The present work is a sincere attempt by several people to provide a comprehensive listing of African-Centric sources that outline and detail what we consider vital elements of the African presence in world history. In this effort there is also an attempt to acknowledge those writers who have for a long time been contributing to the general rewriting of world history. Most of these writers, but not nearly all of them, are continental Africans or members of the global African community. While some of these works will be difficult to find, not readily available, or out of print, we should at least begin to familiarize ourselves with some of the names and the texts of many of the men and women who have advanced and made possible the current level of African-Centric scholarship. At the same time, however, many of the sources that we have listed are quite recent and easily obtainable.
The bibliographic listings are the centre of this work. The commentaries are included only to help introduce and supply for the bibliographies an effective framework. Obviously, this is not a complete bibliographic listing, and future editions of the publication shall contain numerous additional entries. Indeed, we invite and encourage our readers to constructively critique the publication, to question each entry, and to supply us with the references that we have innocently omitted. At the moment, however, we are earnestly trying to fill a void, and are confident that we are moving in the right direction.
Not slave but master: The first section of the work concentrates on the African presence in antiquity. Our readers should not bother to look in this section for listings on the African as a servant and slave of other peoples. There is no shortage of sources available on that subject, and this has not been our focus. Admittedly, the African, like other peoples, has been a bondsman. The African experience as bondsman, however, is only a very limited and limiting portion of our total historical experience. Instead of the stereotypical and over-exaggerated African slave, savage and primitive, we have consciously chosen to list those sources that pertain to what Ivan Van Sertima has referred to as “That Other African”. This is the African that we have chosen to identify and emphasize. This is the African that first peopled the earth. This is the African that gave birth to, or significantly influenced, the world’s oldest and most fundamental cultures and civilizations. This is the African that entered ancient Asia, primeval Europe, and the early Americas not as slave, but as master.
In the second section of the work, we have endeavored to list the major African-Centric studies that focus largely on the contemporary Affixoid presence among the Dalits (the Black Untouchables of India), and the Black populations of Australia and Oceanica, particularly Melanesia.
The Dalits (Untouchables), who are probably the most oppressed people on earth, are engaged in a desperate and fundamental struggle for basic human rights.
The Koori (Australian Aborigines) are fighting to stave off physical and cultural annihilation. The Kanaks (Melanesians) are battling for national liberation against aggressive and ruthless colonial powers. We maintain that these populations form critically important, but insufficiently known aspects of the global African community.
The following preface is reproduced from the forthcoming book from our American representative who is a noted Black historian in view of its relevance to India’s untouchables human rights struggle and underline the need to rewrite the existing brahminical history of India. Just as a great Black revivalism is currently going on in USA, we too must have a Dalit revivalism.
