Education for a New Reality in the African World / John Henrik Clarke.

This presentation discusses basic cultural and educational values in the Afro-American community, setting these into the context of international African culture, both before and after the period of the European slave trade. Contending that blacks historically have been given "a second-hand education that was designed for other people," this keynote address further states that when servants are educated, they are educated to serve. Therefore, a new, self-reliant approach to education that encourages black students to rediscover, and take pride in, their African heritage is called for, in order to restore their confidence and identity. Contrary to a prevailing misconception, the Africans were a highly cultivated people for many years before their contact with the western world. The city of Timbuktu is cited as the cultural and intellectual center of West Africa, prior to the Moorish invasion in 1591. Accordingly, part of the "education for a new reality" involves teaching people of African descent where they have been and what they have been, and thereby to locate themselves, as a people, on the map of human geography. Education, when it is honest, has but one purpose: to empower students, and to train them to be responsible handlers of power. (TE)

Practitioners. ericd

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