20 MOST INFLUENTIAL BLACK

20 most influential Black History books

Historyinitsbroadestsensecontains allknowledgenot acquiredin the present.Therefore,all thesubjects studied at school have history as theirbase,be theyin thesocialsciences,the natural sciences,or the arts.All of them (mathematics,chemistry,Englishliterature, religiouseducation,evenphysicaleducation) contain accumulated knowledge collated over many years,i.e.not in the present.

Historyis thus thefoundationofallof them.

Thisraisesthequestion:WhatisBlackhistory? Many scholars regard Africa and its heritageastheCENTREPIECEofBlackhistory.

Africa and its civilisations show what Black peoplewerecapableofbuildinginallAfrican settings.This raises another question:Who researchedAfricanhistoryandheritageand what did they discover? African American historians in the nineteenth century began mapping the history of Africa.Great strides were made in the 1920s with the work of Mrs Drusilla

Houston.HerpioneeringWonderful

Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire told thestoryofcivilizationssuchasAncient

KushandEgypt,butalsoofNegrocivilizations that used toexist inWesternandSouthern

Asia.Unfortunately,her work was too far aheadofitstimetogainthemassacceptance that it deserved. Professor DuBois penned the landmark

The World and Africa. Published in 1946,he told thestoryofNegrocivilisationsinNorth,

SouthandWest Africa.LikeHouston,before him,healsotoldofancientNegrocivilizations that used to exist in Asia. Professor DeGraft-Johnson,a Ghanaian historian,wrote African Glory. Published in 1954,it advanced thestateofknowledgeby includingastrongaccount of thecivilisation oftheMoorsinSpainandtheKongoKingdom in Central Africa.It also had a very detailed accountofthevastWestAfricandesertsuper states of Ghana,Mali,and Songhai.Like DuBoisbeforehim,however,DeGraft-Johnson wasweakon thecivilisationsofEast Africa. EnglishmanBasilDavidsonplugged this gapwithhisclassicOld Africa Rediscovered, issued in 1959.Davidson,and later English scholars,alerted historians to the growing wealth of archaeological material available on the African past.

Introduction to African Civilizations,the classicbyProfessorJohnJackson,wasa1970 synthesis and update of DuBois,DeGraftJohnson,and Davidson,together with research Jackson conducted withWillis Huggins,a colleague from the 1930s and 40s.In particular,Professor Jackson shows thathumanitywasofAfricanorigin.Moreover, theearlycivilisationofSudan,Egypt,Sumer, Elam,and India were Negro.He further demonstrated that Africans voyaged to Americawellbefore the timeofChristopher Columbus.This was the most complete synthesis before my When We Ruled appeared in 2006.It was also the biggest influence on my work. The methodology of researching and writingabout theAfricanheritagewasmuch advanced by the examples set by Cheikh Anta Diop andYosef ben-Jochannan.With the publication of Precolonial Black Africa in1960,ProfessorDiop,aSenegalesescholar, demonstrated the importance of reconstructing thesocial,political,economic, intellectual,technical,andaestheticelements of the old African civilisations.This brings colourandvividness to thoseremote times totally lacking when history is presented as dry dates and dusty kings lists.His 1974 classic African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality? was concerned with a single question:Whowere theAncient Egyptians? Inaddressingthiscontroversy,Dioppresented aninvaluablemasterclassofhowtointerpret primary and secondary source material. Moreover,he demonstrated the key importance of confronting problem areas in Black history rather than retreating from them. Professor ben-Jochannan,author of the 1971 tome Africa! Mother of Western Civilization,also teaches how to interpret sourcematerial.Moreover,DrBenintroduces hisreaderstolongforgottenworksonAfrican history written since the late eighteenth century.Heempowershisreaderstoexamine these works for themselves and to follow the leads that they give. Professor ChancellorWilliams’The Destruction of Black Civilizationalsoof1971 isanotherclassic.InfluencedbyDuBoisbut augmentedusingoral traditionanda team ofresearchersworkingwithhim,thisremains one of the finest and most influential pieces of research out there.

20 most influential Black History books

Readersshouldalsoconsider thefollowing10books that filledin thisor that piece of the African jigsaw:

Charles S.Finch,The Star of Deep Beginnings,US,Khenti,1998 Runoko Rashidi ed, African Presence in Early Asia, US,Transaction Publishers,1995 J.A.Rogers,World’s Great Men of Color, Volume I,US,Macmillan,1972 G.T.Stride & Caroline Ifeka,Peoples and Empires of West Africa, UK,Thomas Nelson and Sons,1971 John E.G.Sutton,A Thousand Years of East Africa, Kenya,British Institute of Eastern Africa,1990 IvanVanSertimaed,Black Women in Antiquity, US,TransactionPublishers,1988 IvanVan Sertima,Early America Revisited, US,Transaction Publishers,1998 IvanVan Sertima ed,Egypt Revisited, US,Transaction Publishers,1989 IvanVanSertimaed,Golden Age of the Moor, US,TransactionPublishers,1992 JanVansina,Kingdoms of the Savanna, US,UniversityofWisconsinPress, 1966

BY ROBIN WALKER

RobinWalker‘TheBlackHistoryMan’attendedthe LondonSchoolofEconomicswherehereadEconomics. In 1991 and 1992,he studied AfricanWorldStudies withDrFemiBikoand later with Mr Kenny Bakie. Between 1993 and 1994,he trained as a secondary school teacher at Edge Hill College (linked to the UniversityofLancaster).In2006,hewrotetheseminal When We Ruled.It is the most advancedsynthesison AncientandMediaeval Africanhistoryeverwrittenby asingleauthor.Since then he wrote When We Ruled Study Guide, Blacks and Science Volumes I, II and III, Blacks and Religion Volumes I and II, The Rise and Fall of Black Wall Street, The Black Musical Tradition and 19 Lessons in Black History.He also wrote three books in collaboration with others:Everyday Life in an Early West African Empire, African Mathematics, and Black British History.

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