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 Afrocentric theory of pre-Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas. He was born in Kitty Village, Guyana, when Guyana was still a British colony. He remained a British citizen.

Education

Ivan Van Sertima 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 Kiswahili legal terms. In 1970 Van Sertima immigrated to the United States, where he entered Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey for graduate work.

Career

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 black 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.

Other books by Ivan Van Sertima & The Journal of African Civilizations (15):

Other Writings

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.

“You cannot really conceive of how insulting it is to Native Americans . . . to be told they were discovered.”

Criticism

Van Sertima’s work has been criticized by academics for making ill-founded Afrocentric claims. A 1997 Journal of Current Anthropology article criticized in detail many elements of Van Sertima’s 1976 book They Came Before Columbus. The book had not earlier received a thorough professional academic review. They stated that in claiming African origins for prehistoric Olmec culture (in present-day Mexico), Van Sertima had ignored the work of Central American researchers. They stated no evidence of a prehistoric African influence or presence had been found in controlled archeological excavations in the New World. The reviewers also wrote that Olmec stone heads only superficially appear to be African and did not resemble the Nubian populations which Van Sertima claimed as their originators. They ruled as “fallacious” his claims for the diffusion of pyramid building and mummification. Additionally they accused Van Sertima’s cultural outlook of being disparaging to Native American achievements. Van Sertima wrote a response to be included in the article (as is standard practice) but withdrew it because of the journal’s policy that reprints must include the entire article and would have had to include a response (written but not published) to his response. Instead Van Sertima replied to his critics in another publication.

In a New York Times 1977 review of Van Sertima’s works, British scholar Glyn Daniel labelled Van Sertima’s work as “ignorant rubbish”, concluding that the writings of Van Sertima (and Barry Fell, whom he was also reviewing) “give us badly argued theories based on fantasies”. Dean R. Snow, a professor of anthropology, in 1981 wrote that Van Sertima “uses the now familiar technique of stringing together bits of carefully selected evidence, each surgically removed from the context that would give it a rational explanation”. Snow continued, “The findings of professional archaeologists and physical anthropologists are misrepresented so that they seem to support the [Van Sertima] hypothesis.”

In response to Glyn Daniels’ review, Dr. Clarence Weiant, who worked in Mexican archeology for the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution, and who participated in the excavation of the first giant heads in Mexico, wrote to the N.Y. Times that Dr. Ivan Van Sertima’s work represents six or seven years of meticulous research based upon archeology, egyptology, African history, oceanography, astronomy, botany, rare Arabic and Chinese manuscripts, the letters and journals of early American explorers and the observations of physical anthropologists. Dr. Weiant said that he’s convinced of the soundness of Van Sertima’s conclusions. In 1998 Dr Van Sertima countered Journal of Current Anthropology criticisms [although a reference to this cannot be found].

Family

Van Sertima retired in 2006. He died on 25 May 2009 aged 74. He was survived by his wife and four adult children.

His widow, Jacqueline, said she will continue to publish the Journal of African Civilization and plans to publish a book of his poetry.

===

Information courtesy of wikipedia.

Related posts:

1. Antenor Firmin: Haitian Scholar and Anthropologist who predicted Barack Obama's Presidency over a century ago
2. Nell Irvin Painter: Author, Artist, Historian who recently released “The History of White People”
3. Zora Neale Hurston: Folklorist, Teacher, Anthropologist

Anténor Firmin (1850-1911) was born and educated in Haiti. He studied law and held several political offices before being posted as a diplomat to Paris, where he was admitted to the Societé d’Anthropologie de Paris and wrote De L’Égalité des Races Humaines. He was a Haitian anthropologist, journalist, and politician. Firmin is best known for his book De l’Égalité des Races Humaines (English: On the Equality of Human Races), which was published as a rebuttal to French writer Count Arthur de Gobineau’s work Essai sur l’inegalite des Races Humaines (English: Essay on the Inequality of Human Races). Gobineau’s book asserted the superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of blacks and other people of color.

Firmin’s work argued the opposite, that “all men are endowed with the same qualities and the same faults, without distinction of color or anatomical form. The races are equal” (pp. 450).

It is a substantial work of early anthropology that presaged in the 19th century most of what became accepted anthropological science about race in the 20th century. It is also an early work of Pan-Africanism that highlighted the civilizational achievements of African cultures, from ancient Egypt and the Nile Valley countries of Sudan and Ethiopia, to the first ‘Black’ Republic of Haiti, as evidence of the fundamental equality of African peoples.

One hundred and fourteen years later, this is the first appearance in English of Firmin’s trailblazing work in Anthropology and Pan-Africanist thought.

Born in Cap-Haïtien, Firmin worked in teaching, politics, and diplomacy. He founded Le Messager du Nord, a political and literary publication.

He later returned to Haiti and served as minister of finance, commerce, and foreign relations.

Known as the Haitian Scholar who predicted Obama’s Presidency over a century ago, Antenor Firmin is believed to be the first anthropologist of African descent.

Antenor Firmin wrote about the day when Barack Obama would become president of the United States in a book he published in Paris back in 1885 De l’Égalité des Races Humaines (English: On the Equality of Human Races).

Here is what Antenor Firmin said in the chapter “The Role of the Black Race in the History of Civilization”

Appearances to the contrary, this big country is destined to strike the first blow against the theory of the inequality of the human races.

Indeed, at this very moment, Blacks in the great federal republic have begun to play a prominent role in the politics of the various states of the American union.

It seems quite possible that, in less than a century from now, a Black man might be called to head the government of Washington and manage the affairs of the most progressive country on earth, a country which will inevitably become, thanks to its agricultural and industrial production, the richest and most powerful in the world.

These are not utopian musings. We only have to consider the increasing participation of Blacks in American society to cast aside our skepticism.

Besides, we must remember that slavery in the United States was abolished only twenty years ago.

Although not much is printed in english about Antenor Firmin, we found a bit more information about him thanks to a gentleman by the name of Bob Corbett.

• Firmin, Joseph-Antenor. Journalist, author, lawyer, cabinet minister, rebel and a Haitian exile in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. In 1905, he published a book, M. Roosevelt, president des Etats-Unis, et la Republique d’Haiti. The theme of the book is that Haitian had nothing to fear from the United States unless the Republic fell into anarchy, in which case intervention might be welcome. Haiti could escape that experience through reform, he said.

• Firmin had formerly been Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Hyppolite and successfully fought off U.S. efforts to acquire a naval base at Mole-St. Nocholas.

• Firmin believed that the executive power should be the servant, not the master of the state, that class divisions should be eliminated, and that the rural masses of Haiti should be brought into Haitian society.

Read here for more from Bob Corbett’s notes.

Selected Works:

• De l’Égalité des Races Humaines – published 1885
• Haïti et la France – published 1891
• Une Défense – published 1892
• Diplomate et Diplomatie – published 1898
• M. Roosevelt, Président des Etats-Unis et la République d’Haïti – published 1905
• Lettres de Saint-Thomas – published 1910

Related posts:

1. Alondra Oubre: Medical Anthropologist
2. Zora Neale Hurston: Folklorist, Teacher, Anthropologist
3. Ivan Van Sertima: Historian, Linguist, Anthropologist, and Author

Dr. William H. Harris first served as Alabama State University‘s (ASU) president from 1994 to 2000. His commitment at that time was to transform ASU into a comprehensive regional university through excellence and diversity. Under Dr. Harris’ leadership, the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture, Business and Technology Center, and Center for Leadership and Public Policy were established. New degree programs in health information management and occupational therapy were introduced, and graduate programs in accountancy and physical therapy were created.

In 2008, Dr. Harris once again took the helm as president of the University, introducing a new vision to transform ASU through excellence in teaching, research, service and a diverse population. Many of the changes included in this vision already have begun, including extensive campus expansion and renovation projects, a reorganization of the university’s structure and significant advances in technology, including the implementation of a new ERP system and university website.

Education & Career

Dr. Harris has had a long and distinguished career in higher education. He is among few academicians who have contributed to their fields of study and who have served the higher education community as the CEO and president for both public and private post-secondary institutions.

After completing the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Indiana University, Dr. Harris began his professional career at Indiana University as an assistant professor of history. He rose through the ranks to become professor of history and concomitantly served as associate dean of the Graduate School and director of CIC Minorities Fellowships Program. He was also a Fulbright Professor and Visiting Professor of History at the University of Hamburg (1977-1978) in Germany.

As one of the youngest college presidents ever appointed, Dr. Harris led Paine College during the period 1982-1988. He subsequently led Texas Southern University (1988-1993) and later Alabama State University (1994-2000); all successful appointments. He left retirement briefly in 2005-2006 to serve as interim president of Fort Valley State University and Texas College in 2008.

Awards

Dr. Harris has earned numerous awards and distinctions, including being named a Distinguished Son of Fitzgerald, Ga., his birthplace, one of 10 individuals so honored during the City’s Centennial Celebration; recipient (with his wife, Wanda) of a Trustees Special Leadership Award from the Paine College Board of Trustees; recipient of the Paine College Alumni Association Charles G. Gomillion Award; recipient of the honorary Doctor of Letters and Laws degree from Paine College and the Doctor of Humanities degree from Tuskegee University; recipient of the Trustees Special Service Award from Paine College and recognition by Indiana University with the Distinguished Alumni Service Award, the highest honor an alumnus can receive from the university.

Dr. Harris is also designated as one of the Fifty Most Influential Black Georgians. Dr. Harris is the author of two books: Keeping the Faith: A. Phillip Randolph, Milton P. Webster, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, published in 1977 and reissued in 1991 by the University of Illinois Press; and The Harder We Run: Black Workers Since the Civil War, published in 1982 by Oxford University Press.

Related posts:

1. [HBCU Presidents] Horace Mann Bond: 1st Black President of Fort Valley State College & Lincoln University
2. [HBCU Presidents] Dr. Horace A. Judson: Grambling State University
3. [HBCU Presidents] Dr. Andrew Hugine: Alabama A&M University