Dr Ivan Van Sertima The African Presence In Ancient America part 1 of 5

Ivan Gladstone Van Sertima (26 January 1935 - 25 May 2009) was a historian, linguist and anthropologist at Rutgers University in the United States. He was noted for his controversial theory of pre-Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas.

Dr. Van Sertima was born in Kitty Village, Guyana, when Guyana was still a British colony; he remained a British citizen. He completed primary and secondary school in Guyana, and started writing poetry. He attended the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London from 1959. In addition to producing an array of creative writing, Van Sertima completed his undergraduate studies in African languages and literature at SOAS in 1969, where he graduated with honors. During his studies he learned Swahili and Hungarian.

He worked for several years in Great Britain as a journalist, doing weekly broadcasts to the Caribbean and Africa. In doing field work in Africa, he compiled a dictionary of Swahili legal terms. In 1970 Van Sertima immigrated to the United States, where he entered Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey for graduate work.

He began his teaching career at Rutgers University as an instructor in 1972. In 1977 he completed his master's degree. He was Associate Professor of African Studies in the Department of Africana Studies. As editor of the Journal of African Civilizations and author of numerous books, he has addressed topics in literature, linguistics, anthropology and history. He wrote several books in which he argued that the kings of the 25th Dynasty of Egypt were Nubians.

His 1976 book, They Came Before Columbus, was a bestseller and achieved widespread fame for his claims of prehistoric African influences in Central and South America. It was criticized by academic specialists.

Dr. Van Sertima also treated the topic of African scientific contributions in his essay for the volume African Renaissance, published in 1999. This was a record of the conference held in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 1998 on the theme of the African Renaissance. His article was entitled The Lost Sciences of Africa: An Overview. In it he presents early African advances in metallurgy, astronomy, mathematics, architecture, engineering, agriculture, navigation, medicine and writing. He claimed that higher learning, in Africa as elsewhere, was the preserve of elites in the centres of civilizations, rendering them very vulnerable in the event (as happened in Africa) of the destruction of those centers.

On July 7, 1987 Van Sertima appeared before a United States Congressional committee in opposition to describing Christopher Columbus's initial contact with America as a discovery, saying "You cannot really conceive of how insulting it is to Native Americans . . . to be told they were discovered".
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• they came before columbus

[skilled970]

I Plan to bring the truth to the children! Its a shame that all the nations in the world Know who we are except for us. I've matured to understand that Nothing Changes Unless Something Changes. It's CRAZY.. We'll sit and watch the the MTV music awards for two hours with our young ,but wont spend a half hour to teach them who their ancestors where. UN-BELIEVABLE!!!!

[spartacus3ful]

@rw120803

Brother, I am Greek, and openly admit that the Black Egyptians invaded and conquered Greece around 2600 BC. Paintings in Greece clearly show black skinned leaders supervising and teaching the light skinned native Greeks. Ancient Greek historians write of the "ebony skinned conquerors from across the sea". BLACK AFRICANS RULED OVER AND TAUGHT THE GREEKS, AND WERE BENEVOLENT CONQUERORS! And all their works were NOT destroyed, they are merely covered up by Eurocentrist fools.

[rw120803]

Great video!!!! i wish we had more brothas teaching the younger kids this