(Previously published, in the historic but now-defunct Birmingham World, established in 1930 and Alabama’s oldest Black weekly, in its February 15-21, 1996 issue)

Contrary to popular belief, African (Black) people are not a minority; they are majority on the world scene. Totaling over one billion people world-wide, they are arguably, to paraphrase the late world-renown Black scholar-activist and historian Dr. John Henrik Clarke, the most widely-dispersed people on the face of the globe.

Geographically, that means that there are over 250 million African (Black) people in the Western Hemisphere (40-50 million plus in North America, roughly 160 million plus in South America, with over 60 million of them alone residing in Brazil, not to mention the other million or so Africans or Blacks who live within and around the Caribbean area); nearly 800 million or more Africans (Blacks) in Africa; in excess of 250 million Black people in India known as the Black Untouchables; countless millions of Blacks throughout Europe (Spain and Portugal, France and Germany, among other countries there), the so-called Middle East (especially Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq), the rest of Asia (Russia and China, Cambodia and Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines, and, say some experts, even Japan), and the Pacific Islands, most especially Melanesia (“the Black Islands”), which include the Fiji and the Solomon Islands. 100,000 plus Blacks, commonly known as the aboriginal (“the original”) Australians, still live in their native land of Australia, although under many horrible conditions. Of course, the above numbers do not include by any means the untold millions of blacks globally who have are “passing” for either European (white) or Asian (yellow) or Hispanic (brown and which is not a race but which describes, in general, a Spanish-speaking person or a someone who comes from a Spanish-speaking country) or anything other than African (Black).

Despite any of their differences (whether geo-political, socio-economic, religio-educational or otherwise as the Honorable Marcus Garvey, the late leader of the greatest Black mass movement in modern history, has so wisely pointed out) those one billion plus Africans/Blacks world-wide have been collectively designated by this writer as “the African World Family” (AWF). They are such because they share at least two most important things in common: 1) a common African ancestry and 2) a common oppressor—white (European) and yellow (Asian) supremacy. Those two items alone, but most especially the former, are the Samsonian strong adhesives that keep the AWF Herculeanly bound together. They do so by forcefully casting aside the AWF’s petty differences, as mentioned above, while simultaneously emphasizing its profound similarities—that of a common African ancestry, along with common problems and solutions associated with it globally, and a common oppressor(s).

Like all human beings, all members of the AWF have a common African ancestry. This is true because both human life and human civilization were first started with and by Africans (Blacks). That occurred many millennia ago in Africa, the Motherland and world’s richest continent, which gave birth to the world’s first people (Africans/Blacks) and the world’s first civilization (African civilization).

The above points are extremely significant because they point out two major aspects of history—humankind’s and civilization’s earliest beginning. What they point out, as a whole, is that Africans were the world’s first people, are its oldest people, and all other people came from them. It vividly states that African civilization was the world’s first civilization, is its oldest civilization, and all other civilizations came from it.

In more graphic terms, Africans (Blacks) started the human family and the world’s first nations and empires. As the noted Black scholar Ivan Van Sertima, among others, has documented, Africans were the first to create and control fire (not the Gieco caveman); the first to domesticate (tame) plants and animals, a necessity for a permanent food supply and stationary settlements; and they were the first to create and to give to the world a calendar, mathematics, astronomy, the alphabet, paper, ink, pen, geography, literature, art, surgery, religion, the marital arts, and the Egyptian (African) pyramids, which were dually designed by African minds and built by African hands. Such ideas and skills were dispersed throughout the globe by Africans thousands of years ago when they migrated from Africa to populate a world that was otherwise void of human existence.

Due to the environmental conditions of the places where they eventually settled, Africans (Blacks) began to undergo both physical and psychological changes. Physically, in both Europe and Asia, their black skin began to whiten- or yellow-out, and they took on the physical traits that prolonged their life in their “new” homes. As the noted Black historian Chancellor Williams and others have pointed out, in general, their mental and/or spiritual ties with Africa eventually began to weaken. As a result, when the Asians and Europeans in tandem returned to Africa, their ancestral home, centuries later, they came, in general, not as twins showing affection towards their “mother” (Africa) and her people (Africans) but as a dynamic duo of destruction, dividing and conquering, raping and pillaging, and using the interchangeable, lethal swords of military force and religion to justify the their physical, mental, and spiritual enslavement of Africans and their continent, then as now, the world’s richest.

Regrettably, those same things seem to persist today, as both China, with its 1.2 billion plus population, and Japan, a greatly minerally-scrapped island, already have and continue to invest heavily in Africa to access its greatly untapped resources located there, that they both need. Europe and America’s interest in Africa also seems to be at an all-time high, especially when it comes to the fact that not only does Africa have the word’s greatest percentage of diamonds and gold but also chocolate and needed items for the manufacture of cell phones. Simultaneously, the war-torn African nation of the Sudan (Arabic for “land of the Blacks”) is not only viewed as the heart-wrenching backdrop for one of modern history’s greatest acts of genocide (reportedly involving Africans and either Asians (Arabs) or Africans who have chosen to be Arab but not African and engage in the slaughter in their people). That country, Africa’s largest, is also said to be the location of millions or maybe even billions trillions of dollars of untapped oil, the best in the world.

In short, Africans worldwide must stop the senseless fighting among ourselves. Instead, we must put aside our petty differences and emphasize our profound similarities. In short, wherever African people may be, as simple as it sounds and as difficult but not impossible as it may be to realize, “United we stand and divided we fall”. And, sure, we may have our differences, but they should never allow us to overlook our obligations to the other (1) billion plus member of the African World Family. Those obligations include:

1) studying, preserving, and promoting African World History on a global scale

2) using that knowledge to instill within ourselves and our people a greater love for ourselves and a better understanding of our status (strengths and weaknesses) worldwide

3) using that knowledge to improve the condition of African people the world over by creating a network of knowledge and addressing in person, print, and otherwise concrete and doable ways, to improve the plight of African people both in a short- and long-range way.

No, doing so, does not involve preaching hate for would-be nay-sayers. In the spirit of the Honorable Marcus Garvey and those before and after him, the key is preaching and teaching, saying and showing love—love for our beautiful African selves, love enough to work with and not against each other, to help and not harm each other, to respect and not disrespect each other, and to throw the giant gorilla of oppression, both near and far, off our backs, and stand ramrod straight as new-born women and men both willing and able to protect and to provide for and love ourselves and defend ourselves against those among and outside of us who would seek to stop us from doing otherwise.

Read Part 2

BC Columnist HAWK (J. D. Jackson) is a priest, poet, journalist, historian, and African-centered lecturer and a middle school teacher and part-time university history instructor. Click here to contact HAWK.

will publish again on January 11, 2007