When I plan for the future, my thoughts eventually turn to Africa. I believe that slavery will be turned to the advantage of our future. The day will come when the continent from which my forefathers came will blossom into a paradise. I have a feeling that my ultimate freedom and my ultimate security are tied to the development of Africa. Of course, I have no intention of forsaking America, because America is my home, and I have helped to build her and shape her. But like the Jew and others who came to make this country what it is, I need an anchor in the past—a place my children can proudly call their ancestral home.
My citizenship is here. But a part of my spirit is in Africa, also. I envision a bridge from America to Africa over which, one day, my children and my Black brothers and Black sisters will move freely from one side to the other and back again. The Bible has said, “The day will come when Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hand again.” And I know that that day is coming. Though I shall not live to see it, the time is not far off when Black technicians, artisans, and craftsmen, by the thousands and tens of thousands, will visit a flourishing Africa, helping to mold that continent into a new greatness, glorious to see.
Now many despair to see the signs of hate and fear in the faces of little Black children in a world they do not understand. But I have great hope, for the living God is at work through men and events of these times in a million ways. I know we are going to make it despite those who do not believe and who think that I am living in a dream world. I know we shall overcome. With God’s help we are going to change the cries in our streets from “bum baby bum” to “build brother build.”
—Excerpt from Build Brother Build, by Dr. Leon Sullivan
The masses of tangled vines and creepers seem to be trying to smother away from sight, with a green curtain of Nature, the ugly, murderous works of forgotten generations.
—Hesketh J. Bell, Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, circa 1890
Originally, in planning and researching this issue, the editors of Jerusalem Viewpoint intended to recount how people of African descent have undergone one of the most agonizing and shameful episodes of human carnage and barbarity recorded in history. We wanted to emphasize and document the connection between our enslavement and our depressed condition in the present. But then we asked ourselves, for what?
In this “information age,” the educated and the uneducated African and African American have been exposed to these facts. They have read or seen Alex Haley’s profound work Roots, or the television essay The Africans, or any number of similar broadcasts. They have heard the angry, impassioned lyrics of innumerable “rap” music artists, detailing the pain of our past and present.
All too often, the result of reading these books, viewing these programs, and listening to this music was a momentary rush of anger aimed at Europeans, who were viewed clearly as the perpetrators or root of the problem. Sadly, for the overwhelming majority of us, there was no unyielding inspiration to change our condition.
What’s more, to our detriment, instead of rejecting European values and lifestyle, we embraced them—seemingly closing our eyes to what it has done to our lives. Coming face-to-face with this reality, the more compelling question became: how do intelligent people, who know they are in a harmful and life-threatening situation, not act decisively to save themselves?
In most cases involving crimes of captivity, whether it be kidnapping, terrorism, rape, torture, bondage, or murder, there is great empathy for the victim. This is especially true among psychologists who stress the need to look for and address post-trauma syndromes such as self-denial, self-hatred, self-destruction, guilt, and even identification with one’s captors.
The same would be true in the case of Africans and African Americans, who have been victims of the above crimes and suffer from all the aforementioned infirmities. But what we can do to shed even greater light on this issue is to explore the spiritual and prophetic realities of our captivity.
A thorough analysis clearly indicates that the tragedies which we have experienced reflect the trauma of which our people were warned in past captivities. They were the experiences of a people who would be “seasoned,” or severed from the instructions of God unto the lifestyle of another.
It is important to note here again that the use of the term “God” does not refer to religion, but to the keys, or building blocks, of a righteous society. These instructions were shared specifically due to their universal application; they were not limited to a specific people, but any people who chose to adhere to them would benefit. Likewise, any people that failed to do so would cease to be a strong, cohesive unit and could expect certain disaster.
We must not forget the mistakes of the past to ensure that they not be made again. It is no longer enough to simply be mad at white people and not seek new understanding and avenues to ensure that our past doesn’t repeat itself in our future.
“And I will scatter you among the nations, and will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste… And ye shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.” —Leviticus 26:33, 38
“But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day… The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from afar… a nation of fierce countenance, who shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young… And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships… and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for male and female slaves, and no man shall buy you.” —Deuteronomy 28:15, 49–50, 68
A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed… and a third part shall fall by the sword… and I will scatter a third part into all the winds and will draw out a sword after them.” —Ezekiel 5:12
For the grand total of slaves landed alive in the lands across the Atlantic, an eminent student of population statistics, Kuczynski, came to the conclusion that 15 million might be a rather conservative figure. Other writers have accepted this figure, though as a minimum; some have thought that probably the total was closer to 50 million, and others have believed it was higher than this. But the sum of all the slaves landed alive was not, of course, the total of those embarked. Many died on the dreaded Middle Passage. —The African Slave Trade, Basil Davidson
In his work African Glory, author J.C. DeGraft-Johnson wrote, “…during one such trip from West Africa, no fewer than 2,053 (slaves) died of the 7,904 slaves shipped… It is difficult to determine accurately the extent of the depopulation of Africa occasioned by the slave trade. The European slave trade, which began in 1444, continued for more than 400 years. During this period… millions died in Africa during and after their capture, or on the ships and plantations. These figures, though instructive, do not say anything meaningful about the people involved. The slave trade was people living, lying, stealing, murdering, and dying.”
Historian Frank Tannenbaum seemed to be writing from the parchment of Ezekiel when he stated in Slave and Citizen, “…it has been said that about one-third of the Negroes taken from their homes died on the way to the coast and at the embarkation stations, and that another third died crossing the ocean and in the seasoning, so that only one-third finally survived to become the laborers and colonizers of the New World.”
These anguished passages of the scriptures speak volumes in describing the horrors of the slave experience. Only a nation “of fierce countenance” could put on an exhibition like the lynchings eerily recounted in the April 23, 1899, “Lynching Extra” edition of the Atlanta Journal. The headline read: “Sam Hose is Burned, Chained to a Stake; 2,500 People Present.” The subheading continued: “Negro Fiend is Slowly Tortured amid the Yells and Shouts of a Great Throng of People. Every Contort of the Miserable Wretch is Watched by the Mob and Cheered to the Echo.” The text, splashed over the entire front page, spared no gory detail.
A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee; and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.” —Ezekiel 5:12
…it has been said that about one-third of the Negroes taken from their homes died on the way to the coast and at the embarkation station, and that another third died crossing the ocean and in the seasoning, so that only a third finally survived to become the laborers and colonizers of the New World.”
—Historian Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen
The terrible toll exacted upon the African world by this travesty of moral decency is virtually unimaginable and literally incalculable. Noted French and American historians, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Lerone Bennett, have estimated that 100 million African men and women died in the journey to the Americas. One hundred million! That is roughly three times the number of African Americans in all the United States today. That is equal to the total estimated population of the entire African continent during the era of the slave trade.
It is not uncommon to hear the learned quote the predictions and writings of men like Nostradamus, the 16th century French astrologer and physicist, or even contemporary prophets and seers, like Hal Lindsay, the author of the 1970s bestseller The Late Great Planet Earth. But men have been loath to recognize the prophecies of the Holy Scriptures in analyzing our plight.
Why? How can Nostradamus be greater than the ancient African Hebrew prophets who spoke of the enslavement of African peoples thousands of years ago?
It is important to note that the captivities foretold in the ancient scriptures were the direct results of the people having ignored certain codes of conduct which, if adhered to, would assure their continued prosperity and oneness. These guidelines were called the instructions of God specifically because the results of keeping them were the preservation of a people, their culture, and their righteousness.
To the colonized African or the enslaved African in America, these codes were protection against the “seasoning” process of the past, in which the African was changed from a man with a specific culture and lifestyle (or code of conduct) to a slave. According to the 1983 study by the National Leadership Council of African Americans, “seasoning” is only the historical antecedent to the more modern process of “deracination”—the separating of a people from their land, language, and culture. The impact upon the victim is the same.
Moreover, watching today’s newscasts about Africa, nothing seems more unrealistic or unlikely than the restoration of Africa and its people. Reports of war, tribal conflict, famine, and disease dominate the headlines. The predictable reaction to these stories is to destroy the idea that Africa might play a role in the redemption of African people. In essence, these reports are key elements in the continued “seasoning” or “deracination” process.
But think for a minute: if 100 million of the best and brightest Africans died in the Middle Passage, leaving a decimated population that was preyed upon for four hundred years, it is no wonder that Africa has suffered. Among those 100 million, and the others who landed to build the lands of our captors, were Africa’s doctors, Africa’s farmers, Africa’s teachers—the seed for the future prosperity of the continent.
It stands to reason that the resuscitating spark that will restore Africa and awaken its people will have to be that people who had weathered the captivity and all its attendant ills. There had to be a rehabilitative process for all the accumulated suffering and agony of 400 years of chastisement. An examination of the prophecies, which to this point have proven infallible in their accuracy, would have to reveal a redemption plan that will include key elements of the return and renewal of a people.
To know this is to be confident that we are rapidly reaching the conclusion of the pain endured by Africa’s children. Evidence that we are in a season of profound change, and the ultimate redemption of Africa and African people is at hand, can be found in recent statements by two African heads of state.
Last December, Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida told a visiting delegation of African Americans at the “World Conference for Reparations for Africa and Africans in the Diaspora” that Europe and America must compensate Africa for the untold hardships and exploitation that the continent and its people have been subjected to in the past. More importantly, Babangida called for the granting of dual citizenship to Africans in the diaspora.
These same sentiments were echoed by President Felix Houphouët-Boigny of Côte d’Ivoire. Speaking to more than 800 African and African American representatives at the African/African American Summit in Abidjan, April 14–19, the President was even more forceful in his pledge to bring down the barriers of slavery and colonialism, opening the doors for all Africans to reunite with their motherland.
Delegates to the Abidjan conference witnessed the historic naming of an African American firm as the official lobby and representative (in the United States) of an African country, when the Republic of Zaire signed an agreement with Chicago-based First Africa Group and the International United Black Fund of Washington, D.C. Signing the monumental pact before the conferees, Dr. Calvin Rolark, founder and President of the IUBF, stated, “This is what this conference has been all about—Africans and African Americans re-establishing the links that are going to bring Africa and its people into the twenty-first century and beyond, in strength, in oneness, and with God.”
To this glorious conclusion we again find reconfirmation in the prophecies which stated:
And He said unto Abram, know of a surety that thy seed shall be a sojourner in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.” —Genesis 15:13–14
THE INSIDE LINE…
The Process of African/Human Development
In a 1990 study, the United Nations Development Report on Human Development bemoaned the state of the African world. In terms of measuring “human development,” or “quality of life,” the 43 African countries surveyed ranked consistently at or near the bottom of the chart of 130 nations.
In essence, human development measures how effectively a people direct their resources to ensure the continued livelihood of its populace—the quality of life index. According to the report, African countries have:
- the lowest life expectancy
- the highest infant mortality
- the lowest literacy rate
- the least access to health care services
Interestingly, the report stressed that, contrary to most institutional studies, increased income alone is not the answer to improving human development. The investigators came to the conclusion that “economic and social well-being is not automatically linked,” meaning that progressive human development is possible without money.
That it would take until 1990 for these experts to come to this monumental conclusion is somewhat astounding. For, if one were to evaluate the condition of African Americans—where income rivals that of other western nations—it is easy to see the same trail of woes.
For example:
- In the U.S., African Americans have a lower life expectancy than whites, a reality that has led to charges that Black workers are financing the retirement of whites. More telling, Black males in ultra-cosmopolitan New York, America’s showcase, have less chance of reaching the age of 40 than do men in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, or Sierra Leone.
- In the U.S., African Americans have an infant mortality rate twice that of whites.
- Illiteracy plagues the African American community, as roughly two-thirds of adults and a lower percentage of teens cannot read above an eighth-grade level.
- In terms of income, some 12 million African Americans are life-long residents of the “permanent underclass.” In 1989, a National Black Health Summit in Washington, D.C. concluded that Blacks were dying at a faster rate than whites due in large part to not having access to health care facilities—just like Blacks in Africa.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the problems of African people are similar around the world, without regard to our economic condition.
This reality was acknowledged by African Hebrew spiritual leader, Ben Ammi, who wrote in the book God the Black Man and Truth that “the process of human development is tied fast to the quest for God.” He explained further that it is how each aspect of a people’s culture is linked to providing and enhancing life (or, in essence, the quest for God) that will determine the ultimate quality of existence or positive human development.
Using this simple standard, it becomes easy to see why income is not the most significant standard of measure. For example, a people’s dress is more often than not a telling statement of that people’s identity. Yet African Americans slavishly run from one “style” to the next as a means of expressing themselves. Whatever perverse fad or trend leaps from the minds of Europe’s “top” designers, no sooner does it hit the pages of the leading fashion magazines than African Americans immerse themselves in it.
What was to be a method of reflecting beauty and righteousness has become something more brazen and risqué. It therefore becomes easy to see the distorted values and attributes aspired to when one sees young Black girls proudly wearing the latest skin-tight, micro-mini skirt with matching bra-top, and young Black males paying huge fees for “pre-ripped” (full of literal holes!) denim jeans.
Or, for example, when a people’s music—an important element of culture—reflects and celebrates the glory of righteous living, family, and respect, then those become the attributes which are valued in their social setting. Likewise, when that music glorifies immorality (“I Want to Sex You Up”), promiscuity (“Do Me Baby”), then these will be the characteristics reflected in that society.
It is no wonder then that, in 1981, in newly-liberated Zimbabwe, the most popular music group was named “Wells Fargo” (after an American western icon) and performed American tunes dressed in glittered spacesuits—the society reflected the problems of Black America.
It is understandable then, the arrogance exhibited in Insight magazine when, in a March 1991 article, it declared, “Love it or Hate It, America Is King of Pop Culture.” In its summary, the magazine stated:
“Many may not like America’s politics or military prowess, but millions the world over surely love its way of life. Whether through food, music, or clothes, culture American-style can be found in some of the unlikeliest places. Indeed, sometimes the ways of foreigners become even more American than the ways of those in the States…
Few in the Third World (though perhaps a few more in Cambridge, Mass.) wear T-shirts emblazoned with the pictures of Fidel Castro or Che Guevara. Millions, however, sport Mickey Mouse on their chest… Whatever disagreements Third World peoples may have with what some see as Yankee military imperialism, their love of things American blazes on undiminished… I think we can talk about absolute American hegemony in anything ranging from music to clothing to food—lifestyles in the broadest sense.”
Reading this passage leaves no doubt that the African world, and virtually all humankind, is at a crossroads. The process of human development is clearly the progression of man’s upward evolution toward his higher (true God) spiritual nature. If one stops, the other is halted automatically.
In our quest for our true God, we must have ethical education, ethical music, ethical eating habits, ethical politics, ethical clothing, and ethical economics. When we look back and critically examine any facet of today’s modern society, we readily see how far off we have gotten in our quest for God and, of course, our process of human development.
In our diligent quest for God, we keep God alive in our midst and assure our positive development for successive generations.
