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The
movement to implement an appropriate African Centered Curriculum in
predominately African in America inner city schools is critical to
the on–going struggle for the liberation of African people in
this country. We must continue to demand that the truth be taught as
we continue to struggle to build the Reparations Movement in America.
This
movement has now become popularly known as the African Centered
Education Movement. Simple stated, it focuses on teaching the
truth concerning the contributions of African people to the
development of civilization in all subjects. We must to heighten the
dialogue concerning the importance of this movement, particularly as
it relates to the question of reparations.
Throughout
the country, Africans in America are now becoming more sensitive to
challenging the racist and white supremacist basis of the African
public school curriculum.
Through
the National Black United Front (NBUF) and its world African Centered
Education Plan, more Africans in America are beginning to see the
need for massive curriculum change in the public schools of this
country and the youth must take leadership in this project.
There
is not a day that goes by that someone does not call my office
seeking information and help on how to start the process of changing
the curriculum in their school. Parents are becoming more and more
dissatisfied with what their children are being taught. They are also
beginning to realize how much isn’t taught.
It
is clear that the public school system is the place where African
America children receive a significant portion of their view of the
world and the history of the world. And, it also is a place where
large numbers of African in America youth are miseducated under the
system of white supremacy through the ideas and interpretation of
history that is presented to them.
Let’s
turn to Carter G. Woodson’s great book, The Mis-education of the Negro to get some further insights into
this problem. Woodson observes “the so–called modern
education, with all its defects, however, does others so much more
good than it does the Negro, because it has been worked out in
conformity to the needs of those who have enslaved and oppressed
weaker people.”
For
example, Woodson says, “The philosophy and ethics resulting
from our educational system have justified slavery, peonage,
segregation and lynching. The oppressor has the right to exploit,
to handicap, and to kill the oppressed.”
Continuing
on Woodson explains that, “No systematic effort toward change
had been possible for, taught the same economics, history,
philosophy, literature and religion which have established the
present code of morals, the Negro’s mind has been brought
under control of his oppressor.”
Concluding
on this point Woodson states, “The problem of holding the
Negro down, therefore, is easily solved. When you control a man’s
thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.”
Therefore, it is
inspiring to see so many of our people waking up all over America
and seeking the truth concerning the real contributions of African
people to the world. Through study groups, conferences, Black talk
radio, information network exchanges, African Americans are coming
into a new African consciousness that seeks to reclaim the African
mind and spirit.
Through
the Portland Model Baseline Essays, the work of the Kemetic
Institute, the Association for the Study of Classical African
Civilizations (ASCAC), and other writings and curriculum materials,
Africans are becoming much more aware of the following points that
must be incorporated into the curriculum.
1. Africa is the home
of early man.
2. Africa is the cradle
of modern man.
3. Africa is the cradle
of civilization.
4. Africa once held a
position as world teacher including the teacher for the western
world.
5. There was and there
still is a continental wide unity in Africa and in the African
communities around the world.
6. The first time
Africans left the continent was not on slave ships.
7. Africa and African
people all over the world have been under siege for nearly 2000 years
and only recently by European slavery and colonization.
8. There is an African
Diaspora all over the world today.
9. African people have
resisted domination on the continent and all over the world.
10. Even under slavery,
colonization, segregation, apartheid, African people have made
monumental contributions to arts, science and politics.
These
ten points, and others, have become the basis upon which we can judge
the white supremacy public school curriculums content in textbooks
and other learning materials.
In
other words, these points have become the basis of determining
whether the truth is being taught in the public schools of this
country. In seeking the truth about the Reparations Movement, join an
organization that is working on this great, just, and mighty issue.
The
Truth will set us all free!
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