Erica J and I had the most interesting conversation in one of her chats, it was completely off-topic from the original conversation. However, it leads to us discuss collection of books I have collected for my personal journey to understand my past and the African story along with the books she is reading and she is on her own journey to finding truth. I will be sharing the books that challenge the narrative that is told by Euro-centric teaching whether it is schoolbooks written by the daughters of the confederate or taught by scholars from the “age of enlightenment.” I look forward to future chats & collabs with Erica, because it appears we both have shared interest in sci-fi and anime.

In college, I minored in history with an emphasis on African history. Some years down the road, I wish I had bitten the bullet and majored in history, with a minor either in sociology or anthropology. My true interest is at the intersection of those disciplines. However, you live, and you learn and grow from the choices you make.
As I mentioned in Know Thyself. I am an avid consumer of knowledge, I am currently learning about the various methodologies of homeschooling and the various Pedagogies that exist, and what method along with what pedagogies are best suited for my child’s learning style. I am a firm believer that we are capable of learning anything if we are interested. but the subject I find myself coming back to every time is history.

Africa is the cradle of humanity and the origin story of all civilizations. If you are questioning the geopolitics of this age, look back at Africa. It all points back to the motherland, and the arms of the woman who nurtured her younglings until they were old enough to crawl, walk and run. Africa was the land where human curiosity began. We left the shores and began to explore the world around us. Whether that was to climb a mountain, go west young man, go west, or discover the eastern shores of India.
The “age of enlightenment” will all have us believing that knowledge was not discovered, until the greek city-states. Egyptians were not Black because Black folks cannot be that smart and it had to be aliens. That the great wall in Zimbabwe was built by either Europeans or aliens. Ok, stop, breathe, I am not going down that bunny trail today, we can stomp a devil or two another day.

I have learned to utterly hate western civilization classes, because it isolates the history of western Europe from the rest of history and you look at history through the lens of western Europe, without considering what the rest of the world was doing at the same time. Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas froze in place until the 1500s waiting for western Europe to come,rape, steal, and pillage their different villages and communities. It changes the lens from seeing the world as an interconnected ecosystem to a history that immortalizes the villains as heroes and the rest of the world as barbarians, stuck in ancient history waiting to be brought to the modern era.
Today I want to share with you the books I find the most value in and have been scooping up one by one, I currently own 3 of 8:

The General African history books by UNESCO.
When: in 1964 UNESCO commissioned the writing of this encyclopedia set primarily written by African Scholars about Africa.
Why, Purpose of creation:
- Rectify the general ignorance of Africa’s history.
- The challenge consisted of reconstructing Africa’s history, freeing it from racial prejudices ensuing from the slave trade and colonization, and promoting an African perspective.
Who Created: UNESCO facilitated the collaboration of over 230 leading African & non-African scholars to cooperate on this work for over 35 years. This project was overseen by an International Scientific Committee which comprised two-thirds of Africans.
What is the Content:
- There are eight volumes with three more volumes currently in the works on
- General History of Africa covers the entire continent of Africa
- Shares the history of Africa from a pre-colonial period
- Highlights the Global presence of the African Diaspora on other continents including Asia, the Near and Middle East, and those Diaspora in the Indian Ocean.
- Highlights Africa interconnected of Africa to other continents
- Highlights Africa’s contributions to humanity, culture, and the progress of humankind
- Includes maps, illustrated data, and images
- The text is fully annotated, and there is substantial bibliography and index (facts are wrapped up airtight)

Remember at the very beginning of the article I shared with you that I minored in history with an emphasis on African history. I also shared that these books were released in the 60–80s. I went to college from the late ’90s to early two thousand. THESE BOOKS WERE NEVER mentioned to us as a reference for research papers or assigned material for the class.
I took over 2 and 1/2 years of classes to fulfill this minor and electives. Almost EVERY book that was assigned was written by a “scholar” of European descent with a euro-centric lens. I discovered these books due to my own inquisitiveness, about a particular author and he was one of the listed authors in this gift to us. If you value TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE, and UNDERSTANDING, I believe you will find value in owning this set of encyclopedias.

These are my Thoughts,
Shanté
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