old manuscript of the blacks of west africa --modern day mali

in the late 1500s the literate and highly civilized peoples of west africa saw their federal government suddenly fall and the security of life that they had known vanish . the empire of songhai --larger than most of europe combined collapsed from internal contradictions and external attack as it's sources of hard currency and its technological centers--the core ingredients of the songhai commerce fell into the hands of invaders armed with new weapons powered by gunpowder .

as what could happen if the federal government in north america suddenly disappeared , the remaining states fell into dispute with each other and later warfare , as arms races began , with each state in what had once been a relatively orderly and united land , vying with each other for survival .

obtaining large amounts of the new firearms used by the foreign invaders to collapse the empire, was seen by some of the west african state as the only way available to protect themselves from the constant raids of the desert marauders and slave traders from the north who had helped destroy songhai.

appearing also at this time , but off the atlantic coast of africa in ships , were the foreign traders from western europe. traders who brought the needed firearms , but seemed obsessed with trading them for primarily one 'commodity'-- slaves--war captives --a by product from the now mushrooming conflicts between the various states of west africa. war captives to be traded for and transported across the atlantic and used in the americas as slaves --field hands in a nascent system of capitalism --a global 'free market' at its infancy -- known now as the 'triangular trade' --the atlantic slave trade that fed slavery and the voracious plantation system of the western hemisphere.

but before these west africans could be exploited successfully as a source of unpaid , lifelong labor , driven in the fields like beasts , they first had to be sufficiently , traumatized , terrorized , and brutalized . whipped , starved and beaten into obedience .

stripped of their culture and most of the memories of almost everything that had made them once a group of great and civilized peoples , these west africans lost much of who and what they were as they were forcibly mutated to fit their tormentor's image of who and what they should be .

much of what had , more than 1000 years before the beginnings of the present era, made the west africans great , was lost in this 'new' land ...or crushed and killed off in the enslaved africans by their money-hungry , sadistic tormentors --yet embers of that african brilliance lie dormant and never cease to smoulder.

profits from three centuries of this global economic system of slavery financed the western european and american industrial revolution and was the foundation for this modern era we live in today in 2006 ad .

an industrial revolution that left europe and her children fabulously wealthy and technologically powerful -- left the africans economically drained and in chaos-- a fragmented bleeding catastrophe --not even a semblance of their former glory --but some of us among the children of africa have learned what we once were and this knowledge inspires us to 'regain' ourselves and inspire our people into becoming what we know that we can once again be...a highly literate , highly civilized , technologically advanced and wealthy people...a force for justice and peace on this earth.

as professor john henrik clarke ,who has gone on to his rest among the ancestors, reminded us again and again , that the genius of the africans is in our ability to always rise phoenix-like from the ashes of destruction , and build greatness again ... he would continually say that these present generations of the children of africa are charged by our history with building the fourth golden age of african civilization.

we did it before ...we'll do it again...our ancestors are watching ...as well as our children...long live the fourth golden age...



"History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are, but more importantly, what they must be."-- Dr. John Henrik Clarke