Travels in West Africa: Congo Francais, Corisco and Cameroons (1897)

by MARY H. KINGSLEY

The Book of Negroes Episode 4

The Book of Negroes Episode 3

This six part mini series will take us into "Black History Month"

Click here to see "The Book of Negroes" Episode 2

The Book of Negroes Episode 2

CBC Mini series the BOOK of NEGROES

Episode One of The CBC's "The Book of Negroes" May be seen at the following URL I don't know how long it will be available but for now you can watch it online.
http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/ID/2646401100/

Based on author Lawrence Hill's award-winning novel of the same name, THE BOOK OF NEGROES is a six-part miniseries that follows the harrowing journey of Aminata Diallo played by Aunjanue Ellis, and her return home after being forced into slavery as a child.

Abducted from her village in West Africa, eleven-year-old Aminata (Shailyn Pierre-Dixon) is forced to walk in a coffle - a string of slaves - for months until they reach the sea. After enduring a horrific ocean crossing, she's put to work on an indigo plantation in South Carolina. Here, she survives by using midwifery skills learned at her mother's side and drawing on the strength of character inherited from her parents. After a clandestine wedding to fellow slave Chekura Tyano (Lyriq Bent), the couple's first baby is sold by her jealous slave master, Robinson Appleby (Greg Byrk).

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The Tree of Iron - Ancient African Steel Production

Carbon steel had been made long before either Kelly or Bessemer. One of the oldest and most sophisticated methods was that of the Haya people. They're an African tribe in what is Tanzania today. The Hayas produced high-grade carbon steel for about 2000 years.

The Hayas made their steel in a kiln shaped like a truncated upside-down cone about five feet high. They made both the cone and the bed below it from the clay of termite mounds. Termite clay makes a fine refractory material. The Hayas filled the bed of the kiln with charred swamp reeds. They packed a mixture of charcoal and iron ore above the charred reeds. Before they loaded iron ore into the kiln, they roasted it to raise its carbon content.  (See African Steel Making)

DR. CHEIKH ANTA DIOP: The African Origins Of Humanity - The Historical A...

The Battle of Isandlwana - Anglo-Zulu War 1879 - Zulu Kingdom

Battle of Isandlwana

The Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879 was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Eleven days after the British commenced their invasion of Zululand in South Africa, a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of about 1,800 British, colonial and native troops and perhaps 400 civilians. The Zulus were equipped mainly with the traditional assegai iron spears and cow-hide shields, but also had a number of muskets and old rifles  though they were not formally trained in their use. The British and colonial troops were armed with the state-of-the-art Martini-Henry breech-loading rifle and two 7 pounder artillery pieces as well as a rocket battery. Despite a vast disadvantage in weapons technology,  the numerically superior Zulus ultimately overwhelmed the poorly led and badly deployed British, killing over 1,300 troops, including all those out on the forward firing line. The Zulu army suffered around a thousand killed.
The battle was a crushing victory for the Zulus and caused the defeat of the first British invasion of Zululand.  The British Army had suffered its worst defeat against a technologically inferior indigenous force.  However, Isandlwana resulted in the British taking a much more aggressive approach in the Anglo-Zulu War, leading to a heavily reinforced second invasion  and the destruction of King Cetshwayo's hopes of a negotiated peace

Drop Squad Black History on youtube.

Africans in America Part 1A - The Terrible Transformation (1450-1750)



I found this video on youtube as a part of;
The Drop Squad History Channel

Check this channel out and enjoy the multitude of cultural and historical material.
Be sure to bookmark and visit this channel often if you value an Afrocentric education.

The presentations here include contributions by esteemed scholars like  Dr. Leonard Jeffries, Dr. John Henrick Clarke,  Dr. Llaila O. Afrika, Anthony T. Browder, Dr. Dorothy Fardan,  Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, Dr. Marimba Ani, Dr. Yousef A.A. ben-Jochannan and many more.
Don't forget to share and discuss this material with your family and friends.

Dr. John Henrik Clarke on organized religion vs spirituality

I'm going to just let Dr. Clarke tell this story.

"The Arabs had no illusions about it! The Europeans had no illusions about it!...YOU WERE THE ONE'S WITH THE ILLUSIONS!...And yet every element that went into the making of every major religion in the world started in Africa!...

Why is it that you are so naive? You let people re-dress something that you invented sell it back to you,and enslave you through it!..."


 part 1




 part 2




 part 3



 part 4

Black History for Columbus Day

The following file is courtesy of Jstor where one can find tons of info if you take the time to sift through the miriad of files on hand there.


Africans arriving in The New World with Spanish Explorers

AFRICA BEFORE SLAVERY! DR.CLARKE

Some more ourstory lessons by the master.

Dr Clarke is always very easy to listen to. We have to make sure that our young people get a good exposure to his knowledge when they're ready to learn about our history.






There are more parts to this lesson but I'm not going to do all the work. If you want to see more look it up yourself :)

AFRICA BEFORE SLAVERY! DR.CLARKE PTs. 1-4

Dr. Ben and Dr. Clarke Teach Afrikan World History and Culture

I posted this back in 2009 and happened to notice in my archive that the youtube links had been discontinued and it had received no hits at all which is a shame because these are some outstanding Black History/ Consciousness talks by 2 of our most compelling Black Historians. I'm reposting this now. If you have the time watch and share these most important video documents.

I lost interest in history at the time I found out that all that was to be said about my heritage was that my ancestors were slaves and before that heathen savages and cannibals and such. Our contribution to American Culture was Negro Spirituals. What a snow job. I remember we used to play the "you be such and such a character" in school and I wanted to be Cheyenne, a favorite cowboy character of a TV program by the same name but my classmates were like you can't be Cheyenne, Ray can be Cheyenne you be the Kingfish ( an Amos and Andy character). Hell, Ray couldn't even ride a horse and I rode broncos (for real!) Since I was raised in the rural Northeast, went to a predominately white school , and didn't have anyone teaching me otherwise, that was our history. I didn't go to college or University or have access to big city libraries so I had to wait for "The Internet" to come to my rescue and did it ever.

Now it's my pleasure to share with you some of the treasures I find for example if I had known about the story of "US deputy marshal BASS REEVES I wouldn't have even wanted to be Cheyenne. Reeves was a Real Black Hero but I'll save that story for another time.

Meanwhile you enjoy listening to Dr Clarke and Dr Ben all you have to do here is click the play button on these youtube videos and your adventure will begin.


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Dr Ivan Van Sertima - Black Woman In Antiquity

As Women's History Month comes to a close I want to share this video of one of my favorite historians.  I give you he illustrious Dr. Ivan Van Sertima. I'll let him tell you, as only he can,  the story of the Black Woman in antiquity. Enjoy this video.





Discover the Real Eve

African Woman in World History - Dr. John Henrik Clarke

Well I started on a different path with this post but finally I couldn't resist going with this youtube lecture series featuring Dr. John Henrik Clarke. I' won't put them all on the blog, so I hope if you watch the first few, your interest will be piqued enough to go for more.  Enjoy

• Part 4/8
• Part 5/8
• Part 6/8
• Part 7/8
• Part 8/8

QUILOMBISMO - History, and the African Diaspora - Commentary

It's time to give our roots lots of TLC 

The author of "QUILOMBISMO An Afro-Brazilian Political Alternative" expresses the need of Brazilian Black people to win back their memory of Africa. Then goes on to say that the same goes for people of African descent on the continent and throughout the Americas. Indeed we have our work cut out for us. This article is just one of many that accentuates the need for Africans on the continent and throughout the diaspora to to get in touch with our African roots and stop wandering around the world as if we haven't got a history that is every bit as consequential as any other. The fact is we must take possession of our own legacy and relate our story from the point of view and the facts surrounding the lives of our ancestors. The first step on the road to this happening will be for us as Africans to fully embrace and acknowledge our ancestry. Whatever admixtures we may have by race or by place we are still Africans and nothing is going to change that. The very strength of our DNA insures that we shall not be mistaken for anything else. 

 Contrary to what's been drummed into far too many of us - that's a good thing.
Once we get beyond such obstacles we can begin the work of exploring our past with the same healthy curiosity that all offspring have about their forebearers, while simultaneously creating systems to ensure that our own progeny can keep and build on our efforts. We don't have to start from scratch either because those kindred souls named at the end of this following excerpt have already begun to dig, as well as organize systems for the study of and the preservation of our history. We do have to keep up the effort though and we must get the full attention of our youth, at this point in time I'd say their lives depend on it. Our young people need to see us extoll the exploits of our heroes and mentors as well as our kings and conquerors  of which there have actually been many, in recent and ancient history. if they never hear about them then it's easy to assume that they never existed. Our situation of living in eurocentric cultures or euro-colonialized cultures has placed us in a position where African history and culture is a subject, that not only has not been taught but even worse has been treated as a source of shame, something to be shunned. As Malcolm X so eloquently pointed out  if you hate the root then you gotta hate the tree.  It's time for our roots to get lots of TLC.                                                                                     Web Prospector

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The Journal of Black Studies 
edited by
ABDIAS DO NASCIMENTO State University of New York. 

                         

QUILOMBISMO
An Afro-Brazilian
Political Alternative 

MEMORY:THE ANTIQUITY OF 
BLACK AFRICAN KNOWLEDGE 

"I want to begin this text emphasizing the urgent need of the Brazilian Black people to win back their memory, which has been systematically assaulted by Brazilian Western-inspired structures of domination for almost 500 years. A similar pro- cess holds true with the history of Africans on the Continent and their descendants scattered through all the Americas. The memory of Afro-Brazilians, very much to the contrary of what is said by conventional historians of limited vision and superficial understanding, does not begin with the slave traffic or the dawn of chattel slavery of Africans in the fifteenth century. In my country, the ruling class always, and particu- larly after the so-called abolition of slavery (1888), has developed and refined myriad techniques of preventing Black 

Brazilians from being able to identify and actively assume their ethnic, historical and cultural roots, thus cutting them off from the trunk of their African family tree. Except in terms of recent expansionist interests of the industrial elite, Brazil as a traditional norm has always ignored the African continent. It turned its back on Africa as soon as the slaver elite found itself no longer able to scorn the prohibition of commerce in African flesh imposed by Britain around 1850. A massive immigration of Europeans occurred a few years later, and the ruling elite emphasized its intentions and its actions in the sense of wrenching out of the mind and heart of slaves' descendants any image of Africa as a positive memory of nation, of motherland, of native home. Never in our educational system was there taught a discipline revealing any appreciation or respect for the cultures, arts, languages, political or economic systems, or religions of Africa. And physical contact of Afro-Brazilians with their brothers in the continent and the diaspora was always prevented or made difficult, among other methods, by the denial of economic means permitting Black people to move and travel outside the country. But none of these hindrances had the power of obliterating completely, from our spirit and memory, the living presence of Mother Africa. And even in the existential hell we are subjected to now, this rejection of Africa on the part of tle domindnt classes has functioned as a notably positive factor, helping to maintain the Black nation as a community above and beyond difficulties in time and space.

Diversified as are the strategies and devices arrayed against Black people's memory, they have recently undergone serious erosion and irreparable discrediting. This is due largely to the dedication and competence of a few Africans preoccupied with the secular destitution the Black race has suffered at the hands of European and Euro-American' capitalist civilization. This group of Africans, simultaneously scholars, scientists, philosophers, and creators of literature and art, includes persons from the African continent and diaspora. To mention only a few of their names: Cheikh Anta Diop, of Senegal; Chancellor Williams, Shawna Maglangbayan Moore, Haki Madhubuti, Molefi K. Asante and Maulana Ron Karenga of the United States; George G. M. James and Ivan Van Sertima of Guyana; Yosef Ben-Jochannan of Ethiopia; Theophile Obenga, of Congo Brazzaville; Wole Soyinka Ola Balogun and Wande Abimbola of Nigeria; these figure among the many who are actively producing works fundamental to the contemporary and coming development of Africa. In different fields, with diverse perspectives, the energies of these eminent Africans channel themselves toward the exorcism of the falsities, distortions and negations that Europeans for so long have been weaving around Africa, with the purpose of obscuring or erasing our memory of the wisdom, scientific and philosoph- ical knowledge and realizations of the peoples of Black African origin. Black Brazilian memory is only a part and particle in this gigantic project of reconstruction of a larger past to which all Afro-Brazilians are connected. To redeem this past is to have a consequent responsibility in the destinies and futures of the Black African nation worldwide, still preserving our quality as edifiers and genuine citizens of Brazil." 

African Archeology - African History

If we're going to do Black History Month, we need to go back to where we started and get it right. The following images include quite a few that I've never seen before in spite of the fact that I've been around for well over a half a century. I still remember being ashamed of the the images of Africa and Africans that were portrayed in the American media and in the schools at that time. It's no wonder I couldn't stand history classes. Check out the images and info in these videos, take notes and do further research. If you are a teacher, include this material in your lesson plans. If you are working with young people in our communities, find a way to get them interested in studying our true history. Let's it right this time around.

Speech of Patrice Lumumba, June 30, 1960 with english subtitles

On January 17th, 1961, after being beaten and tortured, the Congolese prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, was shot and killed.

I found this clip on "youtube" and thought I'd share it.
Black History Month is a good time to recall those who gave their lives.



Background:
After a long struggle, the Congolese were finally free from Belgian occupation and the great independence leader, Lumumba was democratically elected to rule over the new government.

During the official independence celebration the new prime minister, Lumumba, gave a fiery unrehearsed speech in the presence of African leaders and the King of Belgium, who naturally felt a bit uncomfortable.

A few months later, Lumumba was assassinated even though he had the leadership and vision to create a prosperous Congo and Africa. Many think that some foreign leaders did not like him because he could not be tamed.



See a Democracy Now report Lumumba 50 Years Later

History of Kenya

This brief (click here to see) History of Kenya could be included in

the British Black History Month information.

Jomo Kenyatta, the first President of Kenya