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Black Education – Women in Black History, Part 2
In pursuit of your black education, when studying women in black history, something we should consider is who were the African queens and what did they do? One thing that we can be glad of is that, even with all of the lost knowledge, there are still several volumes that can be published to answer those questions so I encourage you to do more research and contribute your version of the stories. In this light, I want to briefly discuss with you two queens – Queen Candace and Queen Nzinga.
When I was a child, I was told in school that in 332 B.C., Alexander the Great, after defeating Egypt, cried because he had no more nations left to conquer. If the man actually did cry, it was not for that reason; it was because of Queen Candace according to Chancellor Williams in his The Destruction of Black Civilization. Alexander wanted to continue south and invade Ethiopia, but Queen Candace, at the head of her own army, all of whom were on the backs of mammoth-sized elephants, waited for Alexander at her border. Alexander did not even attempt to fight her.
Adding more to your black education, observe that nearly 2,000 years later, in 1623, Queen Nzinga, like Queen Candace, stood at the head of her own army; however, she was not fighting a Greek invasion. Her empire, which is now Angola, was being invaded by the Portuguese who were hunting for slaves. Her brother, who had inherited the throne, cooperated with the Portuguese. Princess Nzinga opposed her brother. Upon his death, the princess became Queen. She promptly gave the Portuguese an ultimatum to evacuate her capital city or risk war.
Black Education – Women in Black History, Part 1
Black education most definitely needs more focus in its consideration of black women. Scientists like Louis B. Leakey teach that all races can be traced back to African blood. This means that black women are the mothers of the human race – period. As such, we blacks are the most ancient people on earth and, therefore, our history is the oldest. Our history is not simply thousands of years old: it is millions.
Western education would have you believe that those millions of years were spent in ignorance. This is one reason why black people need to study and interpret their own history for themselves because having such an immense history means that black women (the subject of our discussion) have had millions of years of great achievements.
I will not bore you with millions of years of history. I could not if I wanted to. Too much time has passed and, more to the point, too many invasions have occurred, resulting in burnings of massive libraries, the destruction of an immeasurable amount of records, and grossly distorted interpretations. We can be glad, however, that our ancestors recorded a great deal of their history in stone all over the world.
Black Education – Is it Needed Part 2
What does black education have to do with the Western time line since the European Renaissance? Part 1 of this article established that Western scholars, during the period before Copernicus, believed that the sun revolved around the earth. This may be a possible analogy for what has happened to Westernized black scholars as many educated blacks seem to take Western scholarship as gospel truth without question.
A West African proverb states that until the lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. As the descendants of African slaves, do we not have the responsibility to question the very foundation and standards of Western education? Don’t worry about answering that question. My job is merely to introduce a perspective you may not have considered before. Reflect on what follows.
In 1492, the Europeans kicked out the African Moors from Europe, driving them back into Africa. For more than 700 years, the Moors had brought into Europe an immense amount of knowledge from Africa, including science, math, art, literature, languages, etc. Most of today’s history books as interpreted by Westerners prefer to identify the Moors only as Arabs. Please note that this is similar to identifying the founders of Blues, Jazz, Gospel, Rock & Roll, R&B, and even Country music only as Americans.
