Black Africa

When you take the time to explore Africa as the cradle of civilization you realize that there are a lot of blank and unexplained gaps in the teaching of the history of Black Africa. For example metallurgy, the Alphabet, mathematics, and methods of construction we still use today came from the African continent. All of the above should be at the forefront of any history book including the ones found here in the United States. In the history books that were available to me  African, and American-born Africans made no significant contributions to history until during, and just after slavery. I have since learned that what I was taught was not true, and that!

Some of the first great civilizations, that predate even the Roman Empire, existed in Africa. African civilizations like the Kingdom of Kush, the Nubians, and the black rulers of ancient Egypt were something I wish I had learned a lot earlier. I came to realize that many of the great Greek Philosophers first studied in Africa before taking those teachings back to Greece and claiming what they learned in Africa as their own. If you go by the version of Africa I grew up with as a child none of the African heroes shown on the television or motion picture screen were "African."

In the biblical offerings from Hollywood, like the Ten Commandments, there were of course African slaves but no true Africans in any of the lead roles. Over the years attempts have been made to bring to light the African American ancestor's struggle, but the film or video production is almost always centered around slavery. Don't get me wrong, slavery is a very big, and important part of the American African experience, and American History, but in my opinion, so are all of the black histories about Africa where it relates to the black African Queens and Kings.

It is unfortunate that at a time when this kind of historic information could mean so much to a younger generation of American schoolchildren some schools are cracking down on what history should be learned in schools. I do understand that there is only so much history you can pack into children's history books and still keep them actively engaged in learning. But, I can't help but feel that if any of the things mentioned above had been part of my grade school and high-school education my early impressions of the motherland, Africa, would not have been so negative.

Over the years a clearer picture of Africa and African History as it relates to my African ancestors has helped me unbury from the sands of time some African history I wish I had been able to learn those things when I was in school. Inspiration at an early age whether from a book, a movie, or the television screen can work wonders when it comes to the building of self-confidence, and the desire to succeed. I have become a student of ongoing African History some of which, if you've read some of my other posts, I enjoy sharing

Juneteenth Celebration Idea

One of the best ways I can think of to celebrate Juneteenth is to support black-owned businesses, especially on June 19th. and all year round. Each of us in the black community can help, at no extra cost to us, to begin curbing some of the dollars we spend and send out of the community back into the community on a regular enough basis to be productive for the black own business and the black community.  Simply patronizing a black own business can be positively impactful. There are black businesses that offer fashion ideas, self-care and health products, food and drink choices and plenty of black artists for your home decor ideas and clothes makers and sellers for your very own personal wardrobe decor.

Find one near you and be intentional, don't be afraid to approach a black own business and ask them what they need especially if there are signs that an organization or black own business is experiencing hardship. It goes without saying that all businesses need sales or offers for their services, if you can help them in that way you will also be helping to keep black community dollars circulating within the black community, and growing businesses often mean more job opportunities within the community. 

However, even if you are unable to help a business out by making a purchase, or a donation to an organization you can still spread the word about their service or business and there are several other ways you can still help a black-owned business. As a community member build a relationship with a black business and share their business information with your own social circles online, and off. There are avenues as complicated as investing in a black own business and as simple as writing and sharing a review that can be helpful to a business receptive to your offer of help.

Most Black Owned Businesses (BOB) who welcome your support hope that your interest in their business goes beyond the fact that a business is simply black-owned. They value even more your belief in their business. Most black-own-businesses value and encourage the quality of their goods and service, because that is what can make the difference between a once-in-a-lifetime customer and a loyal return customer.

Organizations like the BBB and others especially should support BOBs with incubator programs and limit some of the obstacles that can impede small businesses. Quality help and coaching should also be available t new BOBs. Organizations can be valuable small business support sources to help grow BOBs. One of the best things you can do to support your local BOB or organization is to make as many of your basic purchases for your personal and household day-to-day items from your local BOB.

 

The Juneteenth Fact Sheet

 

I made a Juneteenth Fact Sheet for the Juneteenth beginner so that at a glance you can instantly be brought up to date about the oldest American African celebration in this nation. This is also the oldest celebration of the end of slavery in this land for the antislavery faction, the black and white abolitionists who took up the cause and saw it through to the end, June 19th, 1865. And, as I point out in my Juneteenth Handbook just like the Israelites established the Passover to celebrate their deliverance from bondage our newly freed slave ancestors did the same and called their day of deliverance, Juneteenth.

I say that Juneteenth is also about family because for hundreds of years Africans, born in Africa, and the descendants of Africans, born in the Americas, had little to no control over their family unit. It was a rare occasion when one family could live and stay together under one roof and not have to live in fear of having a family member sold off for profit or punishment. Juneteenth meant more than just the end of slavery. It also meant the beginning of American African families, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, being able to stay together.

To me, that single fact about family is also worth an Independence Day celebration to be celebrated with the entire family. That would be the ideal, anyway, the reality is that today families who have way more control over when and where to see each other are just as spread out as they once were and the invention of all of our modern gadgets cellphones, computers, laptops, tablets can provide their own challenges even when a family can gather.

My grandkids who constantly amaze me with their knowledge of video games, and computers, have never seen a phonebooth, don't know how to dial a rotary telephone, and call the 45rpm records I used to make when I lived my life as a musician, big CDs. When it comes to the Juneteenth Celebration's connection to the family, I think about all of the things we take for granted nowadays, when it comes to celebrating Juneteenth and try to remember the ancestor's family pulled apart from them until a day of celebration became just another reminder of the husband, wife, son, or daughter who was no longer there.

I was celebrating Juneteenth long before it became a federal holiday and because my family was a lot younger and smaller back then my first Juneteenth experience was a family experience. My learning about the Juneteenth Celebration went into hyper-drive after that and along the way, the family aspect of this celebration stuck out to me. Not only did June 19th, but signal the downfall of slavery in this country it also signaled a new beginning for the American African family. That is why my new Juneteenth Fact Sheet contains the image of a family.

The Juneteenth Fact Sheet is available on my Juneteenth Handbook website and my Juneteenth Pinterest location as well as my Juneteenth Day 1, Blog. Keep in mind for this coming 2022 Juneteenth Celebration will represent a history-making event in much the same way June 19th, 1866 did when it became the first official Juneteenth Celebration on the first one-year anniversary of June 19th, 1865. June 19th, 2022 will be the first one-year anniversary of the Juneteenth Celebration becoming a federal holiday.

 

Queen of the Kushite Kingdom

Queen Kandake Amanirenas would lose an eye in battle, cover it with a patch and continue to lead her armies against the mighty Roman Empire. Kandake or Candace means "Great Woman" and is the equivalent of queen or queen mother of the kingdom of Kush. From what I have been able to learn about this lady she was indeed a great female leader and was the leader of the kingdom of Kush, located in modern-day Sudan and Ethiopia. Born between 60 and 50 B.C. she reigned as the sole ruler of Kush

Queen Amarnirenas would impress even the Roman war generals in defense of her kingdom. The Romans were on a drive to expand their empire and their wealth by demanding tribute from the Egyptians and the Greeks whose lands the Romans had conquered. The problem for the Romans came when they decided to include the African people living in the Kingdom of Kush.

Unlike Cleopatra, the Kushite Queen would not bow gracefully to the Romans' demands, Queen Amanirenas chose to protect her people from paying tribute to the Romans. Rather than give in to the Romans' demands and ultimatums the African queen went to war with Roam. Leading a skillful group of attacks Queen Amanirenas with thousands of her soldiers shocked the Romans by boldly attacking Roman territories.  To show her distaste for the Roman Emperor she and her army dethroned statues of the Roman Emperor Augustus Ceasar (24 B.C.)

Queen Kandake Amanirenas beheaded a statue of the Roman Emperor and buried it under the entryway of her palace so that everyone could walk over her enemy. This disgraceful slap in the face was yet another source of anger for Augustus Caesar to learn that Nehesu will have to walk over the mighty emperor's head to enter the kingdom of Kush. Unable to defeat the Queen of the Kushites and tired of spending large chunks of their newfound riches to eradicate the elusive battle harden queen, the Romans called for a truce.

In the end, a deal would be struck between the Romans and the Kushites that amounted to Queen Amanirenas agreeing not to attack or deface any more Roman settlements or cities and in return, the Romans would not seek tribute from the Kushite Kingdom. The riches of the Kushite Kingdom would stay within the African people's Kingdom thanks to the Kushite Queen, Kandake Amanirenas.

 

The Juneteenth Handbook

The Juneteenth Handbook was put together by me to share my very own personal experience about attending my first Juneteenth celebration, and to share some interesting information about the Juneteenth celebration collected during my research stage for this book's companion video/DVD A Time to be Remembered, A Juneteenth Story.  My handbook also offers a brief history of the Juneteenth celebration that includes many of the people, places, and things associated with the oldest celebration of the end of slavery in this nation. Much of this history I did not know before starting my Juneteenth knowledge-gathering journey.

My other motivation behind this handbook was the joy of knowing that some of these interesting Juneteenth snippets, cut from my video production because of time considerations, would not be lost to the editing room floor. The fact that Juneteenth is currently a federal holiday is amazing to me and was one of the driving forces for me creating the video, and the handbook, thinking that if enough Americans became aware of the truly historic significance of the Juneteenth celebration it might help tip the scale all the way over to; make Juneteenth a national holiday.

In my retired life, I realize that I not only love history, but I also love uncovering hidden history. So far, it's been history hidden from me, I'm sure if my college days had bent more toward African American history rather than electronics, the history I am learning about today would have shown itself to me much earlier. Still, many of the things I have learned about slavery and the Juneteenth celebration these days I wish I had known when I was in school.

The truth of the matter is that the Juneteenth celebration, which culminated with the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments did something the July 4th, 1776 celebration did not do. The Juneteenth celebration made the United States a more perfect union because, on June 19th, 1865, all Americans, black and white, were finally entitled to equal protection under the laws of this nation, something that was not true on July 4th, 1776.

The thing to remember is that Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, Emancipation Day, just some of the other names for the Juneteenth Celebration, is an important part of American History and is considered the longest-running African American, and end of slavery celebration in the U.S. North Dakoda, and Hawaii used to be part of the last three states in the union with no prevision to celebrate Juneteenth. Each of those states has since approved legislation to honor Juneteenth as a State Holiday leaving South Dakoda the only no Juneteenth celebration holdout.

The way black history is colored

The way black history has been colored over the centuries would lead a lot of people to believe that black people (in particular African Americans) didn't have much of a history that wasn't connected to slavery. But nothing could be further from the truth. Think about it, if all humanity emanated from Africa and spread throughout the world the only way current thinking about African Americans and civilization would be true was for there to be no early civilization in early Africa, and that is the African history that must be unlearned.

Not only was their early civilization in Africa, but the continent of ancient Africa was once a world trading power, trading its resources of gold, diamonds, and produce with the rest of the known world in ancient times which included the Americas. African civilizations build the pyramids, ruled Egypt, and the Kindom of Kush thousands of years before European civilization existed. 

Then came the colonizers Belgium, Spain, France and more using their high-tech technology in weapons to take over large parts of Africa's riches, included Africa's people. Slaves were first brought into Africa and traded for Africa's bounty before the Atlantic slave trade would begin to drain Africa of its generations to feed the growing need for labor in the Americas. Spain and France supplied African slaves to South America and the British eventually became the major supplier of Africans to the newly developed North American colonies.

Where once African resources were controlled and sold by Africans, colonization cut deep into most of the African economies, and over the years the constant drain of African people to the slave trade and African resources to the colonizers would leave most of Africa at the mercy of its colonizers. Eventually, Great Britain would reanalyze its role in the slave trade and end its participation in the taking of people out of Africa. A revolution in France would bring about the French giving up its slave trade, which was followed by the Haitian Revolution and the French selling its Louisiana Teriorries to the colonies. After the Civil War, the Atlantic slave trade to the colonies turned states was ended.

Colonization continues to this day in Africa and parts of South America. Today Africa seems to be on its own build-back-better plan, and while Africa's future, with regard to colonization is TBA (to be announced) the history of Africa's greatness and the African Americans connection to it, though their ancestors, should be taught in schools.

Juneteenth Games & Decor
by GK Designs

I think the history of the ancient world as it relates to black people would not only be informative but very spiritually uplifting to Americans that suffer from the misconception that African American history starts with the end of slavery in this country. An effort should also be made to show modern Africa as it is today, complete with the Bushman's funny surprise attacks on unsuspecting African people living in the city. The truth about Africa's past and present is often not televised by mainstream media, or talked about in school books, Africa is not all third-world-county.

While a lot of the negative images from mainstream media are true they don't show the modern clean streets of Africa cities like Kigali Rwanda which should also be in the mix of things colonization media wants you to know about the mother land. Slavery may have taken the descendants (us modern-day African Americans) away from any African roots that can still be traced it should not be allowed to keep African Americans from knowing Africa. African Americans, and Americans in general, should understand why so many major world powers don't want Africa to achieve the world power status it once held in ancient times.

And why many of those world powers feel pretty much the same way about the Island Nation of Haiti where the slave population overthrew colonial rule to rule as an independent black nation on their own. You would think that nations based on "freedom" would view the Haitian Revolution as a success for freedom. Africa's true history, The island of Haiti, as well as other nations who have released themselves of colonial rule may not be the kind of historical success story fit for the colonial narrative, but they are still African historical events that deserve a place in American history school textbooks, if you ask me. 

once-upon-a-time, black people, slaves, were forbidden from learning: no reading, no writing, because that knowledge was power. Imagine if that same sort of effort was applied to black people, ex-slave ancestors today, when it came to learning the true history of Africa's early civilizations and racism in America because that knowledge is powerful too? School should be the proper place for learning history but what do you do when a small number of American, don't want taught from the classroom to the majority of young Americans, the truth about Africa's early civilizations or facts about American racism? Well, there's always the internet.

African Civilization older than European civilization.

It boggles my mind that there are those who would resist teaching American History in American classrooms where it relates to slavery, that resistance made me realize that most of my growing up years I was privy to more information about what African American people couldn't do than could. Even if history is not always written by the victorious it should still be accurate. A society that cannot learn from its own mistakes must surely not be teaching its own true history.

School-age generations of children should know about the dark days of slavery in the United States and the rest of the world. It would have been helpful for me when I was in grade school to know about all of the white people, working alongside black abolitionists to build a resistance movement that would eventually topple slavery's empire in the U.S., and to know about black union soldiers fighting for their own freedom and ours.

I do know that the study of African American History when I was in school would have been one of my favorite subjects. Instead, most of my real learning about African American History came just before I graduated college and into my adult life. I remember thinking that if people are writing that Africa is the birthplace of mankind shouldn't it be obvious that following the history from Africa into Europe would be the logical progression of the historical scholars?

When I was a kid all of the heroes from Africa (like Tarzan) were white, watching movies like the Ten Commandments showed me that all of the Egyptian people were white with very dark makeup tans. There were some black and white people in that movie who were slaves. When I was a boxer, as a kid, at the local gym in Hunters Point, I remember asking my trainer, retired boxer Hard Punchin' Herman Henry, why there were no black quarterbacks in the NFL? I didn't even consider a black coach, back then. He told me "eventually there will be black quarterbacks and when that happened every NFL team would want one."

I realized that like the movie business, the NFL also colored things the way it wanted to see things. I'm sure Cecil B. DeMille didn't see Harry Belafonte, James Earl Jones, or Sidney Poitier as lead material for his classic movie production but I would surely have had the above black actors read for one of the roles:-)  Slavery was replaced by racism and the lack of opportunities institutional racism provided for African Americans extended even to the NFL back in the late 60s early 70s. Replace the word black with good and I realize what my Parks and Recreation mentor was saying to me. All NFL teams want a good quarterback no matter what their skin color.

The good news is that over time like the turbulent days of the 1960s things started to change in the movie business for African Americans and even in the NFL. Nowadays there are black actors in leading Hollywood roles, black quarterbacks, and coaches so my hope is that there will also be black history classes in schools so that Africa's true history can be learned. History that unravels the lies, half-truths, and misconceptions of the African colonizers so that Africa's true history up to and including the Atlantic Slave Trade can be a part of the ongoing teaching of American History in American schools.