 100 years ago, andproving it, they were not taken seriously.

It is unfortunate that so much of the history ofAfrica has been written by conquerors, foreigners,missionaries and adventures. The Egyptians left thebest record of their history written by local writers.It was not until near the end of the 19th century whena few European scholars learned to decipher theirwriting that this was understood. The Greek traveler, Herodotus, was in Africa about 450B.C. His eyewitness account is still a revelation. Hewitnessed African civilization in decline and partlyin ruins, after many invasions. However, he couldstill see the indications of the greatness that it hadbeen. In this period in history, the Nile Valleycivilization of Africa had already brought forth two"Golden Ages" of achievement and had left its mark forall the world to see. Slavery and colonialism strained, but did notcompletely break, the cultural umbilical cord betweenthe Africans in Africa and those who, by forcedmigration, now live in what is called the WesternWorld. A small group of African American and Caribbeanwriters, teachers and preachers, collectivelydeveloped the basis of what would be anAfrican-consciousness movement over 100 years ago.Their concern was with Africa, in general, Egypt andEthiopia, and what we now call the Nile Valley.

In approaching this subject, I have given preferenceto writers of African descent who are generallyneglected. I maintain that the African is the finalauthority on Africa. In this regard I havereconsidered the writings of W.E.B. DuBois, GeorgeWashington Williams, Drussila Dungee Houston, CarterG. Woodson, Willis N. Huggins, and his mostoutstanding living student, John G. Jackson (nowdeceased; editor). I have also reread the manuscriptsof some of the unpublished books of Charles C.Seifert, especially manuscripts of his last completedbook, Who Are the Ethiopians? Among Caribbeanscholars, like Charles C. Seifert, J.A. Rogers (fromJamaica) is the best known and the most prolific. Over50 years of his life was devoted to documenting therole of African personalities in world history. Histwo-volume work, World's Great Men of Color, is apioneer work in the field. Among the present-day scholars writing about Africanhistory, culture, and politics, Dr. Yosefben-Jochannan's books are the most challenging. I havedrawn heavily on his research in the preparation ofthis article. He belongs to the main cultural branchof the African world, having been born in Ethiopia,growing to early manhood in the Caribbean Islands andhaving lived in the African American community of theUnited States for over 20 years. His major books onAfrican history are: Black Man of the Nile, 1979,Africa: Mother of Western Civilization, 1976 and TheAfrican Origins of Major Western Religions, 1970. Our own great historian, W.E.B. DuBois tells us,"Always Africa is giving us something new On itsblack bosom arose one of the earliest,if not theearliest, of self-protecting civilizations, and grewso mightily that it still furnishes superlatives tothinking and speaking men.

Out of its darker and moreremote forest vastness came, if we may credit manyrecent scientists, the first welding of iron, and weknow that agriculture and trade flourished there whenEurope was a wilderness. Dr. DuBois tells us further that, "Nearly every humanempire that has arisen in the world, material andspiritual, has found some of its greatest crises onthis continent of Africa. It was through Africa thatChristianity became the religion of the world It wasthrough Africa that Islam came to play its great roleof conqueror and civilizer." Egypt and the nations of the Nile Valley were,figuratively, the beating heart of Africa and theincubator for its greatness for more than a thousandyears. Egypt gave birth to what later would becomeknown as "Western Civilization," long before thegreatness of Greece and Rome. This is a part of the African story, and in thedistance it is a part of the African American story.It is difficult for depressed African Americans toknow that they are a part of the larger story of thehistory of the world. The history of the modern worldwas made, in the main, by what was taken from Africanpeople. Europeans emerged from what they call their"middle-Ages," people poor, land poor and resourcespoor. They raided and raped the cultures of the world,mostly Africa, and filled their homes and museums withtreasures, then they called the people primitive. TheEuropeans did not understand the cultures ofnon-Western people then; they do not understand themnow.

History, I have often said, is a clock that people useto tell their political time of day. It is also acompass that people use to find themselves on the mapof human geography. History tells a people where theyare and what they are. Most importantly, history tellsa people where they still must go and what they stillmust be. There is no way to go directly to the history ofAfrican Americans without taking a broader view ofAfrican world history. In his book Tom-Tom, thewriter, John W. Vandercook makes this meaningfulstatement: A race is like a man. Until it uses its own talents,takes pride in its own history, and loves its ownmemories, it can never fulfill itself completely. This, in essence, is what African American history andwhat African American History Month is about. Thephrase African American or African American HistoryMonth, taken at face value and without seriousthought, appears to be incongruous. Why is there aneed for an African American History Month when thereis no similar month for the other minority groups inthe United States? The history of the United States,in total, consists of the collective history ofminority groups. What we call 'American civilization'is no more than the sum of their contributions. TheAfrican Americans are the least integrated and themost neglected of these groups in the historicalinterpretation of the American experience. Thisneglect has made African American History Month anecessity. Most of the large ethnic groups in the United Stateshave had, and still have, their historicalassociations. Some of these associations predate thefounding of the Association for the Study of NegroLife and History, (1915). Dr. Charles H. Wesley tellsus that, "Historical societies were organized in theUnited States with the special purpose in view ofpreserving and maintaining the heritage of theAmerican nation." Within the frame work of these historical societiesmany ethnic groups, Black as well as white, engaged inthose endeavors that would keep alive their beliefs inthemselves and their past as a part of their hopes forthe future. For African Americans, Carter G. Woodsonled the way and used what was then called, NegroHistory Week, to call attention to his people'scontribution to every aspect of world history. Dr.Woodson, then Director of The Association for theStudy of Negro Life and History, conceived thisspecial week as a time when public attention should befocused on the achievements of America's citizens ofAfrican descent. The acceptance of the facts of African Americanhistory and the African American historian as alegitimate part of the academic community did not comeeasily. Slavery ended and left its false images ofBlack people intact. In his article, "What theHistorian Owes the Negro," the noted African Americanhistorian, Dr. Benjamin Quarles, says: The Founding Fathers revered by historians for over acentury and a half, did not conceive of the Negro aspart of the body of politics. Theoretically, these menfound it hard to imagine a society where Negroes wereof equal status to whites. Thomas Jefferson, thirdPresident of the United States, who was far moreliberal than the run of his contemporaries, was neverthe less certain that "the two races, equally free,cannot live in the same government." I have been referring to the African origin of AfricanAmerican literature and history. This preface isessential to every meaningful discussion of the roleof the African American in every aspect of Americanlife, past and present. I want to make it clear thatthe Black race did not come to the United Statesculturally empty-handed. The role and importance of ethnic history is in howwell it teaches a people to use their own talents,take pride in their own history and love their ownmemories. In order to fulfill themselves completely,in all of their honorable endeavors it is importantthat the teacher of history of the Black race find adefinition of the subject, and a frame of referencethat can be understood by students who have no priorknowledge of the subject. The following definition is paraphrased from a speechentitled. "The Negro Writer and His Relation To HisRoots," by Saunders Redding, (1960): Heritage, in essence, is how a people have used theirtalent to create a history that gives them memoriesthat they can respect, and use to command the respectof other people. The ultimate purpose of history andhistory teaching is to use a people's talent todevelop an awareness and a pride in themselves so thatthey can create better instruments for living togetherwith other people. This sense of identity is thestimulation for all of a people's honest and creativeefforts. A people's relationship to their heritage isthe same as the relationship of a child to its mother. I repeat: History is a clock that people use to tell theirpolitical time of day. It is a compass that they useto find themselves on the map of human geography. Italso tells them where they are, and what they are.Most importantly, an understanding of history tells apeople where they still must go, and what they stillmust be.

Early white American historians did not accord Africanpeople anywhere a respectful place in theircommentaries on the history of man. In the closingyears of the nineteenth century, African Americanhistorians began to look at their people's historyfrom their vantage point and their point of view. Dr.Benjamin Quarles observed that "as early as 1883 thisdesire to bring to public attention the untappedmaterial on the Negro prompted George WashingtonWilliams to publish his two-volume History of theNegro Race in America From 1619 to 1880." The first formally trained African American historianwas W.E.B. DuBois, whose doctoral dissertation,published in 1895, The Suppression Of The AfricanSlave Trade To The United States, 16381870, became thefirst title to be published in the Harvard HistoricalStudies. It was with Carter G. Woodson, another Ph.D., thatAfrican world history took a great leap forward andfound a defender who could document his claims.Woodson was convinced that unless something was doneto rescue the Black man from history's oversight, hewould become a "negligible factor in the thought ofthe world;" Woodson, in 1915, founded the Associationfor the Study of Negro Life and History. Woodson believed that there was no such thing as,"Negro History." He said what was called "NegroHistory" was only a missing segment of world history.He devoted the greater portion of his life torestoring this segment. Africa came into the Mediterranean world mainlythrough Greece, which had been under Africaninfluence; and then Africa was cut off from themelting pot by the turmoil among the Europeans and thereligious conquests incident to the rise of Islam.Africa, prior to these events, had developed itshistory and civilization, indigenous to its people andlands. Africa came back into the general picture ofhistory through the penetration of North Africa, WestAfrica and the Sudan by the Arabs. European andAmerican slave traders next ravaged the continent. Theimperialist colonizers and missionaries finallyentered the scene and prevailed until the recentre-emergence of independent African nations.

Contrary to a misconception which still prevails, theAfricans were familiar with literature and art formany years before their contact with the WesternWorld. Before the breaking-up of the social structureof the West African states of Ghana, Mali and Songhay,and the internal strife and chaos that made the slavetrade possible, the forefathers of the Africans whoeventually became slaves in the United States lived ina society where university life was fairly common andscholars were held in reverence. To understand fully any aspect of African Americanlife, one must realize that the African American isnot without a cultural past, although he was manygenerations removed from it before his achievements inAmerican literature and art commanded any appreciableattention. Africana or Black History should be taught every day,not only in the schools, but also in the home.

AfricanHistory Month should be every month. We need to learnabout all the African people of the world, includingthose who live in Asia and the islands of the Pacific. In the twenty-first century there will be over onebillion African people in the world. We are tomorrow'speople. But, of course, we were yesterday's peopletoo. With an understanding of our new importance wecan change the world, if first we change ourselves.