OPINION FEATURE

              Rethinking Africa & Black History

            "The role racism played and continues to play in shaping world history is a tragedy which negatively influences all people. There are those who are correct in their belief that the race issue is irrelevant and is an impediment to human development. In reality there is only one race, "the human race" which has been proven to have originated in Africa . Yet, for years scientists have ignored and even fabricated data to sow that  humanity developed in Europe or Asia rather than acknowledge Africa is the site where the greatest evidence of early human development is to be found." Anthony T. Browder, Exploding The Myths Vol. 1 Nile Valley Contributions To Civilization page 14.

            Michael Coard my friend and co-activist in our struggle to save Cheyney University recently wrote a column in the Philadelphia Tribune suggesting we should abolish Black History Month. I suspect he used the word abolish for shock value to get folks' attention so they'd read the column. His insightful column shared the role Carter G. Woodson played in the origin of Negro History Week which later evolved to Black History Month. He mentioned the organization Carter G Woodson founded, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. and its mission to promote the study and appreciation of African and African American history and culture.

                 Brother Coard is of the opinion, as am I, that Black History/African History should be expanded and incorporated into every aspect and facet of US pedagogy. I have had discussions with him on this topic and he and I both agree African History is the longest record of human progress and accomplishment and is indeed world history despite the fact much of this history is unknown, suppressed or ignored..

            Africans were the first to walk upright, the first people to cogitate about the meaning and purpose of existence, create and use tools, invent musical instruments, weapons, created metallurgy, develop water way navigation, boats and seafaring. Ancient Africans invented art, science, engineering, healing modalities, philosophy, spiritual awareness, mathematics, writing and formal education. On the social level, Africans invented rituals and ceremonies such as marriage, defined families, created rites of passage, governance and government.

            Unfortunately most of us are not aware of these accomplishments or believe what I'm saying because Europeans, the Johnnie come lately to the human stage, control the historiography and narrative about human progress. To add insult to injury they have disingenuously and arrogantly placed themselves at the epicenter of  all human progress. Even the few whites who attempt to tell the truth about Africa ; people like Basil Davidson, Robert Bauval, Johan Heine and others, are ignored or marginalized.  When people of African heritage attempt to set the record straight, right the wrongs and counter the lies of Eurocentric historiography they are denounced, vilified and attacked. We are in a war for truth and the very soul of Africa .

            As African people we must be vigilant and implacable in our quest for the truth and remain steadfast in our mission to set the record straight. New information is coming out all the time about the vast civilizations that developed and flourished on the continent of Africa . We can no longer depend upon Europeans for our history or the truth about humanity. We must realize European leaders have deep psychological insecurities and inadequacies that prompt them to distort and depict history in such a way as to put their forbearers who in terms of global chronology and physical existence were not significant factors on this planet until a mere few thousand years ago as the ultimate in human genius. European elites have created a compensatory narrative of history to be a balm for their inadequacies, inferiority complexes and to justify their abhorrent behavior.

            Africa is a huge landmass, it is the second largest continent on the planet. Africa is not a country. Europe is not a continent contrary to what white folks want us to believe and what we were taught in school!  All of the area of  Europe and North and South America could fit inside of Africa ! We have to begin to see Africa in that light, its bigness and vastness as the birthplace of humanity and human genius.

             New discoveries are happening all the time about the brilliance of African people. As great as the Nile Valley Civilizations were, new information is being uncovered that indicates there were advanced civilizations throughout Africa that advanced  culture.

            In their book Black Genesis The Pre Historic Origins and Ancient Egypt Robert Bauval and Thomas Brophy two white men state that the artifacts, megaliths and structures at the site called Nabta Playa were in fact created by Black Africans who built those structures to track the stars and for use as ritualistic and ceremonial sites. These Africans were in contact with other communities including the Nile Valley, Nubia ( Sudan ) and the Mediterranean . They have concluded Nabta Playa were megaliths built and designed by ancient residents to align with the heavens specifically the star Sirius and the three stars of Orion's belt.

            Changes in the earth's climate and topography impacted the area and the expanding desertification of the Sahara covered the lush river beds that had existed there thousands of years ago which played a major role in the life of Nabta Playa.

            Recently megaliths were discovered in South Africa and named Adam's Calendar that similarly align with Orion's stars and other heavenly objects. What were originally thought by Europeans to be cattle pens for livestock are now surmised to be remains of temples, sun and star calendars, remnants of dwellings and other structures. Dating of the stones indicate the structures are over 75,000 old! "Adam’s Calendar is controversially suggested to be the oldest man-made structure in the world.  Sometimes referred to as 'African Stonehenge', it predates both Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza by tens of thousands of years.  Located in Mpumalanga , South Africa it is a standing stone circle about 30 meters in diameter and has been estimated by some accounts to be more than 75,000 years old. Various astronomical alignments have been identified at the site and it is possibly the only example of a completely functional, mostly intact megalithic stone calendar in the world. Scattered throughout the mountains of South Africa are thousands of stone circle ruins.  The first estimates of the number of these ruins was made in 1891 by English explorer Theodore Bent.  He estimated there were about 4,000 in this area of the world.  By 1974 the estimate had risen to 20,000.  Today, researcher and authority on the subject, Michael Tellinger, has estimated the number of ancient stone ruins to be 100,000 or possibly much higher.  Some of these 'stone circles' have no doors or entrances while most are connected by an expansive network of channels that are often misinterpreted as 'roads' by some historians.  This connected grid of circular ruins are immersed in a seemingly never-ending expanse of ancient agricultural terraces surrounding the structures.  Adam’s Calendar is considered to be the most famous among these ruins." http://www.ancient-

origins.net/ancient-places-africa/adam-s-calendar-oldest-megalithic-site-world-003160

            Interestingly when Europeans first discovered the stone structures of Great Zimbabwe in South Africa they refused to believe Africans could create such magnificent living arrangements so they attributed them to some unknown 'whites civilization'. When Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in 1798  he was astonished at what he and his army saw. He immediately experienced cognitive dissonance because in his warped megalomania he could not believe indigenous Africans created such an awesome civilization. Similarly there are whites who say the Adam's Calendar megaliths in South Africa are the work of extraterrestrial aliens, the Annunaki. According to the people who hold this view, the gold mines in the area thousands of years ago were used to mine gold and send it back to the Annunaki's native planet Nibiru.

            I don't doubt extra terrestrials are real or that intra-dimensional (differing frequencies of energy/matter) pathways exist. Nor do I deny there are ways to alter human consciousness to communicate with deceased ancestors and other intelligent spiritual entities our Africans ancestors called Neters, Orisha, or Sunsum for example. This has all been part of African social, cultural and spiritual practices for hundreds of thousands of years. I'm just not into the Annunaki Nibiru stuff.

            Nevertheless, we need to investigate and discover what made the heavens so fascinating to our ancestors, what motivated them to build such huge megaliths and monuments of stone exactly aligning them to the stars, how did they cart those stones some weighing several tons apiece to the sites throughout Africa and how did they develop the skills to carve and chisel the stone so magnificently? We have a lot to learn about ourselves and our brilliance.

            I'm sharing this information about Adam's Calendar to let folks know how ancient and great Africa and Africans are; to suggest we need to rethink and expand our perspectives on Africa . The prehistoric megaliths in South Africa (Adam's Calendar), Nabta Playa in Nubia, Tiya in Ethiopia, the Bouar in Central Africa, the magnificence of the Nile Valley Civilizations and the more recent megalith discoveries of Ikom in Nigeria demonstrate continent wide genius. We are a deep and creative people.

            The sad reality is most of us are unaware of this genius. We know very little about the ancient African heritage for several reasons but we can rectify this situation. We are the ones who need to get busy, study, do research, support African centered scholars and archeologists in their mission to counter and correct the ignorance and deliberate defamation of Africa and Africans. It is our responsibility to learn, teach and spread the knowledge world wide about our greatness and accomplishments. It's time we rethink Africa and expand our connection to the motherland. 

     From The Ramparts Junious Ricardo Stanton