The African in me is a nonfiction novel on a few narratives of African history from when the continent was great to how it lost almost everything to the outside world. It also includes how the continent can be great again. The reason I thought of writing this book was because I believed that the history of Africa is either hidden, erased, misinterpreted or whitewashed. This has kept the people of Africa in the dark for a long time. It is what has prevented an awakening; for if someone knows of how great he can be then you cannot keep them under servitude.This is a book that talks of a land that was inhabited by a royal and intelligent people. People that gave birth to the world's greatest civilizations. These are stories that most Africans do not know about, it is because they have never been told to them. The stories have been intentionally hidden from us. On the contrary, we have been told of a primitive people of whom their entire existence has been branded as a shortcoming of nature. That is a lie! Africans have had a great history. Despite facing a ruthless world, we have always found meaning in life, we saved humanity from being consumed by the fires of barbaric acts. When the world was acting inhumanely, our freedom movements brought sanity, we showed the world how diverse humans can coexist.The darkness about our history is what we should be ashamed of, not that of our skin for it is said that the darkest thing in Africa is not our skin colour but our ignorance about the continent. So where did the rain start to beat us?
This research has been mainly through watching documentaries, reading books, and attending history webinars, especially from the onset of Covid-19 where almost everything was done online. In this phase, is when I came across professionals in the history field. I began reading from Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, Chancellor Williams, Dr. Henrik Clarke, Rudolph R. Windsor, Prof. Ivan Van Sertima, Prof Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, only to mention a few. I listened more to Prof. PLO Lumumba, Minister Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, and Bob Marley. All these master teachers aimed at rewriting the true history of Africa. The history that had been whitewashed or misinterpreted was now been written in its truthful form. After having a story worth sharing, I began jotting this book. A book to pass down what I had learned from my elders in the field. The story had to get to every African home so I decided to rewrite it in a simpler form that would be readable to everyone including those not yet interested in history. It was the knowledge that the master teachers spent all their entire adult life revealing to us, exactly what gave me a wake-up call.
The African in me is a concerned individual. A person agitated by the current state of Africa and Africans even though it is true that we are the most blessed. He constantly challenges me with tough questions like; when did the glorious past disappear? When did we detach our African identity? With all the natural wealth, why is Africa poor? Talk of the mineral deposits, fertile lands, diverse wildlife, etc. These types of questions invoke a war in our minds. A person seeking the answers is always faced with conflicting ideas, whether to believe in the lies we have been raised with or choose the new path of truth. I chose truth, to be a conscious African. When people live under lies for too long, the lies become a norm to them. It makes up their beliefs. Anyone who wakes up to challenge their thinking now becomes the threat. This is the state we have been as Africans, a state of always fighting the African in us. The good news is that the person is a hero. The African never dies, he lives to tell his story. She lives to make her presence felt.
Here's the story, a story of how adorable, noble, intelligent the African is. I hope you will fall in love with him and find inspiration from her. The African is you and this is your Story. You were at a point world masters.