The key to understanding ourselves and each other is education. Perhaps, with education will come a tolerance for cultures that differ from our own. Prejudice and racism, even the subtle kind, is hinged on a lack of knowledge, and like the familiar adage says, the people perish for lack of knowledge.

“The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality” by Cheikh Anta Diop

Cheikh Anta Diop, a Senegalese Egyptologist, makes the case that both mankind and civilization started with Black people. His book argues that ancient Egypt was largely Black African in race and culture during the first 2,000 years of its existence.  Before Diop, the world believed that ancient Egyptians were not Black and that the great Egyptian civilization that gave so much to the world, could not have come from dark brown-skinned Africans.

“Developmental Psychology of the Black Child” by Amos N. Wilson

Are there any significant differences in the mental and physical growth and development of Black and white children? What effect does race awareness have on the mental and personality development of Black children?  Why do Black children generally score lower than other children on IQ tests? Do Black parents socialize their children to be inferior to white children?

If you have been looking for a single source that answers these questions from a Black perspective, then this may be the book for you. “The Developmental Psychology of the Black Child,”  the first of a series of books about the growth, development, and education of the Black child, is written in a scholarly but understandable way and forthrightly confronts these and other issues.

“The Mis-Education of the Negro” by Carter Godwin Woodson

The premise of Woodson’s 1933 book is that African-Americans of his day were being culturally indoctrinated, rather than taught, in American schools. This conditioning, he claimed, caused African-Americans to become dependent and to seek inferior positions in the greater society of which they are apartHe challenges his readers to  “do for themselves,” regardless of what they were taught.

Woodson wrote: “History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.”

 

“The Autobiography of Malcolm X” as told to Alex Haley

Through his life of passion, commitment and struggle, Malcolm X became one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century. In this riveting account, he tells of his journey from an American prison cell to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, while also describing his transition from hoodlum to Muslim minister. An established classic of modern America, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” is still extraordinary and important and has transformed Malcolm’s life into his legacy. The strength of his words and the power of his ideas continue to resonate more than a generation after they first appeared.

“PowerNomics” by Claud Anderson

“PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America” is a five-year strategy for transforming Black America into a prosperous and empowered nation that is self-sufficient and competitive.

 In this book, Anderson obliterates the myths and illusion of Black progress and gathers data from many sources to construct a framework for solutions to the obstacles facing Black America. He also proposes new principles, strategies, and concepts to show African-Americans an alternative way of processing racial issues.  The book offers guidance, insightful analysis and action steps that Black people can take to redesign core areas of life – education, economics, politics, and religion – to better benefit the race.

“Blueprint for Black Power” by Amos Wilson

This text details a master plan for a power revolution necessary for Black people’s survival in the 21st century. Wilson posits that an African-American – Caribbean -Pan-African economic and political bloc would be the best solution for the generation and delivery of Black power in the United States and the world to counter white and Asian power networks.

“The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey” by Jacques Garvey

This book is a collection of thoughts, speeches, essays and commentary by Marcus Garvey, the first Black leader in history to gain massive support from Africans and African descendants all over the world.  The book stresses that black people have to build their own institutions and organizations to look after their own interests, just as other races have their own institutions and organizations.

 “The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey” was first published in two volumes in 1923 and 1925, and quickly became a celebrated apologia for the leader of the largest Pan-African mass movement of all time.  Garveyites refer to it as their bible.

“The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors ” by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing

After the culmination of over 20 years of research and analysis based in part on the treatment of African-Americans in her private practice, Frances Cress Welsing probed the symbols and practices of the white supremacist system to reveal the psychological dynamics of racism.

The book reveals fascinating insights on such topics as the relationship between Black children and their parents; AIDS and its threat to Black Americans; and the crisis in Black male and female relationships.

Her unraveling of the network of fear embedded in such European symbols and practices as ball games, money, gold, guns and even the white Christ-figure, will force readers to examine their own participation in a system of racial violence and negation.

“The Wretched of the Earth” by Frantz Fanon

Martinique-born Frantz Fanon presents a brilliant analysis of the psychology of colonized people and their path to liberation. With singular insight into the rage and frustration of the colonized and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of post-independence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other.

First published in 1961, “The Wretched of the Earth” has had a major impact on civil rights, anti-colonialism, and Black consciousness movements around the world, and a 2007 translation by author Richard Philcox reaffirms it as a landmark.

Fanon’s masterful work is a classic that stands with Edward Said’s “Orientalism” and “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

“Yurugu: An Afrikan-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behaviour” by Marimba Ani

Marimba Ani removes the mask from the facade and reveals the inner workings of global white supremacy – a system that functions to guarantee the control of Europe and her descendants (the few) over the majority of the world’s people (the many).

It is a devastating critique that uniquely focuses on the intellectual and cognitive rules by which the system of dominance operates: the assumption and ascendance.

 Ani has written the first bona fide textbook from an African-centered framework that focuses on European consciousness, European worldview, and its global system of racial domination. This book is an original, scholarly comprehensive and thorough analysis that lays out in systematic detail, the historical development and pattern of European world domination, its core structures, and key expressive components.

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