"BLACK HISTORY, etc: JOHN HENRIK CLARKE

[Baba Ahmed]

He was born 1 Jan. 1915 in Union Springs, Alabama and passed on in 1998. His picture will probably not be seen in the regular posters or his name mentioned via major media, nor over most of so called Black Radio stations and networks. This series of his writings will be presented during this month. His last book Dr. John Henrik Clarke: HIS LIFE, HIS WORDS, HIS WORKS was put together by his last secretary, Ena Anna Swanston, who I hope receives expressions of appreciation til the end of times. I hope more of us familiarize ourselves with this true warrior/scholar. He was a college professor, internationally respected historian, book reviewer, curriculum specialist, writer, poet, griot, social commentator, captivating lecturer and considered by most, the "Father of Black Studies." On the dedication page is written this by Dr. Clarke:

"After all I have done, you cannot say that a sharecropper's son, with only a seventh grade education cannot, through applying himself and through serious study, become a recognized scholar, a writer and a respected intellect in the world. Because I have lived, you cannot say it cannot be done because - I HAVE DONE IT"

I also hope many of you will purchase this biography packed with information we can use today. I thought it fitting to open with his thoughts on Afrikan History Month, as he called it.
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"Black Americans entered the twentieth century searching for a new direction, a new ideology, and a new definition - politically, culturally and institutionally. During its' first two decades, the need to analyze and interpret the place of African people in world history grew more critical. In our attempt to understand how we related to other people, we needed to take a global view of African people. New scholars were emerging, who began to interpret the history and struggles of Africans, from an international point of view. This atmosphere nurtured new men and new movements that gave black scholarship the real test of its existence. Because to establish an education for a new reality in the African world without an ideology, would be, merely a recition of dates, places, personalities and events, without an understanding of their place in the past, the present, and their affect on the shaping of the future....

"It is time now to look directly at ourselves and see who we are and what we have done and imagine what we still could do....

"This is what the struggle for education for a new reality in the African world is all about. This is why African and Africana history should be taught ever day; not only in the schools, but also in the homes. African History Month needs to be every month of the year. The image before the African child today - in Africa, the United States and throughout the world - is a clear indication of what they will be as adults, and what they will think as adults. Professor Ivan Van Sertima, of Rutgers University, refers to the period from the 15th century - the period of the second rise of Europe - to the present as the '500 year room of history,' a period in which African people were removed from their homeland in large numbers, experienced slavery, colonialism, anti- colonialism, the African Independence Explosion, and the rise and the decline of Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

"We arrived, at our present time in history, a people with no knowledge of our heritage, our cluture, our language, our history, our religions, and most of our ancient traditions. Again I call on Timothy Callender, for he describes our present condition best. He says, 'People without knowledge of their culture, drift about like corks on the ocean.' And this is exacly what we are doing; moving with the tides, bobbing up and down at the will of forces other than our own. What we know of ourselves is, all too often, limited to the images of our people reflected on the television, radio, in newspapers and religious literature; where African people are rarely ever portrayed as playing a heroic role, if in fact, they are portrayed at all.' "

[Baba Ahmed]

Baba's note: To know names, dates, and lists of "famous" people are insufficient; we want to go beyond media sales hype that makes us feel good; we need more today and have available resources to manifest what Malcolm X said, that History is best qualified to reward our studies. HisStory & OurStories can provide answers that need to be known by a self determining people. Nor is it something to be forgotten. In our particular case, the "bad & good" needs to be seen, faced and dealt with. What existed, say during the times of Omowale Malik aka Malcolm X, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the likes are still upon us: faces change; not natures of people. We who lived during Dr. King's times are fortunate. We've seen what was to appear as having been solved & unnecessary rear its ugly faces again, openingly & arrogantly. To change identifying names will not change the nature of this beast called white racisms. What we do and who we do for can change and even destroy many of the injustices showing across this land. Today.
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Ena Anna Swanston tells us that on the Dedication Page (of his proposed pamphlet entitled Pan Africanism Or Perish) was to read:

" 'To all those Africans at home and abroad, who fought for the day when Africa would be sovereign and free, ruled by Africans for Africans.' In the pamphlet he (Nana Clarke) defined Pan Africanism and explained why and how this concept is essential to our survival as a people. He says:

"Pan" movements are not new in the world. These movements existed long before the use of the preface 'Pan' was a part of a groups' organizational name. Any movement to recover or reclaim its history, culture or national identity after war or migration - forced or otherwise - can be called a 'Pan' movement. This makes the concept of Pan Africanism very simple.

The word 'pan' means all. And when used with Africa, it means all African people wherever they are on the face of this earth.'

'Other people have no problem with this concept. A Chinese can be in America five generations, you ask him what he is, he will say "I am Chinese." He has not lost the sense of his historical origins. We have become confused about our direction, our place in the world and our historical origins, and we see becoming part of somebody else's thing as our best and only hope. If we understood our origins and Africa's place in human history, we would take our African frame of mind with us wherever we go in this world. This is the essence of Pan Africanism.'

'Pan Africanism is an old African dream. It had it greatest manifestation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the closing years of the nineteenth century, Africans all over the world were fighting to reclaim their sense of self worth and to become clear about their destinies. They came into the twentieth century fighting, hoping and dreaming of a united Africa that would come to their rescue.

It was H. Sylvester Williams, a lawyer from Trinidad, practicing in London, who gave this effort the name that it still bears. That name is Pan Africanism'

'I maintain that, while being forced onto the ships in Africa, those among them who knew how, envisioned what would happen to them and bent down, took a piece of African dirt, put it in their mouths and looked back at their homeland for the last time. This was the beginning of an African consciousness that would ultimately lead to Pan Africanism.'

'In my opinion, the first covert show of Pan Africanism was on the slave ships when Africans, be they Yoruba, Akan, Ibo, etc, understood that, although they come from different parts of Africa and belonged to different tribal nations, they were, now, in the same tragic predicament and in the same boat. They realized that they were all Africans, that they had all been captured, and were about to be enslaved. This was an event, in their history, that they were totally unprepared for, in spite of already being familiar with some forms of servitude in diffferent societies, in different parts of Africa. However, the slavery that was now upon them had no parallel in their history or in their memory.'

'It did not make any difference to their captors what language they spoke, what religion they practiced, or what cultural group was violated in order to capture them; and it made less difference to the captured Africans. For, in spite of the torturous march from their place of capture to the place of debarkation, the survivors of this ordeal communicated with one another and developed a bonding, which gave them a semblance of unity. This bonding continued on the plantations of the New World. It and the purchasing habits of the plantation owners,often, enabled the Africans to maintain a continuity of culture.' "

[Baba Ahmed]

{Baba's note:Today's excerpt is dedicated to all our forum sistahs and my own unmarried daughters. Read carefully, and keep in mind Sun Ship's varied ways of reminding us to remember that altho some of us study our past today and tomorrow are the context used to interpret knowledge for our use. Dr. Clarke speaks about... after listing an extensive number and names of research sources, Ena Anna touches on some revelations therein.}

"They had developed agriculture and local industry, where Africans showed an appreciation for the work of local craftsmen who made cloting out of locally grown cotton. And the population was abel to thrive, and existed at peace with its neighbors. There was no jail system, because we made promises and we kept them to each other. And there was no stealing, because everybody had everything they needed, and everything in the society belonged to everyone in the society Most African societies had no concept of jail, and most Africn languages had no word for jail. If someone behaved in an unsocial manner, punishment was taken care of within the family. There was no word for orphan because, in a caring community, no child was an orphan. There was no word for nursing home, or old people's home, because the elderly were incorporated into the extended family. They did not need the trappings of an insane asylum. Why would we need to build an insane asylum if the society we built made nobody crazy.

'We demonstrated and displayed, among ourselves, more communism than was illustrated in Karl Marx's Das Kapital. Custom and obligation ruled the lives of the people. I think that when you have to formalize a law, it means that somebody needs to be reminded of his obligation. Obligation is part of the African tradition...

'Once, when I was in Ethiopia, some white women were championing the rights of the Ethiopian women. They said, "We should have laws saying this; we should have laws giving women equal rights." A female Ethiopian professor was laughing at the whole thing. She leaned over to me and said,"These western women do not understand that if they wrote our equal rights into law, equal rights would be all we would get. But, if we left it in the realm of custom at home - with the shades drawn and the door closed - we would get more than equal rights.'

During that trip to Ethiopia and parts of West Africa, I realized that I had not heard anybody calling anyone else any vile names, and I hadn't heard children fighting among themselves. It took me a while to understand that I was seeing a people in the cultural container that gave them birth, and that they understood it, felt comfortable with it and were not rebelling against it. We, in the Western world, are living in an alien cultural container that we do not feel comfortable with and are rebelling against [it].

Being Our Best

'The great Senegalese historian, Cheikh Anta Diop, tells us that we were at our best and were most secure in the world when we were in charge of our state; and when we built the great Nile Valley civilizations, the Niger Valley civilization and the great river civilizations.

Our basic guide then must be our basic guide now - high morality and collective discipline.

Everybody cannot "do their own thing, if that 'thing' has no relationship to their people's thing." He said there were no men in Africa physically assaulting women, deserting them or calling them outside of their names. When we were at our best, there were no wide spread teenaged pregnancy, and no large number of unmarried men or women in Africa. If a young person was not married, the community took charge, the older women took charge, the uncles took charge, and selected someone for you.

Now, if to your romatic western mind this seems unromantic, let your practical mind take over.

Every woman in this society had, at least, one man. Ask yourself, in our society, do you have one?

At least, in Africa, you would have a man and your would have a committee of concerned persons, from his family and from your family, looking over the prospective husband to make sure that by temperament he was the best for you. You didn't marry a man, you married a family.; and you had protective mechanisms on both sides. What I mean by that is that, if the husband acted out of line, the uncles in the family would take him for a walk and explain to him what was expected of a husband in their group. If the wife act out of line, the women in the family took the same procedure. If during the walk they could not agree to mend their ways or refused to understand what was expected of them, they were often told to keep on walking.

If the invaders of Africa saw this, they did not understand what they saw. They had very little understanding of African culture and tradition, and assumed that the African had no culture - and attempted to give them their culture and their way of life. The misssionary suffered from the same lack of understanding towards African religions, and assumed that the African had no religion either. In their inability to correctly interpret what they saw, the missionaries - both Christian and Muslim - declared war on every aspect of African culture and every image created by the African, that the African considered favorable to themselves and their way of life. Their, (Christians & Muslims), crowing achievements were: the destruction of the African concept of God, and the placing of the African outside of the grace of God!.... The missionaries certainly could not have known of the affirmation of St. Augustine, Father of the Catholic Church, which stated that, "What is known as the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist, from the very beginning of the human race until the time when Christ came in the flesh; at which time the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christianity."

[Baba Ahmed]

5 Feb 2006... JOHN HENRIK CLARKE: The 2nd Alabama Years, bits and pieces excerpted.

A Legacy of Strength

'Although times were hard in Alabama, I have many fond memories of our life there. My fondest memory is of my great-grandmother. I credit my awareness of Africa, and my search for its definition in history to this woman. My great-grandmother came from a slave farm in Georgia, originally. And, because of the skills she learned there, earned the turkey concession in the family. In farm families, duties are portioned our, and family members had different responsibilities. Someone would be responsible for the tobacco patch, some for the pea patch. Great-grandmother was responsible for the care of the turkeys. Very early in my life, I remember helping her with the turkeys. In our quiet moments, she would tell be African stories and stories about her life. I enjoyed these soties, and looked forward to hearing them. But, I would not know the significance of theose stories until much later in my life.

'The story she told most often was the story of her first husband, who was sold to a slave breeding farm in Virginia. Stud farms wre an aspect of slavery that has been omitted from the records, and something we don not talk about much. We must remember, for our own mental health, that there were times in this country when owners of slaves used them to breed stronger slaves, in the same way that a special breed of horse is used to breed other horses. She said he was strong and brave, and he stood up and fought back. "He was a man," she would say, while emphasizing how tall he was.... She had three children with Buck - my grandfather; Jonah, my Grand aunt Liza, and another child whose name I don't remember. Mom Mary had as close to a marriage as a slave can have; a marriage with the permission of their respective masters. Mom Mary had a lifelong love affair with Buck. And, years after emanicipation, she walked from Georgia to Virginia***, looking and asking questions. She realized that his name might have been changed; he might not have survived his ordeal, and/or he might have been sent further north, but she continued to look. She never found him. My great-grandmother would tell her story anywhere three or more family members were gathered. She would turn to my grandfather (her son who was my father's father) and say, "Jonah, htat was your father." She would remind him of this African named Buck, who was so brave and strong, that he was sold to a slave breeding farm. Not to breed braves slaves, she would remind Jonah, but to breed strong ones.

'My great-grandmother was the oral historian in our family. Years later, when I went toAfrica and listened to the oral historians, I knew that my great-grandmother was not very different from the old men and women who sat around in front of their houses and told the young children the stories of their people; how they came from one place to another; how they were separated one from the other; how they searched for safety; and how they tried to resist when the Europeans came to their lands. My great-grandmother told her stories in exactly the same way, and I would sit at her feet and listen. When I did something wrong, she made sure that she did the punishing. She would say, "Send the boy to me." I felt happy that she was the one who was punishing me. At a hundred and eight, how hard can she hit? She sould say, "Bring me a switch boy," and I would bring her the switch. Her hitting was like hugging. She would hit me, and her arm would almost go around me, as though she was hugging me, and the hitting didn't hurt at all. I would go through a spell of fake crying. And when it was all over, I would sit at her feet and she would tell me African stories and the great adventures that she had experienced in her life.'

'She told of witnessing the last Africans brought over directly from Africa who had not as yet learned to speak English. She would make us laugh, as she tried to imitate what she remembered of their speech. She told the story of how the Africans were broken up and sold away to other areas, and how very few stayed with them in Georgia. She remembered witnessing the last auction of the slaves before the Civil War. And then, she would tell her favorite story, which we pretended not to believe, and would tell her so. We would say, "Ma Mary, you know you didn't see all of that." She didn't like it much when we protested.

'She said she was a slave in Georgia when Sherman was marching through to the sea. 'I seed him,' she would say, 'going down to burn up Atlanta and everyghing in sight. The meanest man Gaod ever created. He had eyes redder den a coon.' One of the adults would say, Ma Mary, you know you didn't see his eyes. 'I'se seed it. I'se seed it!' she'd say, and when we would dispute her, she would stand up and tap her cane on the floor. That meant the supreme court had met and rendered its decision, and there was no reprieve, and there was no more argument. She saw Sherman march to the sea, and his eyes were redder than a coon, and she did 'seed it,' and that was the end of that. She was my connection. She was the first person to bring the strength of Africans to my attention, and to plant the word Africa in my mind.

A Religious Contradiction

'My great-grandmother Mary was also responsible for my search for identity. My search for what the world was about, and my search for my relationship to my world began as I listened to the stories of this dear woman. I rememberes she always ended the stories in the same way that she said, "Good-bye" or "Good Morning" to people. It was always with the reminder, 'Run the race, and run it by faith.'.... 'Ma Mary was a Primitive Baptist - a very religious woman in a highly practical sense. She did not rule out resistance as a form of obedience to God. She thought that the human being should not permit himself to be dehumanized. Her concept of God was so pure and practical, that she would see resistance to slavery as a form of obedience to God. She did not believe that children would be enslaved, and she thought that anyone who had enslaved any one of God's children, had violated the very will of God. I believe that Buck's pride in himself and his manhood was the major force in her revering her relationship with him. He was a proud man who resisted his enslavement. She believed that the main reason for selling him to a stud farm was that he could breed strong slaves, whose will the master would then break. This dehumanizing process was a recurring aspect of slavery.'

'Ma Mary taught me that God was love, and God was merciful, and God was the father of all people, whm He loved equally. She had also taught me about Africa. However, when I opened the Bible, I saw no one looked like an African. I could find no image of my people in God's book.**** I had encountered my first contradiction and was puzzled by it. I began to search for people who looked liked Africans. I saw Moses, who was born in Goshen, which is in Egypt, which is in Africa, and as his story evolves, he gets white. Moses goes down to Ethiopia and marries Zipporah; Zipporah gets white. Peaople go into the land of Kush, the present-day Sudan, and they get white. People go into Punt, which is present-day Somalialand, and they get white. Reading the description of Christ as swarthy with hair like wool, I wondered why the church depicted him as blond with blue eyes. They are all depicted as white, in the illustrations in a Bible that deals with African people. How could that be? The fact that I could not find Black people in the Bible, caused the contradiction to compound itself.'

'Growing up in a strict Baptist household, I soon learned that God is used to excuse many man-made miseries. They attribute to God a lot of things that are ungodly, and then claim that God will strighten them out in the by-and-by. They never seem to understand that God did not mess these things up in the first pplace. We have made a folklore out of this view of God. When they gave up on themselves and others, they would say that they have done all they can do for them and, then leave them to God, because God will fix it by and by. This type of "faith" started me to raise essential questions about the nature of a God who followed this description; questions that I only dred bring to light when I was alone. I examined them alone, and kept my conclusions to myself.'

'They taught me that God was love, and I believed it. But I was trying to undrstand how a God who loved all people could leave an entire people out of His book. Why must this God fix something that He did not initiate in the first place? What kind of God is this or, more precisely, what kind of faith is this? They had told me that God was universal. In my silent moments, I would ask the obvious questions: if this is true, why do some people work very little and have so much, and why do others work so hard and have so little? If He was so merciful, show me the mercy in this case. If He is a god of love, show me the love in these cases. I was taught that this book is His Holy owrd, yet I was also learning , in the same book, that God cursed Ham for looking at his father's nakedness. I COULD NOT ACCEPT THIS. How could God love and urse His people at the same time? I could not believe that my God could discriminate against His own children. This led me into a religious contradiction that took me many years to puzzle through. When I came out of it, I realized that I am as religious as any person on earth, and that my search had given me something above religion. It gave me spirituality.... What I grew up brooding over and confused by were the millions of impressions, ideas and beliefs that showed me and my people outside the context of history. It appeared that we had no place in history, no place in religion, and had contributed nothing to civilization and, therefore, could not exist or be acknowledged as of any value as human beings. This what drove me, at a very early age, to study history seriously.'
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*** Baba note: as we know between the northern border of Georgia and the southern border of Virginia is an entire state: North Carolina, that his Great-grandmother walked.
**** I've seen an old pictorial Bible, which included both the Old & New Testaments; and bear witness to having seen the same slight of hand tricknology at work. That was in 1973.

[Baba Ahmed]

7th day of "Official Black History Month" 2006 as we honor The Father of African Studies, Nana Akawasi (born on Sunday) Aeyemeny (man who save his people) enstooled by the Ga people of Ghana as Nii Okai Koi 1st: Dr. John Henrik Clarke. Who now speaks to us on his formative learning years in Harlem, NYC ....

An Intellectually Revolutionary Time

'I grew to manhood in Harlem, during the depression. I was a young 'depression radical' - always studying, always reading - taking advantage of the fact that, in New York, I could use the public library. I would take out six books at a time, bring them back, get some more, and even renew them, if I hadn't finished them. To be exposed to books was a joyous experience. Actually, I went through a period of adjustment, because my illegitimate borrowing of books, from the library in Georgia, had not prepared me to walk freely out of a library with a book, without feeling like a thief. It took several years before I really felt that I had every right to be there'

'Walking the streets of Harlem, I became fascinated with the "Street Speakers." I do not know of any other place in the country that had this tradition. The "Street Speakers" were men who stood on street corners, often on step ladders, expounding on the topics of the day. They had to be knowledgeable, they had to be good speakers, and they had to hold their audience's attention. These skilled lecturers had learned the art, of putting one fact in front of another fact, in such a way that made them interesting, and logical, and acceptable to the listener. Any other way would not have worked, because, street audiences were not passive listeners. When they disagreed, people would speak up from the crowd, ask questions - that were often long statements - or boo the speaker into silence. Not only would they boo you into silence, but they would denounce you, leave you, and take audiences with them. They showed no mercy. The speakers on Lenox Avenue were considered to be the junior or 'undergraduate' speakers.' I could not rest, and did not rest, until I became a street speaker. I was active in the agitation around the Scottsboro Case***. My concerns prompted me to become a street speaker, and I became a good one.

'During those days, there was much to become involved with in Harlem.Father Divine was becoming very popular. He was opening restaurants, where the poor could eat all they wanted for very little money. The agitation for unions was everywhere. Marches were held to demonstrate the benefits of power and protection, workers could gain from coming together. The seeds of the civil rights movement were being sown, right here in the early thirties. The tide was turning, and people were beginning to say "don't shop where you can't work." There were protest marches everywhere . Harlem was, literally, a hotbed for the raising of political consciousness.

It was during this time that I became acquainted with the works of the Scandinavian rebel Henrik Ibsen. I grew to admire his radicalism to the extent that I changed the spelling of my middle name from Henry to Henrik. While I was at it, and only because I liked the way it looked, I added an "e" to the spelling of my last name. These changes had no effect on my family. My relatives in Georgia still spelled their name the same, and still affectionately called me what they had always called me, and call me to this day - Bubba.

'During my period of growing up in Harlem, many black teachers were begging for black students. They did not have to beg me. Men like Willis N. Huggins and Charles C. Seifert were anxious to pass some of their knowledge on.

• Arthur Schomburg literally trained me, not only to study African history and the history of black people the world over, but to teach history as well.

From studying under Arthur Schomburg, I learned the interrelationship of African history to world history.

• At the same time, I was active in the National League of Negro Youth, and joined the Harlem History Club, under Dr. Willis N. Huggins. From studying under him, I learned the political meaning of history.

Later on, listening to the lectures of William Leo Hansberry, I learned the philosophical meaning of African History. There were other teachers too.

• Joel A. Rogers taught me the biological importance of history, and the interrelationship of the personality to the events of its day.

• Charles C. Seifert taught me the African contribution to the concept of the brotherhood of man.

• Dr. Huggins trained John G. Jackson, quite a few other lay historians, and me.

• John G. Jackson taught me the religious meaning of history, by pointing out the role religion has played in the history of the world.

All this training, received from my teachers, my early life experiences, and the stories told by my great-grandmother, set in motion my search; first for my identity as a person, then for a definition of my family life; and, finally, for the definition of the role of my people in the whole flow of human history.

• 'Raphael Powell had written a book called The Human Side of A People And their Right Name, and was preaching on the corners in Harlem. He was debunking the use of the word Negro, calling attention to the fact that the proper name, of any people, must always related to land, history and culture.

• I was to meet Charles Siefert, who had written a still unpublished book on The African Origins of the Concept of the Brotherhood of Man. He had also written a book, also unpublished, called, Who Are The Ethiopians?

Willis Huggins would introduce me to certain aspects of history I never would have known; especially the career of Clements Kadelie of Nyasaland, and the South African labor movement. He introduced me to John Tengo Jabau. These were the forerunners of Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. He would introduce me to the writings of John L. Dube. From Clements Kadelie, I would learn the basic history of the trade union movements in South Africa. I would read some of the letters between A. Philip Randolph and Clements Kadelie. Ernest Kalagala, a Ugandan teacher married to a black American, would come among us. We would learn other aspects of Africa from him. Under their tutelage, we all took great leaps forward in our understanding of Africa, world history and Africa's place in world history, and Africa's place in world history.
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***Baba note: Scottsboro Case involved 9 young Black bruthas, falsely accused, in 1931, of rape'n 2 white girls. One white girl later recanted; bruthas were still found guilty. 8 were sentenced to death; the 9th was only 13 years old. Six years later, following numerous appeals, 5 of the indictments were dropped, the remaining 4 received long prison terms, 3 who were "paroled" by 1946. One brutha termed the leader received 75 year sentence. He was not paroled but escaped to Michigan 2 years later. Michigan refused to extradite Heywood Patterson. He co-authored the book, Scottsboro Boy in 1950.

I pray that Ena Anna Swanston accepts the changes of paragraph arrangements and the listing done of teachers and books. Ase.

[Baba Ahmed]

"In order to get our bearings on how to rescue Africa, and the future development of the continent, we must admit a few things to ourselves. Capitalism, for us, was a failure. Communism, as fed to us in the West, was a failure. Christianity, as practiced in the West, did not serve us well. We must shake all of them off. We will now stand naked in the world, because we have taken off someone else's clothes, and are now obliged to put on some clothing of our own making. To do this, it is important that we listen, again, to messengers we previously misunderstood. Had we understood the program of self reliance, proposed by Booker T. Washington, we would have been able to accept W.E.B. DuBois and his program of political self reliance. We would have been led logically, to Marcus Garvey's program of reclamation and the redemption of Africa. Had we gotten that far, we would have been able to understand Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, when they spoke of the lost nation of African people away from home.

We need to re-examine the literature of African Underdevelopment, especially Walter Rodney's classic book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. It will also be important that we read, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, by Edmond Wilmot Blyden, in order to understand how Africa was intentionally underdeveloped religiously and spiritually. For a clearer understanding of the impact these two religions have made on the Black people of the world we must read

• Man, God and Civilization,

and

• Christianity Before Christ, by John G. Jackson

• Black Man of the Nile and His Family

• Afrcan Origins of the Major Western Religions

and

• Africa: Mother of Western Civilizations,

the most important works by Dr. ben Jochannan. In these works, he re-examines the history of world history from its very beginning, and goes on to demolish most of the misconceptions about the role and contribution of African people to world history.

We must also read William Leo Hansberry, the finest African scholar we produced in the whole of the western world, with Chancellor Williams close behind. I would make special note of the contributions of Joseph E. Harris, because of his specialty - the African presence in Asia, and Joel A. Rogers, because of his research into the biographies of men of color, and for documenting his findings so that scholars, who followed behind him, could benefit from his research.

I would put the Caribbean scholars into a separate category, because these islands produced men whose vision of the world was so large that they had to leave the island of their birth in order to have room to be heard. First and foremost, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, with Eric Williams not too far behind. A special category also needs to be set aside for the African scholars; especially Cheikh Anta Diop, for his research on the origin of mankind and the continuity of African cultural traditions; employing the disciplines of linguistics, cultural and physical anthropology, history, chemistry, and physics that this research required. In his quest to uncover the ancient origins and unifying principles of classical African civilizations, Diop revealed new evidence and forge new theoretical pathways. His view of Egypt as a Black civilization, which he supported by the demonstration of the melanin content of their mummified remains, earned him th enmity of Eurocentric historians...he was the finest thinker Africa has produced in this century, with Joseph Danquah, who details West African culture, tradition and religion not far behind....

With this knowledge in hand, we will and must be bold enough to place Africa at the center of world history, and look at the rest of human history from that vantage point. When we as a people find ourselves and our place in history, we can no longer be oppressed... We will find a way to end our oppression.

[Baba Ahmed]

Nana Clarke: His Legacy

Greetings from that note lets peek a lil more into Dr. Clarke on education, study and usage of knowledge in messages from our own historians....
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"First and foremost, they recommend that Africans find themselves on the map of human geography. They must find a compass that they can use in order to regain their political, economical and cultural direction. Their main message is 'SAVE YOURSELF FIRST,' and you will, in turn, help to save the world.

The road will not be an easy one. There will be many things that you will need to do. First we must make the best use of our history and our great potential. In doing this, it is essential that we look both backward and forward, and remember that no matter what slave master or colonial master we have served against our will; in spite of the extensive bastardization of our people at home and abroad; in spite of our being scattered to many different areas of this earth and our living under many different flags, we are still an African peoples.

'We must study our history well enough to teach our children about slavery; about the numerous slave revolts on the ships and on the land; and what we did in spite of the horrors of slavery. We do them no good by teaching them that we were just slaves. We teach better by telling them what we did in spite of our enslavement. They must know that the time on this earth, when we were enslaved, was comparatively short compared to the amoung of time the European were under feudalism, and enslaved by other Europeans. We must teach them that, initially, Africans brought to the Western Hemisphere did not come as slaves, but as indentured servants. And we must teach them the difference between the two.'

'We must stop misinterpreting words. We have misinterpreted words and have been the victim of the tyranny of words for all too long. The first word we must investigate is - minority.

WE ARE NOT A MINORITY PEOPLE ON THIS EARTH

We, along with all the other non white people on this earth, constitute eighty-eight percent of the world's population; and we can rightly claim to be what we are -

THE MARORITY IN THIS WORLD.

Another word we must look into is - INTEGRATE. We must ask and answer the questions:

INTEGRATE INTO WHAT, FOR WHAT, AND WHAT IS INTEGRATION FOR ME?

Regardless of the answers to these questions, the most important thing for us to do is to concentrate on integrating with ourselves.

We have fallen for the words, multi-culture and multiethnic. The danger here is that the use of these terms gives the impression that some of the group created a high culture, and others fall in line behind them. It is the concept of the world waiting in darkness for Europe to bring the light, when the absolute truth is the contrary. Everywhere Europe went in this world, everywhere they invaded, they put out the light of the people's culture, and declared war on their way of life, their god, their language and their dress.

'African Americans will and must play a key role in the political awakening of Africa peoples...if we are going to take control of ourselves, our community, and our world, we will have to envision ourselves as having the ability to do so. We must reach back and gain some understanding of what our world was like when we did have control of it. And we must remain mindful of the fact that the very nature of control has nothing to do with possessing a superior mind or having an ability we do not have. It has to do with the fact that people believed they could do it and the gathered enough self-confidence to do it. This is something we must do. We must believe we can control ourselves, and our community; and we must make up our mind to do it. If we gather enough self control to do it, we will do it.

'We must rehearse for nation-management by:

• controlling our community

• by active participation in our children's education

• by examining the curricula used in our schools

• by becoming familiar with the contents of the books used in our schools,

• and by striving for Black ownership of the businesses in our community.

By patronizing these businesses, to the exclusion of others, we can control the basic wealth of our community and ensure that the money earned and spent in our community remains there. This we must do to ensure that the economic means are in place to effect social change in our favor.

Secondly, we have to start taking care of our own needs. You can't build a nation and depend on somebody else to make your bread.... Suppose we decide to eat only the food that we produce with our own hands. We will have to have a series of farms, and we'll be able to say, "I don't eat anything out of cans." We will be healthier for it and could put a whole lot of people to work. The people who are farming will have jobs. The delivery people, their drivers, their secretaries, their office workers will have a job. Suppose we concentrate on establishing and supporting our own businesses and services. We could start a world industry this way.

'Further, when a child is born, we have got to start putting them on a track. What kind of track are we going to put them on? A technical track, a mechanical track, a holy track, a scientific track, a business track, whatever, but everybody will be on some track. Our children should be picked out and trained for leadership from birth. We must observe our children...study their ability to share with and protect others, and accept the training that will make them do it better. We need to spot leaders early and begin to train them early. If I may paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr. - in an address to Junior High School students in Philadelphia, he instructed them to make a blueprint of their life, based on their determination to achieve excellence in their chosen field of endeavor. "And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it.".... In his great wisdom, what Martin Luther King, Jr. was saying is, don't just set out to do a good job, set out to do such a good job that... the living, the dead, or the unborn wouldn't do it any better. This is the attitude we have to return home with.

'We must learn how to communicate with one another. Every single person of African descent, who lives outside of Africa, should know at least one indigenous African language. We live in a world of rapidly advancing technology, and every single Black child, over ten years old, living inside or outside of Africa, should have some computer skills. Our reality is that this is a world of science and technology, and if you are going to speak for Africa in the new world, you have to understand how the world is shaped. There are certain things that you are going to have to master, because the world of the future will be ruled by those who are technically, spirtually, and culturally prepared to rule it.

We must add up our credits. Africans in the United States are the only branch of Africa's people, on the face of the earth, trained in combined (land, sea and air) operational warfare. If Africa is going to be delivered, it will take more than guerilla fighters to do it. It will take Africans who know roads and bridges, and how to put an air force over a city. It will tak people who can land ships. It will take people who can fly airplanes. it will take administrators; it will take people who can build hospitals; it will take plumbers, electricians, mechanics, etc. We have been trained to do these things for our oppressor; we can do these things for ourselves in Africa.

At the same time, we must take an inventory of every important substaining item that goes into the making of a state at the time we are living. All history is a current event; and we must have no compunction about drawing on the past to understand the present, in order to ultimately shape the future. Our fight is more than a fight for liberation; more than a fight for control of the land; more than the fight for the recovery of sovereignty. It is the fight to recover Africa's proper place in human history and to restore to African people all that was taken away from them.'

'And while we are doing all of this, we will have to keep reminding ourselves and others that, in the great drama of history, Africans have been creators and innovators. We must never forget that, in our long and glorious history, we have created and destroyed great nations.

We must also remian mindful of the fact that, politically and in all matters where power is concerned, there is a re occurring naivete among our people. We think other people should be good and humane merely because we are good and humane, and we are, repeatedly, surprised when they are not. African people have a great humanity. It is part of our tradition to be hospitable to strangers. Unfortunately, our naivete leads us to be hospitable to all strangers and, many times to the wrong strangers. It is this naivete in the African personality that we should be constantly on guard against.'

[Baba Ahmed]

{Baba note: just tryna stay afloat keep'n word to bring to our forefront memories of our own learned ancestors, elders and other scholar warriors in this Black History Month. The month of my earthdate. I give thanks; now onward.}
================================================== ======================="

"We are a nation within a nation searching for a nationality. Until we are sure of our nationality we cannot build or manage a nation."

Ibid, "Famous Quotations of Dr. John Henrik Clarke" pg. 261.

[CreatorsCollege]

Honorable Elder,

I appreaciate your sharing this learning!


Peace & Love!

[Kweku_Omowale]

modupe nana for that!

[Baba Ahmed]

I join y'all in giving thanks!
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Alafia! Its the last day for this year's Black History Commemoration. Give thanks for the few articles highlighting our honored ancestor Nana Akwasi Ayemeny "Man who saved his people" Dr. John Henrik Clark, born on a Sunday January 1, 1915. I did not complete my intention, to post each day of this month an exert of his works. Here is quoted one of his sayings to highlight this last entry:

"Afrika is our center of gravity; our cultural and spiritual mother and father, our beating heart no matter where we live on this earth."

'My travels in Africa, during the latter part of 1958 and the early part of 1959, took me through eleven countries in West Africa. I lectured on African History, while continuing my study and research on the subject at African universities, including the University of Ibadan, in Nigeria, and the University of Ghana in Accra, Ghana. One evening, as the time approached for me to leave "My Africa," I wandered down toward the beach, sat down on the sand, and attempted to put into some order what had happened to me here. I looked up and saw the African night sky, and remarked how close the stars seemed, how numerous they were, and how brighter they were than any I have ever seen anywhere. I was not the same man who had come here hoping to find I know not what. I came here, and something deep inside of me seemed to have opened up to absorb all it could of the people, the sounds, the colors, the flavor, and the spirit of Ghana. So this is Africa. This beach was here a very long time. And, maybe in the long ago, someone walked here, slept here, or maybe loved here to start or continue the sequence which produced me. Did any of my ancestors pass here - either freely or bound - for the boats of the traders? Where are they now? Can you see that the son who left has returned in the son of your son's son? I had returned, and I was sorry to leave.

'I packed my diaries and my few possessions, and returned to America by way of Rome and Paris. I was intent on writing a book about my travels, in the hope that someone would be interested in publishing it. I left Africa with the intention of attending the Second International Congress of Negro writers in Rome."

Till we meet again in a spirit of the MAROONS: Uhuru Sasa!
Kwame Baba Ahmed

[Baba Ahmed]

Today, 7 May 2006, there was observed Abakosem Sunsum in honor of Nana John Henrik Clarke in Atlanta Georgia. On the program's inside cover there's a message received from Spirit at Abakosem Sunsum 2004 from the Shrine of Nana Clarke in Ghana:

"You have to look within and not be afraid. Don't be afraid of the enemy. To be afraid of the enemy is to be afraid of our destiny." Today's theme was Spiritual Warfare. Nana Clarke left us with this about Spiritual Warfare; he said we will not understand it, until we deal with some myths that came out of it:

• The myth of discovery

• The myth of a people waiting in darkness for another people to bring the light

• The myth of civilization, which is the biggest lie ever told!

• The myth of a people bringing a new god to a heathen. When people conquer you they declare war on your God and your God concept. They give you a god that looks like them. One of the main reasons you can't fight them, including their cops killing you is that he is the same color (culture) as the god they gave you

• When a people worship a god assigned to them by another people, they will never be psychologically free.

• I'm not trying to take away your God, because it wasn't yours in the first place!"

Observed also was a ceremony for "Passing on the Legacy," that involved each age set pledging to do a list of things. The age sets are:

• BAKULUNTU for those 71 and older; the first pledge is, "to grow closer to our Ancestors, so that we may hear their voices and pass on their wisdom, kwk."

• MBUTA (41-70) "We pledge to provide leadership for our people; We will provide a foundation for multigenerational family continuity and intergenerational transmission of culture, history and mission, etc"

• MBUTA BILESI (26-40) "We are the mature warriors/builders of the Afrikan Family; We will take the risks that those older than we are and those younger than we are, should not take..."

• BILESI (13-25) "We will form complementary relationships in preparation for marriage and having children. We will commit ourselves to fitness, health and survival training...."

• NTW ENIA (7-12) "We will begin to learn the skills and acquire the tools that we need in order to become warriors for our people. We will learn as we play..."

• BANA (1-6) We will know that we are Afrikan. We will learn to respect our Ancestors. We will learn our place in the story of our family. We will be able to say the names of our parents and their parents and their parents before them. We will see all that is around us. We will love ourselves, and know that we are loved by Afrikan people. We will feel our spirit. We will love Afrika."

The NSAA FAMILY, a group of volunteers presented this 3rd Annual Abakosem Sunsum ceremony honoring Dr. John Henrik Clarke. An Adinkra symbol, NSAA symbolizes excellence, genuineness, and authenticity; and is translated as, "he who does not know authentic Nsaa will buy the fakes." Nana Baba Clarke modeled excellence, genuineness, authenticity for us, and he warned us against 'fakes.' Speaking to a young 17 year old brother, Baba Clarke said:

'Son, an education teaches a man to be a responsible handler of power and a master of his destiny. Now, if your education does not produce that for you, then you have a sham education.'

This was a day for raising up our Warrior/Ancestors; including a few words about:

• ARAMINTA (Harriet Tubman): "I had reasoned this in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other....We saw the lightning and that was the guns and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped...
  
  Never wound a snake; kill it"

• and of: DANDARA, Warrior Queen. Dandara fought to defend the first Afrikan nation state in the Diaspora - Palmares (1600-1695). She was one of Zumbi's generals who also fought to liberate captured (enslaved) Afrikans. At the end, rather than be captured and enslaved, she lead 200 other Afrikans as they jumped off the cliff to go home with our ancestors.

• and words from BOUKMAN (Dutty), a vodun priest was one of the people who led the August 14th ritual in preparation for the Haitian revolutionary uprising of August 21, 1791. Boukman was selected to lead the uprising. He issued the following prayer and a call to arms:
  
  'The god who created the sun which gives us light, who rouses the waves and rules the storm, though hidden in the clouds, he watches us. He sees all that the white man does. The god of the white man inspires him with crime, but our god calls upon us to do good works. Our god who is good to us orders us to revenge our wrongs. He will direct our arms and aid us. Throw away the symbol of the god of the whites who has so often caused us to weep, and listen to the voice of liberty, which speaks in the hearts of us all."

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PAN AFRIKANISM OR PERISH...


Ase! Ase!! Ase-ooo!!!