(A paper presented at the Rocky Mountain/Great Plains Regional Social Studies Conference, held April 10–12, 1997.)
First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to the
Director and staff of the International Relations Council, Kansas
City, Missouri, for the opportunity given to me to participate
in this remarkable conference. This Council should be commended
for its significant role in providing educational resources and
materials to educators, business, and other intellectuals for
a better understanding of domestic and international relations
or issues. I would also like to commend the courage and high intellectual
maturity of the coordinators of this conference in including my
topic even though they are aware of the recent controversy surrounding
it.
I understand the primary purpose of this conference is to prepare
for the next century through identification, discussions, analysis,
and solving a wide variety of issues that are currently affecting
the nation. The term Afrocentric Curriculum is used synonymously
or interchangeably with such terms as Afrocentricity or Afrocentrism
referring to an African centered educational system as opposed
to the traditional European centered one. Those of us who are familiar
with Afrocentrism will agree with me that it has become not only
an educational issue, but also one of social, cultural, political,
racial, and philosophical issues as well. The fundamental objective of
this presentation, however, is not meant to be confrontational
or one of “rocking the boat,” regarding the pros and
cons of the term. Rather, it is to enlighten the participants
regarding its meaning and nature, the misconceptions surrounding
the term, the arguments for and against it, and my reasons for
feeling the way I feel about an Afrocentric Curriculum for African
and African-American children as we move toward the twenty-first
century.
The controversy that Afrocentrism ranges from moderation to extremity
between the advocates of the Afrocentric Curriculum and the opponents
of the movement. To most of the proponents, it is logical and
ethical to give their students history lessons a broader scope
which is not totally Euro-centric in nature. For example, Morgan-Brown
states: “We think there is a large body of knowledge that
has been left out of the curriculum that will not only benefit
the African-American population but all students.” She agrees
that Afrocentricity has become an emotionally loaded term today
because it lacks a definition that everyone agrees with. She continues
to say that its supporters agree that a principal component of
Afrocentricity is the effort to increase the amount of information
taught in schools about Africans and African-Americans. She maintains
that adherents of the movement believe that the history traditionally
taught is not only incomplete but often inaccurate (Morgan-Brown,
1). According to Nobles, Afrocentric Curriculum represents the
concept of quality of thought and practice rooted in the cultural
image and interest of African and African-American peoples. That
is, it represents and reflects the life experiences, history,
and traditions of African and African-American peoples as the
center of analyses (Nobles,11).
One of the outstanding advocates of Afrocentricity, who has spoken
at length and has written more than thirty books about Afrocentricity,
is the Temple University Professor, Molefi K. Asante (Bailey-Mitchell,
2). He asserts, among other ideas, that Afrocentricity means treating
African people as subjects instead of objects, putting them in
the middle of their own historical context as active human agents
(Asante, 12).
Referring to his Imprint Books, published by the Peoples Publishing
Group, he states that by Afrocentric, he means that the African
American person is placed in the center of each book, and that
each book is written from within an African-centered perspective.
He states: “Centeredness seems to me to be a simple concept
in any intellectual enterprise, and Afrocentricity is an intellectual
philosophy which I first propounded and defined in 1980,”
(Asante, iv-v). To him, Afrocentricity means that the African
American is viewed as an agent, an actor in the story of history,
rather than a passive observer on the sidelines. It means helping
students discover how active the African person or idea is in
a given situation, narrative, illustration, or example. For example,
he says that we take care to explain to students that ancient
Egypt was called Kemet by the African people who lived there.
We encourage students to evaluate the use of words with Western
denotations, such as Classical, which too often implies a Greek
or Roman standard to the exclusion of all other cultures as though
others were inferior.
There are several critics of Afrocentricity among educators or
intellectuals who frown upon most of the reasons the advocates
provide for supporting the idea. For instance, Erich Martel questions
many of what he believes were false claims such as black people
coming to America before Columbus (Martel, 1). He argues that
many findings have not been scientifically supported or lack adequate
proof, and that the academic credentials of many Afrocentric writers
are in fields other than in the area of Black Studies. There are
other hard-liners, or those who are very antagonistic to Afrocentricity
that claim it will replace Euro-Centric curriculum and disrupt
the curriculum or the whole educational system.
One of the most talked about opponents of Afrocentrism, in recent
times, is Mary Lefkowitz who has talked, debated, and written
about what she considered the short comings of the movement. She
went to the extent of writing a book titled: Not Out of Africa,
in order to counteract the earlier texts on the subject such as:
Out Of Africa, Stolen Legacy, They Stole It But You
Must Return It, and others. In these texts, the authors argued
that most of ancient civilizations accredited to the Greeks and
Romans were actually African or Egyptian in origin. In her book,
Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach
Myth as History, she made some pronouncements that required
critical evaluation.
“What I find mystifying today is this increasing notion that
the primary function of education is to teach a student about
his or herself—and about people of exactly the same background.
What I object to is Afrocentric ancient history as it is often
taught which seems to me to be a political agenda imposed upon
the past—an agenda that doesn’t have much to do with factual
reality,” (Ringle, 2 & 4).
In order to support her claims in Not Out of Africa, she
maintained that there was no evidence to support the influences
of Egyptian philosophy, among others, on Greek’s civilization.
She also posed a series of questions which to African historians
seem very irrelevant to the issues of connecting the African civilization
to Afrocentrism. They include: “Was Cleopatra black or white?”
“Was ancient Egypt a black nation?” and “How much
contact was there between Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa?”
Due to time constraint, this is not the forum to discuss these
issues in detail regarding how much African History the author
of Not Out of Africa, really knows. It is not only surprising
but embarrassing to see someone refuting what the Greeks themselves
have accepted as facts of history over two thousand years ago.
Basil Davidson, the British author who has written over 30 books
about Africa, has this to say: “Previous European Scholarship
know that the foundations of European civilization derived from
classical Greek civilization. That scholarship further accepted
what the Greeks had laid down as patently obvious: ‘that classical
Greek civilization derived, in its religion, its philosophy, its
mathematics, and much else, from the ancient civilizations of
Africa, above all from Egypt of the Pharaohs. To those founding
fathers in classical Greece any notion that Africans were inferior,
morally or intellectually, would have seemed merely silly’ ”
(Davidson, xxii-xxiii).
Referring to the dispersion of peoples from the green Sahara and
Sudan, in about 5500 to 2500 BC., Davidson observes that those
were evidently the first African regions where early forms of
cultivation were practiced on any scale. He stresses that Egypt
was a especial case due to its proximity to the early farming cultures
of the Near East. He maintains that from the standpoint of African
development, Egypt clearly belongs to the Saharan Sudanese region
of the Makalian phase. He concludes by saying that Herodotus,
the Greek Historian, saw the matter clearly when traveling through
Egypt not long after 460 BC, for he had no difficulty in concluding
that Egypt’s cultural origin lay in continental Africa (Davidson,
14-15). In another instance, Davidson observes: “Most recent
evidence combines to show that the earliest developments in Egypt
derived not from Asia but from Africa; and the Chicago Oriental
Institute has lately produced strong grounds for thinking that
the earliest Pharaonic kinship likewise derived from the Saharan
regions” (Davidson, 27-28).
At this juncture, the pressing question that requires an intellectual,
unbiased, and forthright answer is on the reasons why African
and African American children need an Afrocentric Curriculum. The
African American (children and adults) have been derogatorily
described, defined, categorized, dehumanized, and so forth for
the past four hundred years or more. To make the situation worse,
such descriptions, definitions, categorizations, dehumanization,
and so on were bogus and without foundations or scientific evidence,
they have been accepted over the years up to the present generation,
as facts of history by many educators, intellectuals, and those
poor children who do not know their own history.
For centuries, African has been referred to by outsiders, particularly
the Europeans, as a land of mystery or the “Dark Continent.”
In fact, little was known about Africa, especially South of the
Sahara, because of the massive desert land, the innavigability
of most African rivers, and the inability of ships to dock on
most of the African coastlines among other things. Due to this
ignorance about Africa, the ill-conceived motives of slave traders,
and the greedy colonial masters, fantastic stories—mostly
stereotypes—includes the description of Africans as people without history
of their own, primitive peoples, savages, grown up children, witch
doctors and, above all, an uncivilized race of people. There are
several examples of such ignominious pronouncements but only a
few suffice for most educators and intellectuals to understand
the issues clearly.
George Hegel, the German philosopher, states: “Africa had
no history prior to direct contact with Europe. Therefore, the
Africans having made no history of their own, had clearly made
no development of their own. Therefore, they were not properly
human, and could not be left to themselves, but must be ‘led’
towards civilization by other peoples: that is by the peoples
of Europe, especially of Western Europe, and most particularly
of Britain and France,” (Davidson, xxii). The European explorer,
Richard Burton, projected the picture of an Africa, inhabited
by “grown up children” of beings who might be normal
when children, but regressed ever backwards once they reached
adulthood (Davidson, xxii-xxiii).
Those Europeans and the so-called missionaries were so desperate
to explain African’s inferiority that they turned to the Biblical
interpretation of Noah’s curse on one of his sons: “It must
be Canaan, your first born, whom they enslave … Canaan’s
children shall be born ugly and black, … Your grandchildren’s
hair shall be twisted into kinks … their lips shall swell.
Men of this race are called Negroes, their forefather Canaan commanded
them to love theft and fornication, to by banded together in hatred
of their master and never to tell the truth,” (Harris, 17).
It is gratifying to know that today, we have well-meaning and
right thinking educators, intellectuals, business people, the
media, and others from all walks of life, who recognized the damages
the myths and stereotypes have done to African descendants everywhere
in the world. Many believe that mere recognition of such negative
concepts will not do unless concrete, realistic, effective, and
workable educational programs are designed and implemented in
a conducive environment to teach the next generation of African
and African American children who they are before they are told
who the are not!
In his work, “Let’s Combat Stereotypes About Africa,”
Richard Corby maintains that such myths about Africa still abound
in American published materials and in the media. He is of the
opinion that these stereotypes and myths contribute to the “Tarzan”
image of Africa that many of the students develop about the continent
and retain throughout their life times. According to him, these
students cling to their misconceptions even when what they have
learned flatly contradicts the stereotypes they hold (Corby, 18).
In Training About Africa: Tradition and Change, the authors
expressed the view that it has become irrelevant to continue to
ask negative questions about Africa because the real issue is
not what Africa is or what it is not, but to initiate a process
of discovery about the continent (Voger & Downing, 2). Furthermore,
one is encouraged to know that the negativism and stereotypes
about Africa is not the concern of African and African Americans
alone in this country. Early in the present decade, about forty
journalists throughout this great nation, including academics,
and activities gathered in New York and Washington in discussion
sessions on a topic titled: “Africa and the American Media.”
The authors of the article made the following observations: “Americans
often clump together all of Sub-Sahara Africa as an undifferentiated
mass, and public image of Africa in general are mostly negative:
aids, starvation, corruption, dictatorship … a continent
of poverty and flies” (Ungar & Gergen, 4).
Being disgusted by lack of knowledge of Africa and the impact
of the poor image of the continent, they inquire: “Who Will
Take the Lead in Changing Perceptions?” To them, the media
have painted such an incomplete and bleak picture of Africa, the
U. S. government does not pay much attention, business will not
invest, schools skip over the subject, and the public turns away
(Ungar & Gergen, 5). After five days of discussions, interviews,
debates, and suggestions, the authors came up with six recommendations
they believe could improve the positive coverage of Africa and
its peoples. After emphasizing the significant roles television
and radio could play, they state: “Serious consideration
should be given to setting up an African Society along with an
African House in New York or Washington to act as a clearinghouse,
provide regular public dialogues, draw speakers, show films, and
the like, so that Africa is more in the mainstream of Americans’
attention and not relegated so often to the fringes,” (Ungar
& Gergen,16).
Through the greater impact is still at the Elementary level, there
is enough evidence, throughout this nation today, showing that
Afrocentric Curriculum has succeeded where it has been introduced
and implemented. The students who have been exposed to this program
possess impeccable attitude, show regular school attendance, and
demonstrate resounding academic achievement.
In a recent article, in the Kansas City Star, titled: “Such
Values Are Worth Instilling,” we are informed that the visit
of two foreign journalist from Nigeria, to Chick Elementary
School caused a bit of sensation not only in the way the kids
behaved but how they demonstrated their high intellectual capability
(Gurley, 8). Responding to one of the journalist’s question, Audrey
Bullard, the principal, states: “The African focus doesn’t
involve cutting any basics from the curriculum and it doesn’t
promote racism. We are placing African-American children at the
center because they have always been on the outside looking in.
We are not teaching superiority. We are teaching that all people
are created equal.” The reporter concludes by stating that
“That Africans had expected the children at Chick to fit
the stereotype of American youth as rowdy smart aleck. They were
surprised how well-behaved and respectful they were.”
The success of Afrocentrism is not unique to one city. There is
an avalanche of information from other cities that show the same
trend. In some Afrocentric schools in Philadelphia, for example,
between 400 to 500 young people are on waiting lists every year
at the close of enrollment (Bennett, 3).
At this point, I want to make my position abundantly clear to
say that it will be unrealistic on my part, or on the part of
any advocate of Afrocentrism, to claim that the program has no
problems or short comings. It is my candid opinion that advocates
of Afrocentrism based their claims on emotion rather than reason
and research finding. Some of the problems could be attributed
to over-simplification through the method of information dissemination,
and/or as a result of undue exaggerations of facts, ideas, and
issues without valid basis. An educator who is involved in such
unfounded claims defeats the fundamental objective of Afrocentrism
which is designed to right the wrong that has been in the field
of historical research on Africa for centuries. A simple but typical
and far reaching example, is the notion created in many African-American
children's minds that states, “I am from Africa, therefore,
I am a ‘King’ or ‘Queen’.” While it is true that
many of these kids have kingship or royal heritage, not all of them descended
from royal families. Traditionally, kingship in Africa is hereditary.
We should be cognizant that the mark of professionalism, integrity,
and magnanimity of a historian is seen and appreciated mainly
in his/her forthrightness, open-mindedness, objectivity, and unbiased
discussions and reporting of ideas, issues and, above all, facts
of history.
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate my convictions about
Afrocentrism, as I did during a recent interview at the University
of Missouri at Kansas City. I emphasized that with Afrocentrism,
sound discipline in schools is maintained, the dropout rate is
at its lowest ebb, and academic achievement is superb, and additionally,
that these kids are not headed for jail; they are headed for contributions
to better themselves, their communities and their nation at large.
As educators, if we are interested in joining one of the greatest and symbolic missions of our time-building the bridge to the Twenty First Century-the incorporation of Afrocentric Curriculum into our school system cannot and should not be compromised. ________________________________
Samuel A. Iyewarun was born in Odo-Ere, Kogi State, Nigeria and received his Ph.D. in education from the University of Missouri. He is an adjunct professor in the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri at Kansas City where he teaches Introduction to African History and Saga of Mankind: Africa in the Modern world. He also teaches World and African History, the Yoruba language, and African Culture at Southeast Magnet High School for Health Professions and International Studies.
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Bibliography
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