H I S T O R Y   N O T E S

REMEMBERING PATRICE LUMUMBA

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

Dawn in the Heart of AfricaA Poem by Patrice Lumumba

For a thousand years, you, African, suffered like beast,Your ashes strewn to the wind that roams the desert.Your tyrants built the lustrous, magic templesTo preserve your soul, reserve your suffering.Barbaric right of fist and the white right to a whip,You had the right to die, you also could weep.On your totem they carved endless hunger, endless bonds,And even in the cover of the woods a ghastly cruel deathWas watching, snaky, crawling to youLike branches from the holes and heads of treesEmbraced your body and your ailing soul.Then they put a treacherous big viper on your chest: On your neck they laid the yoke of fire-water,They took your sweet wife for glitter of cheap pearls,Your incredible riches that nobody could measure.From your hut, the tom-toms sounded into dark of nightCarrying cruel laments up mighty black riversAbout abused girls, streams of tears and blood,About ships that sailed to countries where the little manWallows in an ant hill and the dollar is king,To that damned land which they called a motherland.There your child, your wife were ground, day and nightIn a frightful, merciless mill, crushing them in dreadful pain.

You are a man like others. They preach you to believeThat good white God will reconcile all men at last.By fire you grieved and sang the moaning songsOf a homeless beggar that sinks at strangers' doors.And when a craze possessed youAnd your blood boiled through the nightYou danced, you moaned, obsessed by father's passion.Like furry of a storm to lyrics of a manly tuneFrom a thousand years of misery a strength burst out of youIn metallic voice of jazz, in uncovered outcryThat thunders through the continent like gigantic surf.The whole world surprised, wakes up in panicTo the violent rhythm of blood, to the violent rhythm of jazz,The white man turning pallid over this new songThat carries torch of purple through the dark of night. The dawn is here, my brother! Dawn! Look in our faces,A new morning breaks in our old Africa.Ours alone will now be the land, the water, mighty riversPoor African surrendered for a thousand years.Hard torches of the sun will shine for us againThey'll dry the tears in eyes and spittle on your face.The moment when you break the chains, the heavy fetters,The evil cruel times will go never to come again.A free and gallant Congo will rise from black soil,A free and gallant Congo-black blossom from black seed!

 

Weep, Beloved Black BrotherA poem by Patrice Lumumba.

O black man, beast of burden through the centuries, Your ashes scattered to the winds of heaven,There was a time when you built burial templesIn which your murderers sleep their final sleep.Hunted down and tracked, driven from your homes.Beaten in battles where brute force prevailed. Barbaric centuries of rape and carnage That offered you the choice of death or slavery. You went for refuge to the forest depths, And other deaths waylaid you, burning fevers, Jaws of wild beasts, the cold, unholy coils Of snakes who crushed you gradually to death. Then came the white man, more clever, tricky, cruel,He took your gold in trade for shoddy stuff,He raped your women, made your warriors drunk,Penned up your sons and daughters on his ships.

The tom-toms hummed through all the villages,Spreading afar the mourning, the wild griefAt news of exile to a distant landWhere cotton is God and the dollar King.Condemned to enforced labor, beasts of burden,Under a burning sun from dawn to dusk,So that you might forget you are a manThey taught you to sing the praises of their God,And these hosannas, tuned into your sorrows,Gave you the hope of a better world to come.But in your human heart you only askedThe right to live, your share of happiness.Beside your fire, your eyes reflect your dreams and suffering,You sang the chants that gave voice to your blues.And sometimes to your joys, when sap rose in the treesAnd you danced wildly in the damp of evening And out of this sprang forth, magnificent, Alive and virile, like a bell of brass Sounding your sorrows, that powerful music, Jazz, now loved, admired throughout the world, Compelling the white man to respect, Announcing in clear loud tones from this time on This country no longer belongs to him. And thus you make the brothers of your race Lift up their heads to see clear, straight ahead The happy future bearing deliverance. The banks of a great river in flower with hope Are yours from this time onward.The earth and all its riches Are yours from this time onward.The blazing sun in the colorless skyDissolves our sorrow in a wave of warmth.Its burning rays will help to dry forever The flood of tears shed by our ancestors,Martyrs of the tyranny of the masters.And on this earth which you will always love You will make the Congo a nation, happy and free,In the very heart of vast Black Africa. Translated from the French original by Lillian Lowenfels and Nan Apotheker.

Lumumba's Letter from his Prison in Thysville (now Mbanza Ngungu) to his wife, Pauline

Patrice LumumbaIn Sorrow But Defiant

What Manner of A Man?We Love You!

My dear wife,

I am writing these words not knowing whether they will reach you, when they will reach you, and whether I shall still be alive when you read them.

All through my struggle for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant the final triumph of the sacred cause to which my companions and I have devoted all our lives.

But what we wished for our country, its right to an honourable life, to unstained dignity, to independence without restrictions, was never desired by the Belgian imperialists and their Western allies who found direct and indirect support, both deliberate and unintentional amongst certain high officials of the United Nations, that organisation in which we placed all our trust when we called on its assistance.

They have corrupted come of our compatriots and bribed others. They have helped to distort the truth and bring our independence into dishonour. How could I speak otherwise?

Dead or alive, free or in prison by order of the imperialists, it is not I myself who count. It is the Congo; it is our poor people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage from beyond whose confines the outside world looks on us, sometimes with kindly sympathy but at other times with joy and pleasure.

But my faith will remain unshakeable. I know and feel in my heart that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of all their enemies, both internal and external, and that they will rise

as one man to say no to the degradation and shame of colonialism, and regain their dignity in the dear light of the sun.

As to my children whom I leave and whom I may never see again, I should like them to be told that it is for every Congolese, to accomplish the sacred task of reconstructing our independence and our sovereignty for without justice there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men.

Neither brutality, nor cruelty, nor torture will ever bring me to ask for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head unbowed, my faith unshakeable and with profound trust in the destiny of my country, rather than live under subjection and disregarding sacred principles.

History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that is taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or at the United Nations, but the history which will be taught in the countries freed from imperialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history, and to the north and south of the Sahara, it will be a glorious and dignified history.

Don not weep for me, my dear wife. I know that my country, which is suffering so much, will know how to defend its independence and its liberty.

Long Live Congo, Long Live Africa

Patrice.

Long Live the Spirit of Patrice Lumumba. And May Your Sacrifice Be Remembered In All The Lands of Black Africa.

The Africa Solidarity Council, Inc.

H I S T O R Y   N O T E S

QUEEN AMINA OF HAUSALAND

By DAVID SWEETMAN

Posted by RUNOKO RASHIDI

DEDICATED TO SISTER AMINA LAWAL

"In her time the whole products of the west were brought to Hausaland." --Kano Chronicle

The Hausa men of West Africa are proud and independent, yet their most famous ruler and greatest warrior was a woman, Queen Amina.

She is said to have created the only Hausa empire and to have led into battle a fierce army of horsemen.  Indeed, so powerful is the memory of her exploits that songs of her deeds are still sung today.

By the end of the eighth century AD Arab explorers were aware of a great civilization to the south of the Sahara. This was ancient Ghana, situated in an area further west than present-day Ghana.  The beginning of ancient Ghana's power roughly coincides with the spread of Islam in North Africa.  From that time, over the next 1,500 years, the great states of the western Sudan rose, flourished  and fell, each passing on to the next the mantle of power, each state centred a little further east--Ghana, Mali, Songhay, Kanem Bornu, Sokoto.  In the midst of these, the seven states that make up Hausaland came into being around AD 1050.  Before the separate Hausa states were established, this area of West Africa was ruled by a dynasty of queens--seventeen in all.  Later Islamic scholars, using older Arabic stories mixed with local tales, created a legend to explain the sudden development of the Hausa peoples: Shawata, the last of the seventeen queens, offers marriage to any man who will slay Sarki, a monstrous snake that lives in the well of the town of Daura.  Abyazidu (also known as Bayajida), a prince of Baghdad, comes to their son Bawo who is held to be the founding father of the original seven Hausa states: Daura, Kano, Zazzau, Gobir, Katsina, Rano and Garun Gabas.  They form an area of some 500 square kilometres, the core of Hausaland.

As the populations of these states increased so they grew wealthy and attracted the attention of other powers.  Yet the Hausa are a tough people and the only explanation why for much of their history they were under outside domination must lie in the fact that they were split into these seven separate states.  Only two Hausa leaders were conquerors and the first of

these was a woman, queen Amina of Zazzau who succeeded in extending the boundaries of Hausaland outside its original core.

LEGEND OR TRUTH?

There are many legends about Amina as she is usually known, through her full name was Aminatu.  The tales of her exploits have made her one of the most famous African women, second only to Nzinga of Angola.  Because much of the early written material about her is contradictory, some historians cautiously believe that she may be just a legend.  However, despite the contradictions, she is mentioned in three of the four main sources for the history of the Hausa.  The Abuja Chronicle and Infaku'l Maisuri of Sultan Muhammadu Bello both describe her as a daughter of the ruling house but not as a ruler in her own right and the traditional list of Hausa rulers contained in the Labarun Hausawa da Makwabtansu does not mention her at all.  This need not surprise us: Muslim chroniclers often left out women rulers or lessened the significance of their actions.  But the Kano Chronicle describes her as a ruler who flourished in the early fifteenth century.  The majority voice is that she did exist though exactly when is much harder to decide.

T R A V E L  N O T E S

AFRICANS IN THE AMERICAS:THE SAN ANDRES ARCHIPELAGO

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

DEDICATED TO DR. JOHN HENRIK CLARKE - A GREAT PAN-AFRICANIST

Now that I am feeling well again and have basically overcome the health challenge that so dominated my life a few months ago I am on the go quite a lot. Thanks so much to all of those of you who were so supportive of me when I was off my feet. I do think of you and I appreciate you with every step that I take. Right now life is being very good to me. Being able to move again has within the past six months brought me to Aboriginal Australia, Jamaica, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Costa Rica and Colombia. The experience has been quite rewarding and I am learning so much that sometimes my head just seems to be spinning around and around with new knowledge, and I sometimes find myself questioning tenets that I always considered very basic. Travel can have that effect on us and, as noted, I have been travelling a great deal of late. Indeed, I have just returned less than a hundred hours ago from spending five exciting days on San Andres Island.

San Andres Island is part of a three island archipelago that also includes sparsely populated Providence and Catalina Islands. The archipelago is located in the southwest Caribbean region. The people of the islands are composed of English speaking Africans, who consider themselves the Natives, and Spanish speaking Colombians from the South American mainland, many of whom are also Black people.

Officially, San Andres Island is a possession of Colombia. The Natives think of Colombia as an occupying power. The official population of San Andres numbers about 60,000. Unofficially the population is well over 100,000. These figures border on the incredible in that just fifty years ago the total population numbered only about 5,000 people. Today, the Natives constitute about 40% of the people of the archipelago. They are sometimes known as Raizals, a Spanish word, and say that they are closely related to the

Black populations on the Atlantic periphery of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Honduras.

The Natives of San Andres were brought there by English Puritans early in the seventeenth century. The white folks were either absorbed by the dominant population or abandoned the archipelago altogether and the Blacks were left to themselves. So for the next two hundred years the people of San Andres led an existence described as close to idyllic.

What was San Andres like before the 1950s? Just imagine a beautiful Caribbean island surrounded by crystal blue waters, swept by soft summer breezes, dominated by perpetually warm weather, somewhat isolated with only a few thousand people engaged in fishing and agriculture. Everybody knew everybody, crime was almost non-existent,the family unit was strong, good health abounded, there was no drug culture, living was easy. All of this changed dramatically beginning in 1953 when the island became the target of mainland Colombia and the recipient of a population influx from tens of thousands of Colombians, many of them poor and Black, coming from South America looking for a better way of life resulting from jobs associated with the rising tourist industry.

San Andres Island is only about ten square miles. The density of the population is immense and life is surely not idyllic now. Garbage is piling up, slums are cropping up, urban violence is real, prostitution is prevalent, AIDS is on the rise, there is only limited space to bury the dead, drug trafficking is thriving and shops and hotels are everywhere. The official language, including the language in the public schools, is now Spanish and the Native Blacks are all but shut out of the tourism industry. The agricultural and fishing economy that dominated San Andres for scores of years is being relegated to a thing of the past and with the rise of tourism an entire way of life has been disrupted.

Unemployment among the Natives of San Andres runs about 55%. But the literacy rate is 100% and I have never been around a group of people more hard working and determined than

the sisters and brothers of San Andres. A few of them run small restaurants around the island. Many of the Black men drive taxis. Some of them still confine themselves to farming and fishing. Everyone seems to take pride in their island. There is a university on the island-Christian University run by Dr. George May-a very distinguished Native clergyman. The Natives of San Andres are clinging desperately to their land. They were warm, friendly, caring and hospitable towards me and I felt right at home among them.

The "North End" of San Andrés and main beach "Sprat Bight"

THE FIRST INDIGENOUS NATIVE CONGRESS

The purpose of my visit to San Andres was to keynote the first Indigenous Native Congress, December 9 to December 12, 2002. The theme of the Congress was “building a firm foundation for the destiny of the Native people.” I had met several of the principal organizers of the Congress, including Harry McNish and Juan Ramirez-Dawkins in Barlovento, Venezuela at the Reunion of the African Family in Latin America held in the Maroon communities there in the Summer of 1999. I made three big presentations in Barlovento; the San Andres Africans were duly impressed and have been after me to come to San Andres ever since. They asked me if I would come down and do some talks and help with their self-esteem and I gladly accepted their invitation.

So on Monday afternoon, December 9, only six days after completing our historic Looking at Southeast Asia through African Eyes educational and cultural tour, and only two days from speaking at the ASCAC Western Regional Conference in Oakland, California, I touched down on beautiful San Andres Island. After weeks of dealing with logistical issues and exchanging emails with the principal Congress coordinator, Dr. Juvencio Gallardo, I had finally arrived.

To be honest with you, the first thing that I noticed after arriving on San Andres were the gorgeous Black women. I don’t mind telling you that these sisters were fine! I mean Black women are beautiful everywhere but many of these sisters were just stunning, and some of them looked remarkably similar to the images of the women in my slide presentations, particularly those images of sisters from ancient Egypt.

So things got off to a good start. People seemed like they were pleased to see me. I was happy to be there and folks made it clear that my comfort and pleasure were top priorities for them. Of course this made a big difference in that it was not an easy trip for me in the sense that I had to catch a midnight flight from Los Angeles to San Jose, Costa Rica and then wait several hours at the airport before the short flight from San Jose to San Andres, and I was already tired to begin with and didn’t know anyone who had been to San Andres before.

On Monday evening, December 9 the Congress convened at the landmark Native First Baptist Church. I believe that this church was built in 1834. I know that it has a lot of significance. The first thing that I observed upon entering the church was a large painting hovering over the pulpit with an image of a white Jesus. When I spoke that evening that was the first thing that I took aim at. That set the tone for the entire week-that this was going to be a take no prisoners affair and that little quarter was going to be asked or given. Well, things went pretty well that first night. I concluded that a significant segment of the population was a hard

working and rather conservative group possessed of a lot of compassion and integrity.

The first full day of the Congress began the following morning, December 10, at the Sunrise Beach Hotel-the finest hotel in the city and located in the downtown area. This angered a lot of the Natives who felt that the Congress should have been held in the heart of the Black community itself. Another point of contention was the translation of the English speaking portions of the Congress into Spanish. Such is the general resentment of the Natives towards the Spanish speaking Colombians that many of them actually objected to a Spanish translation of the Congress proceedings. The Raizals themselves speak English, Spanish and Creole.

One thing that also became apparent early on was the great divide between the English speaking Natives and the Spanish speaking Africans from Colombia. As a strong Pan-Africanist this was very discouraging for me. I observed that there seemed very little empathy between the two groups and the Colombian Africans seemed to have been on the whole a lot more mixed than the Natives. Or maybe it was just that light skinned Colombian Africans are the most visible and the ones that the Colombian government and reigning elite prefers to employ in the hotels and restaurants. Other Black people from Colombia that I saw during my travels around the island seemed more like unmixed Africans. As for Africans in mainland Colombia itself I found that Blacks number about ten million people and make up about 36% of the total population, and are concentrated in the regions of El Choco, Cali and Cartagena. They are severely oppressed and I was told that are caught between the para military forces, the guerillas and the government. So Colombia, much to no one’s surprise, has another one of the world’s struggling African populations and much work has to be done there.

The Congress was opened with a prayer followed by comments from coordinators Juvencio Gallardo and Juan Ramirez-Dawkins. There were then two panel discussions-Territoriality, Environment and Biodiversity and Alternative

Economic Development. That same evening I gave my first slide presentation of the Congress and really lit the audience up with one of my finest talks. It was obvious that much of the information was new to the people and they responded most enthusiastically. I took them around the world with me showing them images of Africans as the parent people of humanity and Africans as the mothers and fathers of civilization. I traced the widespread movements of African people and added dimension to the global African community. Most of them had never seen anything like it and the information was a big hit. Indeed, I remained so excited that I could not sleep a wink that entire evening. The presentation went so well that I was immediately invited to come back to lecture in San Andres! The Secretary of Education, Dr. Ricardo Gordon May, turned out to be one of my biggest supporters.

Probably the most controversial photo that I showed during the Congress was an image of Jesus Christ painted by Coptic Christians in Egypt more than a thousand years ago. I took the photo in the Coptic Museum in Cairo in 2001. I figure if anybody has a right to claim that they know what Jesus looked like the Copts do. The image is of a particularly dark Christ with a large Afro hairstyle. In other words the man is portrayed as “fair (black) skinned” with “good (woolly) hair.” He is surrounded by his equally Africoid disciples. The painting is so detailed that you can even see blood dripping from the palms of his hands where he was nailed to the cross. The photo is stunning and I show it as often as possible in an effort to counteract the images of white gods that bombard Black communities the world over. I firmly believe that until we begin to worship god in our own image we will never make real progress as a people. If white people want to worship god as a white man then by all means let them do so but Black people worshipping white gods is a clear indication as to where we are in the world. The photo caused such a ruckus that I was actually asked by the island’s minister of culture, a rather confused but hopefully well meaning young sister from Colombia who was extremely

agitated, to provide documentation for my assertions.

On Wednesday, December 11 the Congress was dominated by panel discussions on Ethnic Education and Self-Determination and Human Rights, and that afternoon I did a very good slide presentation on the history and majesty of African women around the world. It was a good day but I was so upset with my confrontation with the minister of culture that my attitude was not the best. That evening at another large Black church San Andres Island’s Christian University was celebrated with a brilliant keynote address by Dr. Shelby Lewis-a wonderful sister and the only other African-American to attend the Congress.

Thursday, December 12 marked the last day of the Congress. About 150 Congress participants branched off into individual commissions and drafted proposals and solutions that were later read aloud to the entire body. It will result in a manifesto that will be the basis for building and for future activities. Thursday was also a day on which we saw more of San Andres’ performing artists and the band that day played one of my favorite songs-Peter Tosh’s “No Matter Where You Come from You are an African.”

 

After the band and the reading of the commission reports I was called upon to make my final presentation to the Congress and it was one of my best. As a matter of fact, I really think that it was one of the best presentations that I have ever given anywhere. I was emotional, the audience was primed, the images were excellent and the Ancestors seemed to be very much with us. I showed that same image of the Black Christ and some other ones to boot, and once again took the audience around the world as living witnesses to the greatness of African people.

I do think that you would have been proud and I do believe that the Ancestors who guided us and watched over our actions are satisfied. I have given some of my greatest presentations in the

Caribbean and it is indeed inspiring providing positive historical information to people hungry and thirsty for knowledge of themselves.

Following my presentation came an outstanding contribution by brother Jonathan Adams from Barbados on the color of god and why it is important. The presentation was nothing short of awesome and closed down the Congress on a fitting note. We had come full circle and we were duly moved. After that was time to reflect on what we had done, celebrate our achievements, rejoice with the family and party a little bit.

It was soon time for me to pack and the next day I was on the move again. On Friday, December 13 I had a hearty breakfast in a beach resort in Colombia, an excellent lunch with close friends on a hill side in Costa Rica and a late night dinner and conversation with my family in Los Angeles. What a life!

I’ve already been invited back to San Andres Island, Providence Island and mainland Colombia itself. In San Andres during the Congress I showed some good pictures and the people who invited me said that they were more than pleased with the impact that I had made. The people seemed to like what I had to say and I know that we gave the residents of San Andres Island, Providence Island and mainland Colombia that attended the Congress a whole lot to talk about and ponder on. The Congress was a great success and I have already placed it within my list of the greatest programs that I have participated in.

In closing, let me tell you I have been thinking about John Henrik Clarke a lot lately. Indeed, on December 14, on the following evening after I returned from San Andres to Los Angeles, I was given the first annual John Henrik Clarke Afrikan Achievement Award and granted my first honorary doctoral degree. It seemed like a more than appropriate way to cap off the week.

Now I place Dr. Clarke, Chancellor Williams, J.A. Rogers, John G. Jackson and a few others in a special pantheon of pioneer African scholars

that has paved the way for the reconstruction of our family. Dr. Clarke, you know, was an ardent Pan-Africanist and a real role model. I miss him a great deal and in spite of the fact that he is now an Ancestor he remains a real inspiration for me. And I do believe that he is watching over me and checking things out. I would like to believe that he is saying right about now, “Well done brother Runoko. You completed your San Andres assignment and got high marks. Now try and get a little rest. We have a lot more work for you.”

H I S T O R Y   N O T E S

DEFINING THE BLACK PRESENCE IN LATIN AMERICA

Contributed by CHARLES CLARK(washingtonpost.com)

Posted by RUNOKO RASHIDI

People of Color Who Never Felt They Were Black Racial Label Surprises Many Latino Immigrants

By Darryl FearsWashington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, December 26, 2002; Page A01

At her small apartment near the National Cathedral in Northwest Washington, Maria Martins quietly watched as an African American friend studied a picture of her mother. "Oh," the friend said, surprise in her voice. "Your mother is white."

She turned to Martins. "But you are black."

That came as news to Martins, a Brazilian who, for 30 years before immigrating to the United States, looked in the mirror and saw a morena -- a woman with caramel-colored skin that is nearly equated with whiteness in Brazil and some other Latin American countries. "I didn't realize I was black until I came here," she said.

That realization has come to hundreds of thousands of dark-complexioned immigrants to the United States from Brazil, Colombia, Panama and other Latin nations with sizable

populations of African descent. Although most do not identify themselves as black, they are seen that way as soon as they set foot in North America.

Their reluctance to embrace this definition has left them feeling particularly isolated -- shunned by African Americans who believe they are denying their blackness; by white Americans who profile them in stores or on highways; and by lighter-skinned Latinos whose images dominate Spanish-language television all over the world, even though a majority of Latin people have some African or Indian ancestry.

The pressure to accept not only a new language and culture, but also a new racial identity, is a burden some darker-skinned Latinos say they face every day.

"It's overwhelming," said Yvette Modestin, a dark-skinned native of Panama who works as an outreach coordinator in Boston. "There's not a day that I don't have to explain myself."

E. Francisco Lopez, a Venezuelan-born attorney in Washington, said he had not heard the term "minority" before coming to America.

"I didn't know what it meant. I didn't accept it because I thought it meant 'less than,' " said Martins, whose father is black. " 'Where are you from?' they ask me. I say I'm from Brazil. They say, 'No, you are from Africa.' They make me feel like I am denying who I am."

Exactly who these immigrants are is almost impossible to divine from the 2000 Census. Latinos of African, mestizo and European descent -- or any mixture of the three -- found it hard to answer the question "What is your racial origin?"

Some of the nation's 35 million Latinos scribbled in the margins that they were Aztec or Mayan. A fraction said they were Indian. Nearly forty-eight percent described themselves as white, and only 2 percent as black. Fully 42 percent said they were "some other race."

Between Black and White Race matters in Latin America, but it matters differently.

Most South American nations barely have a black presence. In Argentina, Chile, Peru and Bolivia, there are racial tensions, but mostly between indigenous Indians and white descendants of Europeans.

The black presence is stronger along the coasts of two nations that border the Caribbean Sea, Venezuela and Colombia -- which included Panama in the 19th century -- along with Brazil, which snakes along the Atlantic coast. In many ways, those nations have more in common racially with Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic than they do with the rest of South America.

This black presence is a legacy of slavery, just as it is in the United States. But the experience of race in the United States and in these Latin countries is separated by how slaves and their descendants were treated after slavery was abolished.

In the United States, custom drew a hard line between black and white, and Jim Crow rules kept the races separate. The color line hardened to the point that it was sanctioned in 1896 by the Supreme Court in its decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that Homer Plessy, a white-complexioned Louisiana shoemaker, could not ride in the white section of a train because a single ancestor of his was black.

Thus Americans with any discernible African ancestry -- whether they identified themselves as black or not -- were thrust into one category. One consequence is that dark-complexioned and light-complexioned black people combined to campaign for equal rights, leading to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

By contrast, the Latin countries with a sizable black presence had more various, and more fluid, experiences of race after slavery.

African slavery is as much a part of Brazil's history as it is of the United States's, said Sheila Walker, a visiting professor of anthropology at Spelman College in Atlanta and editor of the book "African Roots/American Cultures." Citing the census in Brazil, she said that nation has more people of African descent than any other in the world besides Nigeria, Africa's most populous country.

Brazil stands out in South America for that and other reasons. Unlike most nations there, its people speak Portuguese rather than Spanish, prompting a debate over whether Brazil is part of the Latino diaspora.

Brazilian slavery ended in 1889 by decree, with no civil war and no Jim Crow -- and mixing between light- and dark-complexioned Indians, Europeans, Africans and mulattos was common and, in many areas, encouraged. Although discrimination against dark-complexioned Brazilians was clear, class played almost as important a role as race.

In Colombia, said Luis Murillo, a black politician in exile from that country, light-complexioned descendants of Spanish conquistadors and Indians created the "mestizo" race, an ideology that held that all mixed-race people were the same. But it was an illusion, Murillo said: A pecking order "where white people were considered superior and darker people were considered inferior" pervaded Colombia.

Murillo said the problem exists throughout Latin American and Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries with noticeable black populations. White Latinos control the governments even in nations with dark-complexioned majorities, he said. And in nations ruled by military juntas and dictators, there are few protests, Murillo said.

In Cuba, a protest by Afro-Cubans led to the arming of the island's white citizens and, ultimately, the massacre of 3,000 to 6,000 black men, women and children in 1912, according to University of Michigan historian Frank Guridy, author of "Race and Politics in Cuba, 1933-34."

American-influenced Cuba was also home to the Ku Klux Klan Kubano and other anti-black groups before Fidel Castro's revolution. Now, Cuban racism still exists, some say, but black, mulatto and white people mix much more freely. Lopez, the Afro-Venezuelan lawyer, said, "Race doesn't affect us there the way it does here," he said. "It's more of a class thing."

Jose Neinstein, a native white Brazilian and executive director of the Brazilian-American Cultural Institute in Washington, boiled down to the simplest terms how his people are viewed. "In this country," he said, "if you are not quite white, then you are black." But in Brazil, he said, "If you are not quite black, then you are white."

The elite in Brazil, as in most Latin American nations, are educated and white. But many brown and black people also belong in that class. Generally, brown Brazilians, such as Martins, enjoy many privileges of the elite, but are disproportionately represented in Brazilian slums.

Someone with Sidney Poitier's deep chocolate complexion would be considered white if his hair were straight and he made a living in a profession. That might not seem so odd, Brazilians say, when you consider that the fair-complexioned actresses Rashida Jones of the television show "Boston Public" and Lena Horne are identified as black in the United States.

Neinstein remembered talking with a man of Poitier's complexion during a visit to Brazil. "We were discussing

ethnicity," Neinstein said, "and I asked him, 'What do you think about this from your perspective as a black man?' He turned his head to me and said, 'I'm not black,' " Neinstein recalled. " . . . It simply paralyzed me. I couldn't ask another question."

By the same token, Neinstein said, he never perceived brown-complexioned people such as Maria Martins, who works at the cultural institute, as black. One day, when an African American custodian in his building referred to one of his brown-skinned secretaries as "the black lady," Neinstein was confused. "I never looked at that woman as black," he said. "It was quite a revelation to me."

Those perceptions come to the United States with the light- and dark-complexioned Latinos who carry them. But here, they collide with two contradictory forces: North American prejudice and African American pride.

'I've Learned to Be Proud' Vilson DaSilva, a native of Brazil, is a moreno. Like his wife, Maria Martins, he was born to a black father and a white mother. But their views on race seem to differ.

During an interview when Martins said she had no idea how they had identified themselves on the 2000 Census form, DaSilva rolled his eyes. "I said we were black," he said.

He is one of a growing number of Latin immigrants of African descent who identify themselves as Afro-Latino, along the same color spectrum as African Americans.

"I've learned to be proud of my color," he said. For that, he thanked African American friends who stand up for equal rights.

An emerging cadre of Latinos in Washington are embracing their African identities and speaking out against what they say is a white Latino establishment, in the U.S. and abroad.

Lopez, the Afro-Venezuelan lawyer, who lives in Columbia Heights, said there was prejudice even in such Hispanic civil rights organizations as the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Council of La Raza, where, he said, few dark-complexioned Latinos work in the offices or sit on the board. "La Raza? Represent me? Absolutely not," Lopez said.

Charles Kamasaki, an analyst for La Raza, disagreed. "I don't think you can make snap judgments like that," he said. "The way race is played out in Latino organizations is different.

There are dark-complexioned people on our board, but I don't know if they identify as Afro-Latino. Our president is mestizo. I would resist the assertion that this organization is excluding anyone because of race."

Yvette Modestin, the black Panamanian who identifies as an Afro-Latina, said that although she accepts her blackness, she's also an immigrant who speaks Spanish. In other words, she's not a black American. "My brother's married to a Mexican," she said. "My brother's been called a sellout by black women while walking down the street with his wife. They are both Latino. They think he married outside his race."

DaSilva agreed that nuances separate African Americans and Afro-Latinos, but he also believes that seeing Latin America through African American eyes gave him a better perspective. Unfortunately, he said, it also made him angrier and more stressed.

When DaSilva returned to Brazil for a visit, he asked questions he had never asked, and got answers that shocked him.

His mother told him why her father didn't speak to her for 18 years: "It was because she married a black man," he said. One day, DaSilva's own father pulled him aside to provide his son some advice. " 'You can play around with whoever you want,' " DaSilva recalled his father saying, " 'but marry your own kind.' " So DaSilva married Martins, the morena of his dreams.

She is dreaming of a world with fewer racial barriers, a world she believes she left in Brazil to be with her husband in Washington.

As Martins talked about the nation's various racial blends in her living room, her 18-month-old son sat in front of the television, watching a Disney cartoon called "The Proud Family," about a merged black American and black Latino family. The characters are intelligent, whimsical, thoughtful, funny, with skin tones that range from light to dark brown.

The DaSilvas said they would never see such a show on Latin American TV.

Martins said her perspective on race was slowly conforming to the American view, but it saddened her. She doesn't understand why she can't call a pretty black girl a negrita, the way Latin Americans always say it, with affection. She doesn't understand why she has to say she's black, seeming to deny the existence of her mother.

"Sometimes I say she is black on the outside and white on the inside," DaSilva said of his wife, who threw her head back and laughed.

2002 The Washington Post Company

H I S T O R Y   N O T E S

RUNOKO RASHIDI RECEIVES HONORARY DOCTORATE

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

For Immediate Public Release

Runoko Rashidi Receives Honorary Doctorate

Historian and research specialist Runoko Rashidi received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from Amen-Ra Theological Seminary, Los Angeles at the First Annual John Henrik Clarke African Achievement Award banquet, held in Los Angeles, December 14, 2002. 

Rashidi is a leading authority on the African presence in Asia, author of Introduction to the Study of African Classical Civilizations (1992), guest editor of The African Presence in Early Asia (1985), writer, world traveler, and public lecturer specializing in ancient and modern African world community history.

The award banquet was sponsored by Africans Recognizing African Achievement at African Suya Restaurant.

Amen-Ra Theological Seminary is an on-line educational institution owned and operated by Amen-Ra Community Assembly of California, Inc., a non-profit religious corporation founded and incorporated in the State of California in 1996 operating in compliance with California Education Code 94739(b)(6) for religious institutions, and thus, has legal authorization to confer graduate degrees in theology.

H I S T O R Y   N O T E S

AEXANDRE DUMAS INTERRED AT  PANTHEON

Posted by RUNOKO RASHIDI

Paris, AFP

Alexandre Dumas, the 19th century author of hosts of swashbuckling yarns including the Three Musketeers, will be granted the supreme national homage tomorrow when his remains are interred alongside other French heroes at the Pantheon in Paris.

The body of the writer, who was born exactly 200 years ago, was exhumed earlier this week as his home of Viller-Cotterets, and it is being transferred in pomp to the Senate on the eve of tomorrow's service.

President Jacques Chirac is to preside over the ceremony during which Dumas will be carried into the national mausoleum with the escort of four musketeers.  The velvet drape over the coffin will be inscribed with the Musketeer's motto: "All for one and one for all."

Actors lining the street will read passages from his works, and the public are being urged to carry one of his books.  The grandson of a Haitian slave, Dumas produced more than 250 works including plays, novels, political tracts and one cookbook.

Despite his popularity he was until recently disdained by the literary establishment, and his elevation is a sign of changing values.

Because of his colour--in his lifetime he was nicknamed "the mulatto"--he is increasingly seen as an exemplar of black emancipation, while the popular accessibility of his adventure stories is no longer regarded as a sign of weakness.

"In his lifetime he was never recognised as one of the greats," said historian Alain Decaux, who will deliver the eulogy at the Pantheon.

"It was conceded he gave pleasure as a writer but that was the problem: he was read by too many people."

"All for one and one for all...that's a powerful phrase," said Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, who has designed the costume and decor.

"It's one that gives cause for reflection today in a world which drives us to individualism and egotism.  It's an idea that has real meaning."

Carried in the Bangkok Post November 29, 2002

H I S T O R Y   N O T E S

FIRST BLACK WAR OF LIBERATION

By LEGRAND CLEGG

Posted by RUNOKO RASHIDI

During the Twentieth Century, we have all read about the great liberation struggles in Africa. In recent years this focus has been on Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa. While many may believe that the great Africa wars to end imperialism are unique to modern times, a review of the historical record reveals

that this is not true. Foreigners have always been drawn to Africa for its warm and gracious people, its great wealth and its magnificent civilizations. Unfortunately, as the distinguished historian, John Henrike [sic] Clarke has noted, foreigners have taken much from Africa, but rarely contributed anything to her.

The first true invasion of Africa took place almost four thousand years ago. The special circumstances that led to this stem from events that transpired at the end of the Middle Kingdom, i.e., the Twelfth Dynasty. At that time Egypt had lapsed into confusion, contention and internal strife that ultimately resulted in what is called the Second Intermediate Period (i.e., the Thirteenth through the early Seventeenth Dynasties, c. 1786-1567 B.C.)

Manetho, an ancient historian, wrote a treatise on Egypt which includes this period, but it has perished. Fortunately, however, Jewish historian Flavius Josephus quotes a portion of Manetho's account of a foreign attack and conquest which were the most significant events of the Second Intermediate Period and which transformed Egyptian history. "[A] blast of God smote us," Manetho states, "and unexpectedly from the regions of the East, invaders of obscure race marched in confidence of victory against our land. By main force they easily seized it without striking a blow; and having overpowered the rulers of the land they then burned our cities ruthlessly, razed to the ground the temples of the gods, and treated all the natives with a cruel hostility, massacring some and leading into slavery the wives and children of others... Finally, they appointed as king one of their number whose name was Salitis."1

Manetho designated these invaders as "Hyksos," which he interprets to mean "shepherd kings" in the Egyptian language.2

Today the word Hyksos is more generally interpreted as "rulers of foreign lands."3

The Hyksos were largely Semites driven from Western Asia into Africa by instability and famine. They appear to have established themselves in Lower Egypt and may have extended their influence, if not their actual rule, over portions of the remainder of the country for about two hundred years.

During the time of the Hyksos occupation, a powerful Black family in Upper Egypt founded the Seventeenth Dynasty. This family was headed by Senakhtenre Tao and his wife Tetisheri.4 The king and queen built up their power and cemented bonds with their Egyptian kinsmen and Nubian royalty. Their goal was to develop enough power to drive out the Hyksos occupants of Lower Egypt.5

Although Senakhtenre did not himself begin the Black War of Liberation, he and Terisheri laid the groundwork for it. Following the passing of Senakhtenre, his son by Tertisheri, Seqenenre Tao, ascended the throne. The Hyksos King Apophis, who reigned three hundred miles north of Seqenenre's Theban capital, realized the growing strength of this Black dynasty and decided to goad the new king to battle. Apophis sent an official delegation to Sequenenre with this provocative message:

King Apepa [Apophis] sends thee to say: Give orders that the hippopotamus-pool which is in the flowing spring of the city be abandoned; for they [the voices of the hippos] do not allow deep sleep to come to me either by day or by night; but their noise is in mine ear.6

Now the cry of the hippopotamuses was a symbol of the pharaoh's authority. Hence, when King Apophis, who could not possibly have heard the animals three hundred miles away, complained of their noise, he was obviously challenging the pharaoh's power. The "Prince of the Southern City," as Seqenenre was called, understood this and immediately launched a war against the Hyksos.

Sequenenre was killed in battle. But the war did not end upon his death. Instead, his wife-sister Ahhotep I rallied the troops and pushed northward against the Hyksos until her son by Seq[u]enenre, Kamose, reached the age to take his father's place as pharaoh and head of the army. An Eighteenth Dynasty inscription tells of Ahhotep's valor:

The king's wife, the noble lady, who knew everything, assembled Kemet. She looked after what her Sovereign had established. She guarded it. She assembled her fugitives. She brought together her deserters. She pacified her Upper Egyptians. She subdued her rebels, The king's wife Ahhotep given life.7

Kamose too was killed and his brother Ahmose succeeded him. Through a series of battles, this young king drove the invaders back into Palestine where he finally defeated them. All in all the war of liberation lasted perhaps fifty years.8

The Hyksos invasion and domination of Lower Egypt have been called "The Great Humiliation" because they marked the first time that "The Black Land" was conquered and many of its people subjugated. Ahmose's triumph against the Hyskos in Palestine came to symbolize a watershed in the history of the

African people. It represented a transition from the Seventeenth to the Eighteenth Dynasty. It signaled a time during which the pharaohs would become more vigilant and aggressive, lest the nation be invaded again. But, most important, it also introduced an era in which the influence of the queen mother and female head of state reached unprecedented heights.

The Egyptian masses largely attributed their liberation from Hyksos domination to the great royal women of the Seventeenth Dynasty, who not only maintained national stability while the king was at war, but also, in the case of Ahhotep I, led the incipient kingdom into battle. Ahmose's grandmother, Tetisheri, his mother Ahhotep, and his wife-sister, Nefertari, survived Seqenenre and Kamose, and were alive during the transition of their dynasty into the Eighteenth. This female trio was venerated as the Founding Mothers of the Eighteenth Dynasty. For generations Nefertari in particular was deified as ancestress of the New Kingdom, which emerged during this period.

FOOTNOTES

1. Manetho, Edited by T.E. Page et al, with an English translation by W.G. Waddell, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, MCMXL, pp. 79-81.

2. IBID

3. George Steindorff and Kent C. Steele, When Egypt Ruled The East, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1942, p. 24.

4. James E. Harris and Kent R. Weeks, X-Raying The Pharaohs, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973, p. 120

5. William L. Hansberry, "Africa's Golden Past," Ebony, November, 1964, p. 37

6. Lester Brooks, "Great Civilizations of Ancient Africa," New York, Four Winds Press, 1971, p. 46

7. Diedre Wimby, "The Female Horuses And Great Wives of Kemet," Journal of African Civilizations, April, 1984, vol. 6, no. 1, p. 36

8. Brooks, Great Civilizations of Ancient Africa, op. cit., p. 48

T R A V E L   N O T E S

IN THE MAGICAL LAND OF GHANA, WEST AFRICA

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

DEDICATED TO DR. JOHN HENRIK CLARKE (1915-1998)

I always knew that I would go to Ghana. As a youth and growing into manhood I was very much influenced by the speeches and writings of Osayefo Kwame Nkrumah. I read just about everything on and by Nkrumah that I could get my hands, and I still regard him along with Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X as one of the greatest Africans of the twentieth century. So I knew that I would go to Ghana; I just did not know when. And up to recently only two factors, but major factors, kept me away. The first factor was the personal belief that when I started to travel to Africa on a regular basis (I have already made six trips to Egypt and enjoyed an extended lecture and research tour to Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia) that I might forget about the rest of the global African community and just confine all of my time and research to Africa itself. The other factor was the fear of going into the European slave dungeons. Going into these torture chambers was just an experience that I did not care to undertake. So the plan was to wait until after my fiftieth birthday (August 2004) and then go for it. But apparently the Ancestors decided differently, and so away I went on the Asou Mankran Tour III (Spirit of the River) with one of my favorite scholars and teachers Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III.

We flew from New York's JFK airport to Zurich, Switzerland, and from there to Accra via Lagos, Nigeria. I must confess that when we checked into the Novotel Hotel in Accra, I did not get the sense that I was even in Africa. Indeed, being in the hotel gave me the feeling that I could have just as easily been in Kingston, Jamaica or Manhattan, New York or London, England. In truth, it was just hard for me to relate to my surroundings.

That first full day in Ghana we toured, to begin with, the Dr. W.E.B. DuBois Center for Pan-African Studies. As I understood it, this was the house where Dr. DuBois lived in Africa while spending the last years of his life working on the Encyclopedia Africana, and I was able to glance at the great doctor's personal library. Indeed, the Center houses the body of Dr. DuBois. Following the DuBois Center we visited the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial, which houses Dr. Nkrumah's body and contains a small museum with excellent photos illuminating Osayefo's many achievements. This was followed by a general tour of the city including Black Star Square and James Town--an impoverished area of Accra that Dr. John Henrik Clarke once resided in and where Kwame Nkrumah began his political career.

That evening, I gave a slide presentation-lecture at the DuBois Center. This was a grand experience to begin with but it was particularly special in that I was hosted and introduced by Dr. Sekou Nkrumah--Kwame Nkrumah's youngest son and the director of the DuBois Center. Brother Sekou and I hit it off from the very beginning, and before long we were laughing and talking like we had known each other all of our lives.

The presentation itself was very good, and I was very emotional and got choked up a few times before I got my bearings. I showed a number of visuals including my photo of the Black Christ that I photographed in Egypt's Coptic Museum. I also showed a number of images of Africoid figurines from pre-Columbian America just to reiterate that Africans were in America before the European intrusions of the fifteenth century. The audience really seemed to appreciate it, and I am particularly grateful to brother John Ghansah and Dr. Maulana Hamid. I was also able to engage the audience, and this was particularly important to me, as I wanted to get a very good feeling for the thoughts going through the minds of the attendees. I consider this presentation to be one of the great honors of my life, and the audience was delighted when I presented to the Center a copy of John G. Jackson's Introduction to African Civilizations.

We spent the next four nights in the Elmina/Cape Coast area. This is a hauntingly beautiful area marked by pristine beaches and the large dungeons where the captive Africans were held and brutalized before being placed in the floating coffins and on to the Americas. Strangely enough, it was here that I really fell in love with Ghana for the first time. From the beginning of the trip, I was glad that I had come, but I felt no sense of connectedness. Perhaps it was only after overcoming some of the dread that I felt before going into the Elmina Dungeon that I could really enjoy finally being at home. After that, looking at it in hindsight, I realize that I was probably able to relax a little bit more and appreciate more fully being in the land of my African Ancestors.

What was it like in the dungeons? These are horrible places, and they dot the coasts of Ghana. Indeed, of the more than forty dungeons (sometimes called castles) along the west coast of Africa, more than thirty of them are in Ghana. I always feared that I would go into one of these dungeons and have a really bad emotional experience. However, what I really felt as we went to the Elmina dungeon was anger and indignation. I could not take the tour that was offered

us but I did go into some of the individual cells and the large male dungeon. That was all that I could stomach on that particular day.

By the time I got to the Cape Coast dungeon, only a short distance from Elmina, I was a bit more prepared, and I did take the tour. I went into the putrid male dungeon and saw where my Ancestors were packed in. I visited the female dungeon and saw where my Ancestors were held and raped by their white slave catchers. Believe me when I say that it did nothing to endear white people to me, and it is a very good thing that none of the white tourists wandering quietly around the courtyard dared even look at me, otherwise I fear that the results certainly would have been perilous for them. I then walked through the door of no return and back through the door of return, and I felt some of the burden lifted from my soul. I guess that you could say that I am glad that I finally had the experience as I now know a little more about what my Ancestors endured in the greatest crime against humanity that the world has yet witnessed.

One of the precious highlights of the Elmina/Cape Coast visit was the traditional marriage of Anthony and Janice Browder. I first met Tony in the late 1980s shortly after my first visit to India. Tony is a dynamic African brother, a great organizer, a genius at marketing, and a real scholar in his own right. Over the years we have maintained a good and steady relationship, and so it was with tremendous satisfaction that I received an official wedding invitation. It was quite a ceremony, and among the other attendees were James Small, Leonard and Rosalind Jeffries, and Asa G. Hillard. All of us were seated in the front row along with the traditional elders and chiefs. We enjoyed ourselves immensely, and we were all very happy at the new union. Janice Browder seems like a really good sister, and we wish them the very best that life has to offer.

It was also in Elmina/Cape Coast that most of the Panafest activities were held. Panafest is a celebration for both continental Africans and Africans in the diaspora designed to bring us together in recognition of our common history, needs and aspirations. Dr. Leonard Jeffries gave a rousing address and summed up my feelings for the entire trip when he pointed out that Ghana is probably our best chance for the salvation of Africa.

My love affair with Ghana really began at Elmina/Cape Coast. I relished the wonderful Ghanaian cuisine and spent a lot of time at the beach. I even engaged in a libation ceremony at the seashore and gave thanks to our Ancestors for allowing me to return to my African homeland and called on them to bless our trip. There were also a number of other African-American tour groups in the area including a large contingent from Philadelphia and a wonderful group led by Dr. Wade Nobles.

From Elmina/Cape Coast we headed north to the bustling metropolis of Kumasi--Ghana's second largest city. Along the way we stopped at Assin Manso where the captured Africans were allowed to take a final bath before being marched into the coastal dungeons.

From our base in Kumasi, we journeyed to Mankranso, the adopted village of Nana Baffour Amankwatia II (Dr. Hilliard), where we were well received and ordered to come back the following day for a grand durbar (procession) and a reception with the governor of the Kumasi region. This turned out to be a really big event, and somewhat to my dismay I was compelled to disrobe and forced to put on the traditional dress and sandals of an Ashanti chief! Indeed, based on Nana Baffour's introduction, I was told that I would soon be enstooled as a chief in my own right! Can you believe it? There I was on my first trip to West Africa, and I am told that I would soon be a chief! Well, anyway, it is a great honor and nothing to be taken lightly, and after some discussion and a lot of deliberation with Nana Baffour, I have pretty much decided to accept the direct responsibility of trying to uplift Africa.

Another wonderful experience in the Kumasi region was visiting with the direct descendants of Queen Mother Yaa Asantewa of Ejisu--a great African woman who led an army to fight the British. The regal character and dignity of these sisters and brothers was written all over them. We relished this wonderful visit, and the people seem to have enjoyed us also.

We also visited the Ashanti royal palace of Prempeh II, and I was informed that based on physical appearance alone, I could easily have found my place there.

In Kumasi, I took a full day away from the group and visited Bonwire, home of the world famous Kente cloth and from there to Lake Bosomtwe, a place that I did not even know existed until the day that I went there. Lake Bosomtwe is, like most of Ghana, an enchantingly beautiful and serene place and I only regret that my time was so limited there.

The final leg of the tour took us to Akosombo in the Volta region. I suppose that it was appropriate that we should go there towards the end of the trip or we may have never gotten much further. It was just that nice. The following morning, I had a leisurely breakfast with a magnificent view of Lake Volta. The sheer beauty of the lake brought me to the verge of tears, and on this last day in Ghana I began to dread returning to Europe and the United States.

On the return to Accra, the Novotel Hotel and the trip to the airport, we stopped at the Akonedi Shrine at Larteh, described as "one of the oldest traditional shrines in Ghana. Long before Islam and Christianity arrived in Africa, Africans had been practicing their own traditional spiritual system with a belief in a supreme being for thousands of years." It was a fitting way for us to end our tour to the magical land of Ghana.

Why do I make reference to the magical land of Ghana? Because it cast a spell on me, and I shall never be the same. I adore Ghana and place my visit there with my greatest trips to Egypt, India, and Australia. I will never be the same, and I can't wait to go back. While in Ghana I realized as never before that the future of Africa hangs in the balance. Europe wants Africa, but we shall not give her up without a fight, and surely Ghana will be a major battlefield.

For the success of the trip, I have to express my sincere appreciation to Sister Zawadi, Nias, and Beverly Harris, Nana Ekow Butweiku I, John Ghansah, Dr. Maulana Hamid, Peter Clark, Earl Sheperd, Marie Bradley, Andy Mensah, Cris Clay, James Small, Leonard Jeffries, Sister Leah, Nana Baffour, and so many others. I owe each of you a debt that I can never fully repay. Medasi pa.

T R A V E L   N O T E S

Historian Runoko Rashidi talks of "The African Presence Globally"

By Anita Nembhard

"We are not Africans because we are born in Africa, we are Africans because Africa is born in us."

--Marimba Ani

Belize City, Tues, April 29, 2003

In his presentation titled, "The African Presence Globally", delivered before a captive audience on Tuesday, April 22, Brother Runoko Rashidi ventured to put to rest the myth that "Africans have done nothing".

The informative, historical and inspiring presentation was delivered at the Library of African and Indian Studies, at the Kremandala compound in Belize City.

The special session was attended by Dr. Joseph Iyo, lecturer and historian; Bert Tucker, who introduced Runoko and his

presentation; Sister Nzinga Barkley-Waite, mistress of ceremonies and the person who coordinated Rashidi's visit to Belize; and many other distinguished guests.

Runoko Rashidi, who made a prior visit to Belize in 1994, captured the crowd with a slide presentation that focused on "The presence of Africans Around the World". "Black people are not only the original people of African civilization, but they are the parent people of humanity and all other people spring from those original Africans", Brother Rashidi said.

As a child growing up in Central California, said Brother Rashidi, he disliked the subject of higher mathematics, because he strongly believed that "Black people couldn't do well in mathematics", so he skipped all the classes. But all this changed for Rashidi when he discovered that one of his ancestors invented the instrument that is now responsible for the calculation of mathematics, he said.

Exposed at an early age to reading, Rashidi advised his audience to make use of our library, and to read frequently, because within books there is access to much wisdom. Reading had opened up the world to him, Rashidi said.

In his slide presentation, Rashidi shared with his audience a very important figure that shed much light on the existence of Africans, as far back as 3.4 million years ago - the remains of a female African called "Denknesh", meaning "you are wonderful". An African found her remains in Ethiopia in 1974, and the find led to other discoveries.

Rashidi also showed another slide of the remains of bones of another African woman, dating as far back as 25,000 - 75,000 years ago. Another find was the "Ishango" bone, an instrument used in what is perhaps the oldest form of mathematics in the world.

Rashidi also highlighted the importance of African civilization by recalling Africa as a continent at the forefront of early human cultures, and a place that has influenced "classical civilization."

Runoko Rashidi is a very prolific essayist. He has contributed to more than 75 publications. His most comprehensive work is said to be The African Presence in Early Asia. He is also the author of The Global African Community: the African Presence in Asia, Australia and South Pacific, in 1994 and edited Unchained African Voices in 1995, a collection of poetry and prose written by prison inmates.

His Journal of African Civilizations essays include: "African Goddesses: Mothers of Civilization"; "The African Presence in Prehistoric America"; and "A Tribute to Chancellor James Williams"; "Ramses the Great" and the "Moors in Antiquity".

Rashidi said that his aim is to travel to over 65 countries. So far, he has covered over 38 of them, and he plans to visit a few others by the end of the year.

R E F E R E N C E   N O T E S

WORLD HISTORY REVISED:SWISS INTERVIEW ON AFRICAN HISTORY WITH

RUNOKO RASHIDI

Posted by RUNOKO RASHIDI

Dear Brother Runoko,

Well, I prepared a little Interview that I'll add to my work which I do for my school (college) with the title: "The tale of the inferior Blacks" - "Das Mdrchen vom minderwertigen Schwarzen". It's about the way Eurocentric history writers distort and belittle the history of the Black peoples and it's also a bit about the presence of Black people in other parts of the world, especially Europe. What I want to say with my work is that Black people have their own glorious past. And the Eurocentric view of history wants to take this away from us... and as Marcus Mosiah Garvey said: "A people without history is like a tree without roots. If they control our past they control our present and future!"

Well, what I expect from you is just that you help me with this little interview, as your website helped me tremendously with my work. Thank you for that!

I hope you find some time and if you'd like to add a certain question which you'd like to directly answer then feel free to add it or to not answer a question of mine.

Brother Yared (From Switzerland)

[INTERVIEW]

-Dear Dr. Runoko Rashidi, you are very involved in the sphere of African History. Did your image of Africa change in the years of your researches? and how did it change?

Runoko: Well, yes, it changed dramatically and continues to change and evolve to this day. I have been saying for years that history is a light that illuminates the past and a key that unlocks the door to the future. All strong people emphasize their history all of the time and weak people do not. Equally important is self-esteem. A positive examination of history does give one a higher value of one's self.

So as a result of my researches I now see the world in a vastly different light than I did before I began the process.

- Did you ever feel gross disrespect towards you and your work?

Runoko: Occasionally, I realize now that no matter how many facts you use to support your assertions that some people have already made up their minds about the roles of African people in history. So I don't argue with folks like that. Racism in scholarship, in academia, in the media, and among people in general is very strongly rooted, and some attitudes are simply not going to change no matter what.

So I just decided to present the truth as I see it along with the facts and just let the chips fall where they may. Fortunately, there are enough people on the planet with open minds to satisfy me and I do feel like we are making considerable progress towards changing the way Africa is viewed in the world.

And the most important thing for me is that we are slowly but surely changing the way Africans see themselves. That is the most essential thing. It is also very important that we get people to engage in critical thinking. But this is not an easy task.

-Are Blacks and Whites alike receptive to your works?

Runoko: There is a difference. My target area is Blacks themselves. I think that if Black people begin to respect themselves more they will demand that the world respect them more. Black people are, not surprisingly, more receptive to my work than any other ethnic group. And that pleases me. As we sometimes say, "charity begins at home." But I have also met a great number of open minded non-Africans who have begun to embrace more accurate assessments of African history. And this is gratifying as well.

- How important do you think is an Afrocentric view of history?

Runoko: I suppose it all depends on how you define an "Afrocentric view of history." I don't think of myself as "Afrocentric." I just see myself as a truth seeker. But I do try to look at the world through African eyes. And I think that this is very important. Too often Black people and other peoples of color are forced to look at the world through other people's lenses and this often produces very unhealthy results.

- Don't you think that Afrocentrism distorts history just as Eurocentrism does?

Runoko: Once again, I think that we have to look at facts and not fantasies. If we are looking at facts, at the truth, then how does one distort history? If I argue, for example, that the ancient or dynastic or pharaonic Egyptians were Africans (Blacks) then how does that distort history? There is no substantial evidence at all that ancient Egypt was a non African or multi-racial society. And yet this is what we have been indoctrinated with. So it seems to me that it is this kind of fallacy that we must do away with. I think that this is something of great importance and extreme relevance.

- How do you see the contribution of Africa to the history of the world's civilizations?

Runoko: The contributions of Africa and African people to the great civilizations of the world are immense and,yet, for the most part tremendously unacknowledged. And this is on every continent. So we have a lot of work to do.

I think of myself as engaged in a noble mission. I think that my Ancestors who suffered the degradation of enslavement and colonization have to be redeemed and this is a big part of the process that we are engaged in.

It will not come overnight but ever so slowly the house of cards that is white supremacy and racist privilege based on historical fallacies is beginning to crumble and I take great pride in being part of that process.

-What do you think are your major accomplishments towards this task so far?

Runoko: I think that what I have done to be most proud of is helping, along with many others, to introduce the world to the fact that Africans are the aboriginal people of the world, including Europe and Asia and the Americas, and that we exist

all over this planet in large numbers. We are not a global minority. We built and contributed to early civilizations and we have a lot to be proud of. Indeed, we have the greatest story that has never been told. My job is to help tell that story so that history is not merely "his story" but our story.

Thank you Dr. Runoko Rashidi for sacrificing your time.

Yared Haile Selassi

H I S T O R Y   N O T E S

AN ANCIENT LINK TO AFRICA LIVES ON IN BAY OF BENGAL

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

Author: NICHOLAS WADEFiled: 12/11/2002, 12:23:50 AM Source: The New York Times

Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, a remote archipelago east of India, are direct descendants of the first modern humans to have inhabited Asia, geneticists conclude in a new study.

But the islanders lack a distinctive genetic feature found among Australian aborigines, another early group to leave Africa, suggesting they were part of a separate exodus.

The Andaman Islanders are "arguably the most enigmatic people on our planet," a team of geneticists led by Dr. Erika Hagelberg of the University of Oslo write in the journal Current Biology.

Their physical features short stature, dark skin, peppercorn hair and large buttocks are characteristic of African Pygmies. "They look like they belong in Africa, but here they are sitting in this island chain in the middle of the Indian Ocean," said Dr. Peter Underhill of Stanford University, a co-author of the new report.

Adding to the puzzle is that their language, according to Joseph Greenberg, who, before his death in 2001, classified the world's languages, belongs to a family that includes those of Tasmania, Papua New Guinea and Melanesia.

Dr. Hagelberg has undertaken the first genetic analysis of the Andamanese with the help of two Indian colleagues who took blood samples the islands belong to India and by analyzing hair gathered almost a century ago by a British anthropologist, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown. The islands were isolated from the outside world until the British set up a penal colony there after the Indian mutiny of 1857.

Only four of the dozen tribes that once inhabited the island survive, with a total population of about 500 people. These include the Jarawa, who still live in the forest, and the Onge, who have been settled by the Indian government.

Genetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA, a genetic element passed down only through women, shows that the Onge and Jarawa people belong to a lineage, known as M, that is common throughout Asia, the geneticists say. This establishes them as Asians, not Africans, among whom a different mitochondrial lineage, called L, is dominant.

The geneticists then looked at the Y chromosome, which is passed down only through men and often gives a more detailed picture of genetic history than the mitochondrial DNA. The Onge and Jarawa men turned out to carry a special change or mutation in the DNA of their Y chromosome that is thought to be indicative of the Paleolithic population of Asia, the hunters and gatherers who preceded the first human settlements.

The mutation, known as Marker 174, occurs among ethnic groups at the periphery of Asia who avoided being swamped by the populations that spread after the agricultural revolution that occurred about 8,000 years ago. It is found in many Japanese, in the Tibetans of the Himalayas and among isolated people of Southeast Asia, like the Hmong.

The discovery of Marker 174 among the Andamanese suggests that they too are part of this relict Paleolithic population, descended from the first modern humans to leave Africa.

Dr. Underhill, an expert on the genetic history of the Y chromosome, said the Paleolithic population of Asia might well have looked as African as the Onge and Jarawa do now, and that people with the appearance of present-day Asians might have emerged only later. It is also possible, he said, that their

resemblance to African Pygmies is a human adaptation to living in forests that the two populations developed independently.

A finding of particular interest is that the Andamanese do not carry another Y chromosome signature, known as Marker RPS4Y, that is common among Australian aborigines.

This suggests that there were at least two separate emigrations of modern humans from Africa, Dr. Underhill said. Both probably left northeast Africa by boat 40,000 or 50,000 years ago and pushed slowly along the coastlines of the Arabian Peninsula and India. No archaeological record of these epic journeys has been found, perhaps because the world's oceans were 120 meters lower during the last ice age and the evidence of early human passage is under water.

One group of emigrants that acquired the Marker 174 mutation reached Southeast Asia, including the Andaman islands, and then moved inland and north to Japan, in Dr. Underhill's reconstruction. A second group, carrying the Marker RPS4Y, took a different fork in Southeast Asia, continuing south toward Australia.

L E C T U R E   N O T E S

A TRIBUTE TO GREAT AFRICAN WOMEN:ABSTRACT OF A SLIDE-PRESENTATION

Lecture by RUNOKO RASHIDI

A Tribute to Great African Women: A Slide Presentation Lecture by historian Runoko Rashidi is a stunningly visual overview of African women both ancient and modern, far and wide, here and there.

It looks at African women as the mothers of humanity, and examines the role of African women as shapers of classical civilizations in Africa and around the world. It looks at the African woman as God and Goddess, Black Madonna and Holy icon. It looks at the African woman as mother and wife, queen and educator, warrior and diplomat. It traces the movements of African women in Egypt of the pharaohs, western and central Africa, early Europe, the Middle East, Pakistan and India, the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, ancient and

modern America. It looks at images of African women around the world and highlights the lives of numerous African-American women from Sojourner Truth to Fannie Lou Hamer.

A Tribute to Great African Women is designed to both inspire and educate. This absolutely captivating presentation incorporates 140 of Dr. Rashidi's most magnificent photos and leaves the audience proud, uplifted, motivated and empowered.

 

T R A V E L  N O T E STHE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN PANAMA--FROM THE CANAL TO

COLON CITY

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

DEDICATED TO BROTHER CLARAL RICHARDS

THE AFRICAN BACKGROUND

Between the Spring and Summer of 2003, I had the good fortune of visiting Central America on four occasions. During this period I went to Belize (twice), Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica (for the fifth time) and Panama. All of these countries have African communities, generally depressed and most often to be found along the Atlantic coastal periphery.

The indigenous name for Panama means `abundance of fish' and I went to this land of abundance, located at the southern end of Central America (or the northern end of South America), for the first time at the end of August 2003. The Republic of Panama was the forty-first country that I visited and I went there from Costa Rica. I had already visited Costa Rica numerous times and had made up my mind that the next time that I was invited there, that I would visit one of the neighboring countries as well--either Nicaragua or Panama. I only had a few days to spend in either place but I was determined to take

advantage of the opportunity and to make the best of it.

I am not sure what my thinking was at the time, but Panama soon became the desired country of destination. In making this decision, I surely must have been influenced by the knowledge that African people have a long history in Panama--a history, by the way, that begins well before the massive enslavement and deportation of Africans to the Americas. According to Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, in his comprehensive and seminal work Early America Revisited:

"Vasco Nunez de Balboa, 25 September 1513, coming down the slopes of Quarequa, which is near Darien (now called Panama) saw two tall black men who had been captured by the native Americans." And further, that Peter Martyr, "said that Negroes had been shipwrecked in that area and had taken refuge in the mountains. Martyr refers to them as `Ethiopian pirates.'

"Lopez de Gomara also describes the blacks Europeans sighted for the first time in Panama: `These people are identical with the Negroes we have seen in Guinea.' De Bourbourg also reports that there were two peoples indigenous to Panama--the Mandinga (black skin) and the Tule (red skin)."

This knowledge was very important to me and I have long been arguing, with many others, that the history and presence of African people, even in the Western Hemisphere, should not and cannot be traced solely to enslavement and its aftermath, and that even our assessments of the enslavement period need to be revised. It should not be surprising to us that the great Joel Augustus Rogers has done an excellent job of this and provides a sense of historical continuity as well. Here, from his classic work Sex and Race, volume 2, we quote Rogers at length:

"Negroes, thirty of them, not only were with Balboa at his discovery of Panama and the Pacific Ocean in 1513, one of their number being a black nobleman, Nuflo de Olano, but there is the clearest possible evidence that they had been living in that region before Columbus, and were strong enough to make successful war on the Indians.

Later, the Spaniards brought in slaves in such great numbers, and they throve so well in the hot climate that Panama has remained chiefly a Negro country to this day, though modified somewhat by white immigration since the building of the Canal began in 1878.

Under the Spaniards, the white strain was quickly absorbed by the Negroes, who were often rebellious, and joined the pirates. There is the romantic story of King Bayano, an escaped slave, as told by Pedro de Aguado, a sixteenth century historian. Taking to the mountains with a number of other slaves, Bayano set up a kingdom of his own, from where he descended on the pack-trains of the Spaniards, capturing a great quantity of gold, silver, and precious stones. It was only with the greatest difficulty that the Spanish commander, Pedro de Orsua, succeeded in defeating him and his valiant band. Finally captured, Bayano was taken before the Spanish viceroy, who not only received him with honors for his bravery and resourcefulness but sent him a free man to Spain where he lived in luxury from the loot he had captured."

THE PANAMA CONNECTION

With this historical background, coupled with the knowledge that English is widely spoken in Panama, I more or less made up my mind that Panama was the place to go. And all of this was buttressed was by the role of my initial Panamanian contacts, which where absolutely instrumental to my success there, and they were the final piece in my decision to visit Panama.

The most important of these contacts were Sonia Ford, who facilitated my hotel arrangements and opened the first door for me in Panama, and

brother Claral Richards, described as the "Nelson Mandela of Panama." Through these two Africans a whole other world of contacts opened up, most notably Ricardo Richards and Arturo Branch. Between these sisters and brothers I had a profound traveling and learning experience. I never really got lonely and I always felt connected. It makes a huge difference to your peace of mind to know that somebody or somebodies in a foreign land that you are traveling to is looking out for you.

FROM THE PANAMA CANAL TO COLON CITY AND BACK

On that first full day in Panama, brother Ricardo drove me around a great deal. Even before going to the Panama Canal, which Panamanians generally regard with great pride, we drove to the Afro-Antillean Museum, which chronicles the lives of the African builders of the Panama Canal. These were mostly Africans who came to Panama from the English speaking islands of the Caribbean early in the last century. Following the museum tour we drove across town to attend two meetings of local African activists, and then visited portions of the Pacific side of the Panama Canal.

The first real highlight of that first day in Panama was a journey to the town of Portebelo. This gave me a chance to really savor my excursion from Panama's Pacific side through rain forest and Maroon country and on to the magnificent life sized image of the Black Christ in the church in Portebelo. The Christ figure is actually deep biscuit brown in complexion with a crown of thorns and wearing a purple robe and carrying a cross. The image is in a large church regularly visited by devout pilgrims journeying from all over Panama.

Portebelo, and this was one of its attractions, is also in Maroon country--the Maroons being Africans like Bayano who refused to accept enslavement and established their own independent communities. And as if their ethnic identity needed any additional clarity let me point out that these sisters and brothers call themselves Congos!

From Portebelo we journeyed to the city of Colon, a largely African city, rather crowded with automobiles and densely populated, mostly Spanish speaking and located on Panama's Atlantic coast on the shores of the Caribbean Sea. The travel books on Panama that I read depicted Colon City in a deplorable light and essentially advised visitors to stay away from the place if at all possible. Here is what one travel guide says about it:

"Children run about in rags and the city's largely black population lives in rotten buildings. With the exception of one seaside residential neighborhood where some fine houses are tucked away behind high walls and security systems, the city is a slum. If you walk its streets, even in the middle of the day, expect to get mugged. It really is that bad. Walking in this city is very dangerous. A white tourist leaving a bank here will likely be mugged. If you have something to mail, send it from another city."

I really resented this kind of biased writing, and reading it and understanding that Colon City was a major African population center, I determined early on that it was a place that I would have to visit or my trip to Panama would not be complete. It also seemed special to me that I could begin my day on the Pacific and spend the late afternoon and early evening on the Atlantic.

I'm glad that I went to Colon City. I found it to be a vibrant and pulsing and fascinating place, full of Black people and rich in culture, and I walked its streets unafraid. It is true, however, that there is a rampant material poverty in Colon, with the most downtrodden and foreboding looking section of the city referred to locally as "the Vatican." I find words difficult to fully describe the place and I suppose that you would just have to see it for your self.

Back in Panama City, brother Ricardo and I capped off the day in an African owned restaurant feasting on some of the tastiest fish that I have ever had. That first day in the Republic of Panama is a day that I will always remember.

THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN PANAMA TODAY

Arturo Branch, at the request of Claral Richards, took time out of his busy schedule to provide me with a personalized tour of Panama City. Like Ricardo Richards the day before, brother Arturo introduced me to a great many of the local residents and social activists, including numbers of aspiring politicians and business people. I say aspiring politicians as I was told by several people that although Panama is sixty per cent African that there were no Black elected officials. I found this shocking and very hard to believe but this is what I was told. But new elections were coming up and there were two or three Africans on the ballot. The major question was whether or not the local sisters and brothers would come out and vote. No one seemed to be very confident but the potential was heavy.

With brother Arturo I also passed through several of Panama City's African neighborhoods, many of them real slum areas mired in great poverty. One area was so bad that it was referred to as the "Pig House", and I was told that many residents literally lived in dread of venturing outside their doors for fear of being the victims of violent acts. The "Pig House" was Panama City's version of the "Vatican," the impoverished African community that Ricardo Richards drove me through in Colon City. These areas were about the most depressed communities that I have seen in the Western Hemisphere and I wondered what some of the African communities of Brazil and Columbia and Haiti must be like.

The neighborhoods that brother Arturo escorted me through contained both English speaking Africans and Spanish speaking African-Panamanians, as well as African-Colombians and African-Dominicans, each group tucked away in their own semi-separate enclaves. I found the whole thing utterly fascinating and looked at the entire day as akin to an anthropological field study. I then toured the section of Panama City most devastated during the 1989 US invasion. The figures varied widely but I was told that at least two or three thousand

Panamanians died during the invasion and subsequent occupation.

THANKS TO THE PANAMANIAN CONNECTION

It was through this core cadre of Africans, Sonia Ford, Claral Richards, Ricardo Richards and Arturo Branch, that I learned so much about Panama and its African undergirdings. I was assured in all of my conversations that Panama was at least sixty percent African but that only about fifteen percent of them embraced their African identity. They said that a typical brother or sister might say something like, "Well, my grandmother was Black but I am just Brown." Or that, "although my Ancestors came from Africa I am now just a Panamanian." I must say that this level of argument and denial sounded so very, very familiar to me and I thoughit to myself how deeply African people are taught to hate themselves all over the world.

I was also able to get some inkling of the division between the Spanish and English speaking Africans in Panama. Of the two communities the English speaking Africans, many of whom are the descendants of the builders of the Panama Canal, seem to have it a little easier than the Spanish speakers. It should not surprise you to know that there is a pronounced degree of friction, much of it rooted in class distinctions, between the two groups. Will we never learn?

I found that Africans were much more visible on the streets of Panama City than in Costa Rica's capital of San Jose. In San Jose you only observe a scattering of African faces but in Panama City they seemed to be the majority, and it was rather exhilarating just to see the people and especially all of the beautiful African women! At the same time, however, there seemed to be very few Africans who worked in the banks, restaurants, museums (even the African museum!), airport and office buildings.

On another level, for those of you into sports, especially American baseball, you might find it interesting that Panama has produced such greats

as Rod Carew, Roberto Kelly and the current New York Yankee sensation Mariano Rivera. I was told, by the way, that Rivera does a lot for the downtrodden Panamanian community that produced him. Good for him. And there is an effort to name the national stadium after hitting great Rod Carew but it seems that he is a little too Black for the deal to be sealed. Beyond the world of sports, I was informed that the noted African scholar, Dr. Kenneth Clark, is Panamanian.

MY LAST DAY IN PANAMA

I began my last full day in Panama with a visit to the pre-Columbian museum and, just as I suspected and just as I had noticed in the national museum of Costa Rica, there was little to be found in the way of Africoid images, statues and figurines. Nevertheless, I had to go there because you never know when you will discover an African treasure trove. And I am happy to say that my tour guide in the museum was a "sister." Now whether she actually saw herself as a "sister" is a very different matter.

That last night, thanks to Ricardo and Arturo, I did a global African presence slide presentation in Panama City. Panama was country number twenty-eight that I lectured in, and although organized on very short notice, the gathering, which was held at a local school, went very well and had a broad cross section of Africans ranging from university professors to business people to Rastafarians, elders and young people. The audience seemed very impressed by the overview that I gave, and I was able to gather even more information from the attendees who took it upon themselves to fill me in more completely about African life in Panama in a wide ranging discussion that covered everything from health care to the impact of Marcus Garvey.

I enjoyed Panama. I liked the people, learned a lot, had some fun, did some educating, built some bonds and felt a bit melancholy as I left the place. My great regret was that I had only been there for such a short time, and I trust that the next visit will be of considerably longer duration.

Perhaps we can go together.

--San Antonio, TexasApril 2004

H I S T O R Y   N O T E S

CONCEPT OF DEITY

By John Henrik Clarke

Posted by RUNOKO RASHIDI

Thank you Brother Ka'Ba for forwarding...

To hold a people in oppression you have to convince them first that they are supposed to be oppressed.

When the European comes to a country, the first thing he does is to laugh at your God and your God concept. And the next thing is to make you laugh at your own God concept. Then he don't have to build no jails for you then cause he's got you in a jail more binding than iron can ever put you.

Anytime you turn on your own concept of God, you are no longer a free man. No one needs to put chains on your body, because the chains are on your mind.

Anytime someone say's your God is ugly and you release your God and join their God, there is no hope for your freedom until you once more believe in your own concept of the "deity."

And that's how we're trapped.We have been educated into

believing someone else's concept of the deity, and someone else's standard of beauty.You have the right to practice any religion and politics in a way that best suits your freedom, your dignity, and your nderstanding. And once you do that, you don't apologize.

Nothing the European mind ever devised was meant to do anything but to facilitate the European's control over the world. Anything that you get from Europe that you are going to use for yourself, remake it to suit yourself.

Where did we go wrong educationally? After the Civil War, the period called reconstruction, a period of pseudo-democracy, we began to have our own institutions, our own schools.We had no role model for a school, ... our own role model. So we began to imitate White schools.

Our church was an imitation of the White church. All we did is to modify the old trap. We didn't change the images, we became more comfortable within the trap. We didn't change the images, we changed some of the concepts of the images, but the images remained the same. So the mis-education that gave us a slave mentality had been altered. But it remained basically the same."

The late Prof. John Henrik Clarke, a pre-eminent African-American historian, author of several volumes on the history of Africa and the Diaspora, taught in the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Source: http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/blpr/clarke3.html

T R A V E L  N O T E S

IN AFRICA'S HORN--MY FIRST VISIT TO ETHIOPIA

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

DEDICATED TO BABA ROBERT DONALDSON

"Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God."--Psalms 68:31

ON THE WAY TO ETHIOPIA

In March 2004 I was invited by the KJLH Radio Front Page tour group to travel with them to Ethiopia. In return for a few lectures and making myself available to the tour members I would be given a complementary trip. Well, considering that I had wanted to travel to Ethiopia for a very long time, it seemed like a good idea to me and I was exceptionally quick to endorse the idea. The timing was perfect. I typically, for the past few years, have taken a research trip/vacation in March and here was a journey practically handed to me on a silver platter. The Ancestors had clearly blessed me once again.

Why was travel to Ethiopia so important to me?

It is because of its fabulous past. The term Ethiopia comes to us from the early Greeks and means "land of the burnt-faced people." Indeed, in antiquity Ethiopia was seen as a vast land extending far beyond her current boundaries and stretching deep across both Africa and Asia. And in the land now called Ethiopia are found the remains of the mighty kingdom of Axum, one of Africa's most prominent ancient civilizations. Also to be found in Ethiopia are the eleven rock hewn churches at Lalibela (described as the "eighth wonder of the world") and Gondar, with its royal enclosure and palaces and castles.

It was in Ethiopia in 1896 that the famous battle of Adwoa took place. At Adwoa on March 1, 1896 the Ethiopians, led by Emperor Menelik II, overwhelmed and routed the Italian army--a modern and highly mechanized European military force. Hence, the Battle of Adwoa is celebrated as one of Africa's shining hours. In addition, Ethiopia has the distinction of having only been exposed to the taint of European occupation for a relatively short time, from 1935 to 1941. And Ethiopia houses the remains of Dinknesh--at least 3.2 million years old and one of our earliest identifiable Ancestors.

So as an historian and a proud and conscious African man I was absolutely thrilled at the occasion of visiting the ancient, noble and tradition steeped African nation of Ethiopia. And I really wanted to lecture there, especially as I knew that it would make it forty countries that I had visited in a five year period and an even thirty countries that I had lectured in. Some time ago I set a goal for myself of lecturing in forty countries and with the lecture series in Ethiopia I would be three quarters of the way home. I love to lecture and having done it in thirty countries and counting and on every continent save Antarctica I consider one of my greatest achievements.

As it happened, my trip to Ethiopia was one of the most emotionally demanding trips I have ever taken. Not surprisingly, I was tired to begin with. I had lectured in Europe and Canada in January, and February, which is African Heritage Month in the United States, is always the busiest

time of the year for me. And just before taking off for Ethiopia I had lectured at a number of venues in California, Washington, DC and Chicago in early March. And getting to Ethiopia was no joke either. We flew from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey and from there on Ethiopian Airlines to Rome. And after an hour stop over in Rome we flew another seven hours to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, founded in 1887 by Emperor Menelik--conqueror of Adwoa. The name Addis Ababa in the Amharic language means "New Flower."

After what seemed like a long journey, we arrived in Addis Ababa at night, and after passing through customs and immigration we departed the capital's beautiful new airport and were soon tucked away very comfortably in our quarters at the Hilton Hotel.

After a night of renewing bonds between the tour members and introducing ourselves to the hotel staff (until the bartender insisted, based on the lateness of the hour, that we bid each other adieu) we started our first full day in Ethiopia with a fine lecture on Ethiopian history and Pan-Africanism given by a local scholar from Addis Ababa University. I also had the good fortune that morning of talking over the phone with the noted scholar Richard Pankhurst, after which our group excitedly embarked on a city tour.

A RICH HISTORY AND A GREAT POVERTY

I had been told by a number of people that there was a lot of poverty in Ethiopia but that first morning in the capital I saw very little of it. It was only towards the end of that day, while sitting in front of a small gift shop, that it started to hit me. All at once it seems that a whole collection of people from very old to very young were beginning to surround me with pleas for assistance. At first I began to dole out some sums of currency but the pleas never seemed to end. And so with a heavy heart I forced myself back on the tour bus and attempted to avoid eye contact with all of these poor people.

That evening I slept very fitfully and I could not

help but remember those desperate faces, and I thought over and over again about all of the money I had spent the night before at the bar in the Hilton Hotel. That guilt stayed with me throughout the trip and haunts me even now.

Next morning we flew to the city of Lalibela. This city, I was later told, was Ethiopia's number one tourist destination. Lalibela is located in the mountains of Lasta and its fame is based on its series of rock-hewn churches carved in the thirteenth century and sometimes referred to as the "eighth wonder of the world." Roha, as the town was known previously, was Ethiopia's capital for about two hundred years and is named after King Lalibela, the most notable of the rulers of the powerful Zagwe Dynasty. Just after he was crowned Lalibela began assembling world class craftsmen and artisans in order to carve the churches. Legend tells us that at least one of the churches was built by angels in a single day. King Lalibela gained such status that after his death he was elevated to sainthood.

That night at the Roha Hotel I gave the first of my three lectures in Ethiopia and I was in top form. I confess that I was a little nervous to begin with. This was new territory to me but I gave what I thought was a stirring talk on the history and symbolism of Ethiopia. I talked about Greek and Roman views towards Ethiopia and the spread of Ethiopia into ancient Asia. And I talked about those African-American scholars who wrote and spoke of Ethiopia with pride even during the dark days of the nineteenth century. I talked further of African-American reactions to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia beginning in 1935. I then invited our two Ethiopian tour guides to join in. Overall, the night was a rousing success and everyone celebrated my brilliance. So far, so good. Beginning the next day, however, my experience in Ethiopia began to undergo a dramatic change.

On the morning of our first full day in Lalibela a good portion of the tour group was taken by motor coach to visit the Nakuta La'ab Cave Church. On the way to the church, after parking the bus a considerable distance from our ultimate destination, we passed through a small

community inhabited, it seemed, by many scores of idle children. These children, raggedy and unkempt, begin to follow us and stayed on our trail and at our sides throughout. By this time I had attempted to harden myself to their presence but with only limited success. Indeed, with such attendees it was virtually impossible to really appreciate the church itself. And this experience, for me, became characteristic of the entire rest of the trip.

After a while Ethiopia's antiquities began to fade into the recesses of my imagination and I became steadily overwhelmed not as I had anticipated by the country's past but more and more with the conditions of Ethiopia's people right now. And I think that the trip crystallized for me when I returned to the waiting tour bus after we left the church and the village. A small crowd of people, from very young to very old, had gathered around the bus and were begging and pleading for money, ink pens and plastic bottles. The tour members sat there for what seemed like a very long time, I suppose just hoping that the crowd would eventually dissipate and that the people outside the bus would all go away. But it never let up. In fact, it got worse.

So there we were. I guess that nobody, least of all the members of the KJLH tour group, wanted to witness such overwhelming poverty and need, especially among African people. The weather was hot and we were uneasy and rather uncomfortable, and we found ourselves literally surrounded by poor and ragged and pleading African people, children in particular, many of them with mucous running out of their nostrils and flies doting their eyes. It was rough, sisters and brothers! I guess that it reached near rock bottom when one of the brothers on the trip, a physician, examined some of the children's eyes. He told me that he lifted the eyelid of one young child and found a large dead fly underneath. As you can imagine, it was very hard for me to enjoy the trip after that and we were met with similar scenes at the famous church of St. George.

The church of St. George or Bet Giorgis is the most majestic of all Lalibela's churches. It is

about sixty feet high and is excavated below ground level in a sunken courtyard. It is a wonderful building but the turning point on the trip for me for already been reached. The joy and elation of being in Ethiopia had suddenly turned into a downward journey into despair and impoverishment. The land itself seemed so bleak and desolate, and perhaps it was accentuated all the more so because it was the dry season. But it seemed to me that just eking out the most basic existence here had to be a real chore, and it was not long before I began to question to myself if Ethiopia, or at least the part of it that I was in, was a place that God had forgotten. Could the whole of Ethiopia outside of Addis Ababa, I pondered, be like this?

From Lalibela we flew to Gondar. Gondar, one of Ethiopia's major tourist attractions, is a more recent capital of Ethiopia than Lalibela. Gondar was founded in 1635 by Emperor Fasilidas and became Ethiopia's capital for 250 years. I gave another talk in Gondar. It was another good lecture called "Classical African Civilizations." Unfortunately, it had been a very long day and I am afraid that much of my audience didn't fully appreciate my efforts.

From Gondar, the next day, we drove by bus to the Simien Mountains National Park. Although it was only sixty miles distant from Gondar it took us all day over very poor roads to get there and return. Although possessing an incredibly beautiful view the Simien Mountains were filled with more destitute Ethiopians, with the only significant difference from Lalibela being that since we were in the mountains that it was very cold and the children were not only ragged and dirty; they were shivering from cold. That just about did it for me. And as we interacted with these sisters and brothers we wondered what we could and should do. Should we give them our money? Should we give them our clothes? Should we just shut our eyes and try to ignore them? If we gave them money would we be promoting a culture of dependency? If we gave them money how many lives would we prolong? The problem seemed so enormous that I soon got so depressed that I began to wonder if we had not already lost Africa or at the very least that

the future of Africa and African people was even more precarious than I thought.

One of the highlights of the tour was a boat excursion on Lake Tana. About forty-five miles long, thirty-five miles wide, calm and gorgeous, Lake Tana is Ethiopia's largest lake. Hundreds of years ago churches sought refuge on the islands of Lake Tana and we were able to see a fine example of such a church at Narga Selassie, along with its religious paintings, illuminated manuscripts and multiple treasures.

TRIUMPH AT BAHIR DAR

In spite of the poverty, Ethiopia remains an extremely beautiful country and the area around Lake Tana, near the base of the Blue Nile, is particularly scenic. On our second day in the region I lectured before the students and faculty of the History Department at Bahir Dar University. Our Ethiopian tour guides made the lecture arrangements and I had been asked to give a really scholarly presentation on the Global African Presence with particular emphasis on early Ethiopia.

This third presentation, done at Bahir Dar University, was in some ways the most challenging of them all in that I was actually talking for the first time on the trip directly to Ethiopians themselves. This was a Sunday afternoon lecture and I addressed about twenty-five students and two faculty members from the History Department.

This presentation came about after your young tour guides heard me lecture in Lalibela and reviewed my copy of the African Presence in Early Asia, coedited with Ivan Van Sertima. I later donated the book to the University. Our guides had both graduated from the University at Bahir Dar and thought that even on short notice I should give a talk at the school. It would be a feather in their cap and naturally, although somewhat tired, I was both honored and elated to do my duty. This lecture I called "The Ethiopian Roots of Humanity and Civilization."

Although I was expected to give a scholarly

presentation, after I addressed the theme and provided a rough overview of the global African presence, I realized that these young brothers knew very little about the global history of African people. As a matter of fact, the head of the department himself told me that my "thesis was quite new and startling" to him. And I think that I was rather startling to him also.

First of all, I made the university a gift of about twenty books that had been collected by me and some other concerned Africans when I told them about the venture. And then, instead of standing at the front of the assembly at the podium, I sat right in the middle of the students themselves. And then, when the lecture was over and the students seemed like they couldn't articulate any questions for me I reversed things and started to ask them questions. And this is when the real action started.

I told the students at the very start of my lecture, just to get them involved, about some of the general perceptions, all of them bad, that far too many African-Americans have of Africa. Now, having finished the lecture, I flipped the script and asked them to share their perceptions of African-Americans and the whole place became energized. There was no need for prodding now and the responses came forth as though they had been suppressed for a long time.

The general consensus among them was that African-Americans were a strong people who had survived slavery and were now up on their feet and prospering. But their major thrust was that we were denying our African identity and had largely turned our backs on them. It was just heart-rending to hear them say this and because of that I had them turn to face the members of the tour group directly. Then we went back and forth about the ties that bind us, why we haven't done more to help, what we plan to do to help, how the impact of slavery effects us, and how they needed books and computers, and how they would use the books and computers to liberate Africa, and how African-Americans were not at all rich and free.

The discussion was both historic and pregnant

with potential in terms of clearing the air and setting the basis for action. These students had never encountered African-Americans before. We were the first such delegation to ever visit the University. And I felt so proud to be right there in the thick of it.

Bahir Dar University was essentially my last big moment in Ethiopia. After shaking hands with and embracing the History students and faculty and receiving the accolades of most of the tour members we moved back to our bus and on our return to our hotel we briefly visited the Blue Nile. After that I was pretty much out of it. I felt like I imagined a prize fighter must feel going into the late rounds of a bout, almost out on his feet and down on points, just trying to hold on.

AN ENHANCED SENSE OF URGENCY

The following morning we returned to Addis Ababa and the sanctuary of the Hilton Hotel. I barely made it. I generally think of myself as a pretty tough guy and I have been told that men shouldn't cry. But I suppose that there is a limit to everything and that afternoon back in Addis I came about as close as I can remember to crossing that line, and felt that I was on the verge of some kind of emotional collapse. Embarrassed and shaken, I fought to pull myself together even as I withdrew from the tour group and quietly bade my time until we left for the airport the following night.

Travel always evokes deep emotions for me, of one kind or another, and I left Ethiopia with an enhanced sense of urgency, a deep foreboding and a great concern. Indeed, I came away from Ethiopia grateful to the Africans that had invited me and thinking that I was really glad that I went, but my initial elation had turned to deep despair. I realized more than anytime than I can remember thinking what a very hard way we have to go as a people and that all of the scholarly dialog that we oftentimes engage in and the inspired discussions about spirituality that we embrace does not cut much ice with me right now, and that we are close to whistling past the graveyard.

Sisters and brothers, my love for Africa remains as deep as ever and my fighting spirit is unquenchable. But I definitely lost some of my romanticism on this trip. My journey to Ethiopia reinforced in me in a highly stunning manner that we have urgent work to do and that we must do it now. Otherwise, I am convinced, that we stand a good chance of losing Africa altogether. And I challenge anyone who says otherwise to go with an open mind to the regions that I went to in Ethiopia and see and experience what I experienced. My thinking now is that the time for fun and games is over and that we either get serious or say good bye.

In love of Africa