Black History Month Series Part 2

Black History Month Series is here and let us discuss this issue. Most people know nothing about Africa, its geography, its history or its people. Much of the information we've received about Africa through the media simply is not true. Most people today assume that the people living in lands mentioned in these books at the time of their writing are the same people who occupy these lands today. Nothing could be further from the truth. Today’s populations reflect centuries of movement, inter- marrying, and conquest. As a matter of fact today’s world populations contain people the “Holy Books” don’t mention at all.After the creation of Black Studies programs at several American Universities, the scholarship of several Black professors was questioned in the late 1960’s when they taught that the people of the Bible were People of Color. Dr. John Henry Clark and Dr. Yosuf Ben-Jochannan were two of the leading African Studies professors who helped establish the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC) clearly advocated this perspective in their writings. On the other hand, the official Black church organizations rejected these teachings as heresy at that time. The Church’s viewpoint was that the Authorized King James Version (KJV) of the Bible and its Euro-centric view was complete; people accepted the pictures, as the absolute word of God. This was not to be challenged or questioned by Black scholarship.