African World History Project: "The Preliminary Challenge" by Jacob H. Carruthers

"The "Preliminary Challenge" of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization's (ASCAC) African World History Project (AWHP) is designed to provoke African-centered scholars to develop a basic tool for the liberation of the African mind. Most African historians trained in foreign universities have been shackled with non-African theoretical frameworks, historiography's, and methodologies. While we should avail ourselves of any methods that benefit our project, we should first seek African ways of thinking and searching before embracing foreign epistemes, which we may not need and which may in fact defeat the objectives of the project." While the effort of constructing an African Centered Historiography that is linked to the Nile Valley Civilizations "goes back at least to the last decade of the eighteenth century, the project was perhaps best articulated by David Walker in 1829. Walker's instruction was followed by African nationalists leaders throughout the nineteenth century. Martin Delany, Henry Garnet, Edward Blyden, and Henry Turner all emphasized the Nile Valley connection. The theme was raised to a higher level of relevance by Cheikh Anta Diop and George G. M. James in their 1954 publications." "Thus the African revolution which would liberate the African body and mind was firmly linked to a classical African past. The history of our present undertaking can be traced directly from that historical context. This volume sets a precedent of letting the African conversation unfold as we attempt to forge a consensus on methodology for our intellectual endeavor." Jacob H. Carruthers Download Link

7:02 AM