BY ALEM ASRES • DECEMBER 14, 2008
One of the leading African American poets of his time, Countee Cullen, wrote a poem asking,
"What is Africa to me?" Today, more than a half-century later, I am compelled to ask, what is
Africa to Western civilization, to America, and especially, to African Americans? To answer these questions, one needs to dig deep into the past and connect the findings from ancient and contemporary documents with the new discoveries taking place in Africa today.
Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. Africa is incredibly diverse in topography, cultures, religion, and languages and has a fast growing population of more than 900 million people. It is not "a new world like America or Australia."
Yet, Africa, with all its rich cultures and ancient civilization, remains hidden from most
American citizens.
Today, upon objective examination, we are discovering that Africa has produced great empires, kings, pharaohs, queens, educators, scientists, philosophers, poets, religious leaders and great warriors. The pyramids in Egypt, 109-feet-tall obelisks carved out of single solid rocks in
Ethiopia, the ruins of numerous castles and cities found throughout Africa, all testify to the presence of an advanced civilization before the coming of Europeans and the rise of the Greco-
Roman civilization.
Greek and Roman historians never denied the existence of advanced civilization in Africa or the source of their own civilization. Ancient Greek and Roman scholars and classical writers spoke about African civilization, and admitted that there was active exchange of scholarly works between them and Africans, especially Egyptians.
We are told that Plato, who is credited with laying the philosophical foundation of Western civilization, studied under an Egyptian priest. History tells us that following his conquest of
Egypt, Alexander the Great handed over the Egyptian library to Aristotle.
As for the source of Greco-Roman civilization, Sir Arthur John Evans, the most famous British archaeologist, tells us that "all civilization came to Greece from Egypt," and the Greek historian
Herodotus declared, "This civilization was Negroid." A famous French traveler and writer, Count
Volney, was quoted to have said: "To think that a race of black men who are today our slaves and the object of our contempt is the same one to whom we owe our arts, sciences and even the very use of speech." Why then, such a glorious past of Africa and its people has been, and continues to be, hidden from most Americans, especially from African Americans?
The systematic denial of pre-colonial African civilization and the degradation of people of
African origin began with the advent of the slave trade and the colonization of the African continent by European powers. The colonization of North America and the demand for slave labor intensified both the denial and the dehumanization of the slaves in America.

What the colonizers and the slave masters had in common was oppression, exploitation, dehumanization and disempowerment of their victims. Thomas Jefferson had these in mind when he wrote: "Blacks are inferior to whites in the endowment of both body and mind" and therefore, incapable of creating civilization.
Maya Angelou, an American poet, articulated eloquently what Africa meant to her and thus to
African Americans in general this way: "Africa to me…is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place."
Knowledge of the past is essential to explaining the present and to paving the road to the future.
Imagine how difficult it would be to plan for your future without knowledge of your past.
Imagine what it does to African Americans who were born, raised and schooled in America and were told that their ancestors were an uncivilized bunch of savages without culture and civilization.
The continued denial of the African role in the development of Western civilization by most of our educators and institutions of higher education compelled George G.M. James to declare:
"The so-called Greek Philosophy is stolen Egyptian philosophy" and "all the praise and honors given to the Greeks and Romans by western writers belong to the people of North Africa, and therefore to the African Continent."
The purpose of this article is not to insist that our scholars and our institutions of higher education replace the Greco-Roman civilization with the African civilization or to ask them to apologize for their denial of the African contribution to Western civilization. Rather, my belief is that equitable and inclusive education is the only means available to us in reconstructing a new history and to closing the knowledge gap among our citizenship concerning Africa and the
African contribution to our civilization.
As a parent and as a very concerned citizen, I am appealing to our historians and our institutions of higher education to stop denying African contribution to Western civilization and to stop marginalizing Africa and the people of African origin.
If we want Africa to embrace America with open arms and open minds, and if we want to prepare our youth for global citizenship, we need to re-examine with an open mind and recognize
African contribution to all areas of human endeavor, including, to Western civilization. Not to do so will deprive our citizens the knowledge needed to be active and welcomed members of global society which includes Africa.
Alem Asres is director of college diversity at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. E-mail: aasres@nwtc.edu