Afrikan History

Some Great Books(Afrikan)

Black People & Their Place in History (bonus material,Black US Presidents,Black Inventors list & Black Wall Street )

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5ND5E8ZW

History of Ethiopia According to Herodotus,Diodorus & Strabo research

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=R0TLFSPI

Searching for ancient evidence

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4FP2H32A

THE LIFE & LEGACY OF JOEL AUGUSTUS ROGERS

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LSVV0S2X

The origins of the Egyptians by Cheikh Anta Diop

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UZH1CEU5

AL-JAHIZ AND THE BOOK OF THE GLORY OF THE BLACKS OVER THE WHITES

"The Ethiopians, the Berbers, the Copts, the Nubians, the Zaghawa, the Moors, the people of Sind, the Hindus, the Qamar, the Dabila, the Chinese, and those beyond them...the islands in the seas...are full of blacks...up to Hindustan and China."
--Al-Jahiz, Book of the Glory of the Blacks Over the Whites

Abu `Uthman' Amr Ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri, an outstanding African scholar known to posterity as al-Jahiz (ca. 776-869), has been described by Bernard Lewis as "one of the greatest prose writers in classical Arabic literature." On this issue all of the major authorities agree. According to Christopher Dawson, "Al-Jahiz was the greatest scholar and stylist of the ninth century." Philip K. Hitti wrote that al-Jahiz "was one of the most productive and frequently quoted scholars in Arabic literature. His originality, wit, satire, and learning, made him widely known."

Born in Basra, in southern Iraq, al-Jahiz "studied philology, philosophy, and science there," and became a brilliant scholar, prolific writer and chronicler of the deeds of African people. Al-Jahiz lived during an era marked by a visible increase in overt racial hostility directed by Arabs against Africans in the Islamic world. One of the most extreme reactions to this was the massive slave insurrection in 868 (around the time of Al-Jahiz's death), known in Arab histories as the "Revolt of the Blacks."

Al-Jahiz was the author of the Book of the Glory of the Blacks Over the Whites--a special essay in which the global history of African people and the subject of Blackness itself was discussed. During the 1980s, through the efforts of Mr. William Preston, the work was finally translated and published in English. It was long overdue. The Book of the Glory of the Blacks Over the Whites is a remarkable document. It includes penetrating commentaries on great African heroes such as Antarah the Lion, Lokman--the celebrated sage of the East--and the African ancestry of the Prophet Muhammad himself. According to Al-Jahiz, Abd al-Muttalib, the guardian of the sacred Kaaba, "fathered ten Lords, Black as the night and magnificent." One of these men was Abdallah, the father of the Prophet Muhammad.

SOURCES:
The African Presence in Early Asia, edited by Runoko Rashidi & Ivan Van Sertima
History of the Arabs, by Philip Hitti

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

IN EGYPT WITH YOSEF A.A. BEN-JOCHANNAN ICON OF AFRICAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

"This is but a mere feeble effort in saying: Without you, African/Black mother, there would have been no us--African/Black fathers, sons and daughters. Do we need to say any more African/Black mothers, our own true goddesses! Let us praise you to the highest, telling the world about your righteousness. Let us tell the entire universe about your sacredness African/Black woman.

--Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannan

Every African should try to visit Egypt at least once during their lifetime. It is a pilgrimage to our sacred motherland--the cradle of civilization--and one is never the same afterwards. Although there are now numerous study tours to Egypt, undoubtedly the most celebrated are those of Dr. Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannan. Dr. Ben's tours include the massive rock-hewn temples of King Ramses II and Queen Nefertari at Abu Simbel, the temple of goddess Isis at Philae Island, the royal tombs of the Valley of the Kings and the west bank mortuary temples of Makare Hatshepsut, Ramses II and Ramses III at Luxor, the east bank worship temples of Luxor and Karnak, the temple of goddess Hathor at Dendera, the Sphinx and the massive pyramids on the Giza Plateau, the Step pyramid designed by the multi-genius Imhotep at Sakkara, and the Egyptian Museum at Cairo.

Regarding these sites, the reader should know that Usemare Ramses II (popularly known as "Ramses the Great") ruled Egypt more than six decades and emerged as one of history's most colossal builders. Nefertari, his chief queen, helped Ramses govern and was revered throughout ancient Egypt. Isis was one of Egypt's greatest deities, and along with her husband Osiris and son Horus, formed one of antiquities' great triads. The Valley of the Kings entombed the bodies of some of pharaonic Egypt's most significant rulers. Makare Hatshepsut was a great female monarch who governed effectively for twenty years. Ramses III fought off two foreign invasions of Egypt and sat on the throne for thirty-one years. Karnak temple is the world's largest religious sanctuary. Hathor was the Egyptian goddess of love, beauty and sensuality. The enormous pyramids on the Giza plateau have been called "miracles in stone," while the Step Pyramid at Sakkara has the distinction of being the world's first large stone monument. The Cairo Museum is crammed full of the representations, physical remains, personal possessions and writings of the pharaohs, queens, officials and ordinary people the ancient Nile Valley.

Dr. Ben's tours, like the man himself, stand out quite singularly. Born December 31, 1918 in Gondar, Ethiopia, Dr. Yosef Alfredo Antonio ben-Jochannan ("Dr. Ben," as he is affectionately known) has devoted the better part of his life to the illumination of the indigenous origins of African civilizations. By profession, he is a trained lawyer, engineer, historian and Egyptologist. Ben-Jochannan went to Egypt for the first time in 1939, and moved to Harlem, New York in 1945. Dr. Ben knew Malcolm X personally, and was a student and colleague of George G.M. James. He was exceptionally close to the late Dr. John Henrik Clarke. Since 1957, he has coordinated regular study tours and pilgrimages to the Nile Valley, directly exposing thousands of African people to the still visible splendors of ancient Egypt. Formerly adjunct professor at Cornell University's Africana Studies Department, Dr. ben-Jochannan has also been a professor-at-large at Al Azar University in Cairo.

While now advanced in years, Dr. Ben continues to wield tremendous influence on African studies. He is indeed one of the most unrelenting twentieth century advocates of the African origins of Nile Valley civilizations and the African origins of Western religions. By his own account, he has prepared seventy-five manuscripts for publication, and was working on another during his 1997 tour. He is the author of more than twenty books, including African Origins of the Major Western Religions in 1970, Africa: Mother of Western Civilization in 1971, Black Man of the Nile and His Family in 1972, A Chronology of the Bible: A Challenge to the Standard Version in 1973, The African Called Rameses ("The Great") II, and the African Origin of Western Civilization in 1990. Several of his works have gone through a number of reprints and different editions, and although controversial, all of them are well-documented. As pointed out by Dr. Leonard Jeffries:

"Ben-Jochannan's extensive publications contain voluminous reference materials and sources to stimulate students and scholars to pursue more systematic and scientific research. He also includes very revealing photos, illustrations and charts that help the ordinary layman grasp the significance of the work."

Dr. ben-Jochannan remains uncompromising in his views, a lively public speaker and a prolific writer, and has probably done more to popularize African history than any living scholar. Dr. Ben has brought history to life for the masses of African people. This is perhaps his greatest legacy and gift.

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

ANCIENT ETHIOPIANS OF THE GOLDEN AGE By John G. Jackson

The classical home of the ancient Ethiopians was the Eastern Sudan, although Homer and Herodotus mentioned other Ethiopians dwelling in Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, Western Asia and India. To cite Lady Lugard: "The fame of the ancient Ethiopians was widespread in ancient history. History describes them as the tallest, most beautiful and long-lived of the human races, and before Herodotus, Homer, in even more flattering language, described them as the most just of men, the favorites of the gods. The annals of all the the great early nations of Asia Minor are full of them. The Mosaic records allude to them frequently; but while they are described as the most powerful, the most just, and the most beautiful of the human race, they are constantly spoken of as Black, and there seems to be no other conclusion to be drawn than that at that remote period of history, the leading race of the Western World was a Black race."

The ancient Kushite or Ethiopian culture may be called the Archaic Civilization. Even before the rise of the culture of Egypt, there was the great Kushite, or Ethiopian civilization, which was widespread in both Africa and Asia. One of the greatest African Ethiopian temples was located at Abu Simbel, or Ipsambul, in Nubia. When an English traveler named Wilson visited this temple, he saw sculptured on its walls the story of the Fall of Man as told in Genesis. Adam and Eve were shown in the Garden of Eden as well as the tempting serpent and the fatal tree. Commenting on this fact, Godfrey Higgins asked: "How is the fact of the mythos of the second book of Genesis being found in Nubia, probably a thousand miles above Heliopolis, to be accounted for?" Higgins then added that: "The same mythos is found in India." For evidence he cited Colonel Tod's History of Rajputana as follows: "A drawing brought by Colonel Coombs, from a sculptured column in a cave-temple in the south of India represents the first pair at the foot of the ambrosial tree, and a serpent entwined among the heavily laden boughs, presenting to them some of the fruit from his mouth." The ancient peoples of India were Asiatic Ethiopians and it should not surprise us that they shared common traditions with their brothers in Africa.

SOURCE:
African Presence in Early Asia, edited by Runoko Rashidi and Ivan Van Sertima

REFERENCES:
Analcalypsis, by Godfrey Higgins
A Tropical Dependency, by Lady Lugard

Posted by RUNOKO RASHIDI

THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT: ANCIENT MIRACLES IN STONE

"Men fear time, but time fears the pyramids."
--Arab Proverb

Egypt's first Golden Age is chiefly appreciated as the famous epoch of pyramid building. These edifices were not built by slaves. They were erected by free African people, and remain a source of awe, wonder and inspiration. These monuments, particularly the three built over a eighty year period on Egypt's Ghiza plateau during the reigns of the African kings Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, reflect the genius of African people at our zenith, and are arguably the world's most enduring expressions of architectural prowess. Khufu's pyramid, the largest of the three, has been called the purest geometric form in human architecture, and retains the distinction of being the largest single building ever constructed by man.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu, known to the African people of ancient Egypt as 'Khufu on the Horizon,' was by far the greatest of the so-called "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World." Khufu's pyramid originally stood 481 feet high or forty-eight stories. It is composed of 2.3 million granite blocks, each weighing an average of 2.5 tons, and reaching a maximum of fifteen tons. Its precision is such that even now one would struggle in vain to place a razor blade between the stones. The entire structure was covered with fine white limestone and could be seen from a distance of hundreds of miles. It has been calculated that the cathedrals of Florence, Milan and St. Peter's at Rome, as well as Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral, could fit inside Khufu's pyramid with room to spare. Napoleon Bonaparte estimated that there was enough stone in the pyramid of Khufu to build a wall measuring ten feet high and a foot wide around the entire country of France. The Arab invaders of post-pharaonic Egypt were so struck by the pyramids that they coined the expression: "Men fear time, but time fears the pyramids."

SOURCES:
Black Man Of The Nile, by Yosef A.A. Ben-Jochannan
Egypt Revisited, Edited by Ivan Van Sertima

By RUNOKO RASHIDI

COLUMBUS CAME LATE THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN EARLY AMERICA

The first civilization of ancient America is called the Olmec. It was located along the Mexican Gulf Coast and began more than three thousand years ago. The most significant and widely acknowledged sculptural representations of African people in the Western Hemisphere (the "New World") were sculpted by the Olmecs. The Olmec developed the first civilization of the Americas. At least seventeen monumental basalt stone heads, each weighing ten to forty tons, have been unearthed in Olmec sites along the Mexican Gulf Coast. One of the first European-American scientists to comment on the Olmec heads, archaeologist Mathew Stirling, described their facial features as "amazingly Negroid."

Although major aspects of Olmec culture and history remain vague, enough has been recovered to demonstrate a significant African presence in the Americas many centuries before the advent of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Some scientists have even concluded that the Olmecs may have originally been an African settler-colony. Others are convinced that the African presence among the Olmecs was confined to a small and highly-influential elite community.

Native legends of the Americas abound with the exploits of early Black people. In the Southwest Indian story of the Emergence, a story that is as important in the region as the Book of Genesis is to Christians, the First World is called the Black World!

During his third voyage, Columbus recorded that when he reached Haiti the resident population informed him that Black men from the south and southeast had preceded him to the island. In 1513, Balboa found a colony of Black men on his arrival in Darien, Panama. All of these facts, buttressed by skeletons and sculptures, make it clear that African people had a profound presence and influence in pre-Columbian America.

SOURCES:
They Came Before Columbus, by Ivan Van Sertima
Early America Revisited, by Ivan Van Sertima

By RUNOKO RASHIDI