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4,000 Years of African American History

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Introduction

The dark continent?
Hollywood and the classroom
The surprising number of existing sources

Ancient Africa

Cities and City-States in West African Antiquity
The Great Sahara Desert as a sea and its southern coast

Western African Origins

What we will cover

PART 1: The Empires of Gold

(present-day countries of Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Guinea, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and Guinea Bissau).

Tichitt and Walata (2000 BC-500 BC)

What we know and what we don’t know

The Big Dry

Mema (500 BC – 800 AD)

Mande society, the first Niger Valley cities, and iron technology
Mande traditional religion

Djenne-Jeno (250 BC – 1100 AD)

City of Iron and blacksmiths

Mande Society Development During the Big Dry

Foundations of an Empire
Mande Government Structure
Mande Traditional Religion
Mande Society: Structure and Social Classes
Land Nobles: Farmers with land rights
Craftsman Guilds: Hereditary trades of faith
Servant Class
North Africa during the Big Dry

Ghana Empire (300 AD – 1200 AD)

The Mande build an empire.
Gold for salt and riches
Islam as a balance
Takrur: Fulani’s first Islamic West African kingdom
An Arabs’ detailed description of Ghana
The griots and the power of the orator

Mali Empire (1200 AD -1670 AD)

Collapse of Ghana
Susu conquest
Rise of Sundiata Keita (A Lion King)
Battle of Kirina in 1235 AD.
The Manden Charter (a constitution)
Mali expansion and security

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Food and industry
Imports and Exports
Rise of an international West African economy
Mansa Musa
Written first hand accounts of Mali

CITIES OF THE NIGER RIVER

-City of Timbuktu

Books, Universities, and the intellectual class (like Boston)
First hand accounts

-City of Djenne

Manufacturing and trade center (like Detroit)

-City of Gao

The Songhai people
Military and Administrative center (like Wash DC)
First hand accounts

Songhai Empire (1375 – 1591 AD)

Decline of Mali
Sonni Ali the Great and Terrible
Military and naval conquests
Askia the Great
Infrastructure, taxes, and trade
The Mossi

THE AKAN KINGDOMS OF THE IVORY AND GOLD COASTS

Bono Kingdom (1000 AD)

An economy connected to Ghana, Mali and Songhai
Akan societal structure
Matrilineal patriarchy
Akan royal structure
Akan religion
Other Akan kingdoms

Birth of Asante (1650-1701 AD)

Legend of Osei Kofi Tutu I

PART 2: Ancient Nigeria and Lake Chad Kingdoms

(present day countries of Nigeria, Benin, Chad, northern Cameroon and eastern Niger)

ANCIENT NORTHERN NIGERIA

-What about Egypt and Nubia (The Afro-Asiatic)

Legends, linguistics, and DNA; what we know and what we don’t

Gajiganna – Zilum (1800 BC to 400 BC)

What we know

Sao Civilization (500 BC-1500 AD)

Afro-Asiatic City-states

Kanem-Bornu Empire (700 AD)

Old nomadic religion
New Islamic kingdom
Conquerors of Fezzan
Trade with Ghana and Egypt
From enslavers to enslaved
Invaders of Sao and influencer of Hausa

Hausa Kingdoms – Kano (700 AD)

Afro-Asiatic city-states evolve
Part of the Mali West african trade network
Between Songhai and Bornu
Specialized city state economies
Migrations in and out
Enter the Fulani
Southward to Yorubaland

CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN NIGERIA

Ancient Nok of Central Nigeria (1000 BC)

Civilization of iron and terracotta

YORUBA KINGDOMS

Ile-Ife (City of the Gods) (800 AD)

Legends and God’s
Yoruba urban development systems
Paved streets and courtyards
Surplus agriculture economy
Food production
Glass manufacturing
Trade within the West African economy
Government and Royal structure

Benin Kingdom (1180 AD)

Sons of Ile-Ife
Edo urban development
First hand account

Oyo Empire (1400 AD)

Hausa, Europe, and the economy
Oyo Government structure
Oyo Military
Expansion
Sin against Ile-Ife

DEMOCRACIES OF THE IGBO

Igbo-Ukwu (850 AD)

Archeological ties to Ife or nok

Nri Kingdom (948 AD)

Kingdom without an army
Theocratic but Kingless
Igbo Religion
Government structure and the power of the orator
Economic, social, and gender mobility
Freedom to choose
Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
Igbo’s place in the West African economy

PART 3: The End of the Golden Age: Europe comes to West Africa.

The fall of Constantinople

The scramble to get to India and China
Pope gives power to conquer and enslave
Portugal lands in Senegal
Battle of Tondibi and the end of Songhai

Slavery in Western Africa

Slavery, or servitude, or both
What changed when European needs shifted

West African trade with Europeans

European kingdoms fight each other for access to Africa
African kingdoms fight each other for access to Europe

Bambara Empire (1712 AD)

Mande traditional religion prevails
Invasion of the Niger Valley
First hand account
Bambarans on slave ships

Wolof and Futa Jallon Kingdoms

Theocracy, Jihad, and slave ships

Asante Empire (1701 AD)

Consolation of the Akan
End of the gold trade
Guns for captives
War with Everyone

The Kong Empire (1710 AD)

Diverse Empire at war

Dahomey (1600 AD)

War with Oyo and others
Male king, female soldiers
Slaves for guns

Aro Confederacy

Democracy falls, fear prevails
Slaves for guns, guns for slaves

Part 4: Congo-Angola Kingdoms

(present day Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Congo, and Gabon)

Ancient Congo Basin

The Bantu Migration

The Kongo Kingdom (1400 AD)

Kongo goes Christian
King Alfonso I
Angola a threat
Divide and conquer
Vita Kempa Joan of Arc

Kingdoms NDongo and Matamba (1600 AD)

Queen Zinga
Portuguese need more slaves

PART 5: The Middle Passage (1500 to 1820 AD)

FROM AFRICA TO NORTH AMERICA

Senegambian Coast
Windward Coast
Gold Coast
Bight of Benin
Bight of Biafra
Congo/ Angola

ARRIVAL IN NORTH AMERICA

Georgia/ South Carolina

Mande, Wolof, Fulani
Why they hate the Igbo
The Gullah

Virginia/ Maryland

Why they love the Igbo

Southern Louisiana

Bambara, Yoruba, and Congo

PART 6: U.S. Domestic Slavery

1776 Slave Economy under the US Constitution

The making of an American slave

Africa and Africans surviving in America
Africans in the American slave economy
Work songs, shout songs, call and response, and the orator
The planter-class elites and the “American Dream”

Slavery Expands

New slave states
Cotton becomes king
Planter-class elites create a slave confederacy
Texas causes of secession
BLACK CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS. Fighting for their own independence

PART 7: Emancipation and the Great Migration

Reconstruction Era 1865 until 1877

Freedman’s Bureau
Radical Black Republicans
Gospel music, and the blues. The new Groits
The new African Kingdoms: The Church 1865-1895
Sharecropping and economic options
Jazz: African-Americans fuse African and European classical music 1912

Black Settlements

Mound Bayou, Mississippi 1887
Oklahoma Black towns from 1865 to 1920
Harlem, New York 1867-1917) and the Afro-American Realty Company

First Great Migration

The Klansman as the new American Hero
WWI – jobs and Black soldiers
RED SUMMER
Chicago
Atlanta

New Black immigrants

Caribbean

PART 8: The Second Great Migration 1941 to 1970

Migrating North

After the Great Depression,
WWII creates job opportunities and housing shortage
Government subsidized suburban White patriarchy
Redlined out of wealth

Moving West: Los Angeles

Hollywood and self-identity

The Civil Rights Era

MLK the Griot and orator
War on Poverty
Vietnam War and the other Opium crisis (Heroine)
White Flight.
Economic integration and the death of a Black owned economy.
Government subsidized urban Black matriarchy

PART 9: The NEW Great Migration 1970 to 2000

Black Poverty

HIP HOP: the new griots
Crack-cocaine epidemic and war on drugs
Welfare state, Incarceration, and the reduction of the Black Patriarch
The “Inner-city”: get out, or get lost in it!

Growing Black Middle-Class

Black Flight and suburban integration
Growth of majority Black suburbs
Back to the South and Sunbelt
Black women outpace all others in education

After 2000

The Great Recession

Near collapse of the Black middle class
Gentrification comes for the “Inner-city”
Black political power fades with population shifts.

Rise in Activism

Black Lives Matter
Buy Black owned

Conclusion

African America – A Powerful Nation

Donate $16 to this project and immediately download the first three chapters