Black History Month 3

Here’s the third feature of material highlighting Black Achievement – these are a selection of recenlty acquired titles on Black History, literature and art

 African origin of civilization: myth or reality? This classic presents historical, archaeological, and anthropological evidence to support the theory that ancient Egypt was a black civilization.

 Ancient African kingdoms: from the kingdom of Kush to the Mali empire A broad history of one of the greatest civilizations that ever existed… Here’s the untold story of the most prominent African kingdoms! Did you know that ancient Africans developed some of the first mathematics systems, established language, revolutionized architecture, and much more? Their ideas have spread across the world and we have been building on their knowledge for all these years.

 Beyond racial division: a unifying alternative to colorblindness and antiracism In his model of collaborative conversation and mutual accountability, sociologist George Yancey offers an alternative to racial alienation where all seek the common good for all to thrive.

 Black Africa: the economic and cultural basis for a federated state This expanded edition continues Diop’s campaign for the political and economic unification of the nations of black Africa. It concludes with a lengthy interview with Diop.Civilization or barbarism: an authentic anthropology

 Collected Poetry Senghor Leopold Sedar Senghor was not only president of the Republic of Senegal from 1960 to 1981, he is also Africa’s most famous poet. A cofounder of the Negritude cultural movement, he is recognized as one of the most significant figures in African literature. This bilingual edition of Senghor’s complete poems made his work available for the first time to English-speaking audiences.

 Journal of a homecoming / cahier d’Un Retour Au Pays Natal  Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal is a landmark of modern French poetry and a founding text of the Négritude movement. This bilingual edition features a new authoritative translation, revised introduction, and extensive commentary, making it a magisterial edition of Césaire’s surrealist masterpiece.

 Keywords for African American studies Introduces key terms, interdisciplinary research, debates, and histories for African American Studies This volume assembles the keywords of this field for the first time, exploring not only the history of those categories but their continued relevance in the contemporary moment. Taking up a vast array of issues such as slavery, colonialism, prison expansion, sexuality, gender, feminism, war, and popular culture, Keywords for African American Studies showcases the startling breadth that characterizes the field. Keywords for African American Studies provides a model for how the scholarship of the field can meet the challenges of our social world.

 Leo Frobenius on African history, art, and culture Frobenius’ pivotal works on African culture represented a landmark study in ethnography. His writings, when discovered by young African intellectuals studying in Europe in the early 1900s, reverberated throughout the community of Africans in search of cultural legitimacy. Frobenius was credited with restoring Black Africa’s soul and identity in the early part of the last century. His contributions and observations laid the groundwork for the concept of Negritude, which developed hand-in-hand with the self-determination of the Harlem Renaissance.

 Precolonial black Africa This comparison of the political and social systems of Europe and black Africa from antiquity to the formation of modern states demonstrates the black contribution to the development of Western civilization.

 Season in the Congo This play by renowned poet and political activist Aimé Césaire recounts the tragic death of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Congo Republic and an African nationalist hero. A Season in the Congo follows Lumumba’s efforts to free the Congolese from Belgian rule and the political struggles that led to his assassination in 1961. Césaire depicts Lumumba as a sympathetic, Christ-like figure whose conscious martyrdom reflects his self-sacrificing humanity and commitment to pan-Africanism. Now rendered in a lyrical translation by distinguished scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Césaire’s play will find a new audience of readers interested in world literature and the vestiges of European colonialism.

The lost gospel: Christianity and blacks in North America The main areas of this study dwell on the church’s role in education, development of Black leadership, assimilation and independence of Black churches. These themes are used in reconstructing and investigating the socio-religious encounter between Blacks, from the United States and Protestants who belonged mainly to the White churches in Upper Canada. There is also a focus on the educational nature and extent of the relationship of the Protestant church and Blacks. The relationship between Blacks and churches revealed the pre-occupation with education which became the guiding concept in the lives of Blacks.

 Tragedy of King Christophe (a play) The Tragedy of King Christophe is recognized as Aime Cesaire’s greatest play. Set in the period of upheaval in Haiti after the assassination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines in 1806, it follows the historical figure of Henri Christophe, a slave who rose to become a general in Toussaint Louverture’s army. Christophe declared himself king in 1811 and ruled the northern part of Haiti until 1820. Cesaire employs Shakespearean plotting and revels in the inexhaustible possibilities of language to convey the tragedy of Christophe’s transformation from a charismatic leader sensitive to the oppression of his people to an oppressor himself.

 White privilege: the myth of a post-racial society Kalwant Bhopal explores how neoliberal policy making has increased rather than decreased discrimination faced by those from non-white backgrounds. She also shows how certain types of whiteness are not privileged; Gypsies and Travellers, for example, remain marginalised and disadvantaged in society. Drawing on topical debates and supported by empirical data, this important book examines the impact of race on wider issues of inequality and difference in society.