Black Activist wants more knowledge of Black History

Georges wants more knowledge of Black History

Black History activist and enthusiast, Franklyn Georges, has stated that it is necessary to have increased knowledge of Black History through the “re-educating of our children.”

Speaking at a ceremony to launch the observation of Black History Month on Wednesday morning at the Roseau Public Library, Georges said he is pleased that Dominica continues to uphold the values of Black History.

“It is a great pleasure after all these years to see Black History is taking roots in Dominica, because without the roots all trees would die,” he said.

Georges encouraged Dominicans to “take a step back and do what you have to do,” when it comes to retrieving history that pertains to blacks, and to do so through the children.

“Citizens, Countrymen, Dominicans, I ask, please let us start re-educating our children. We educate them, when they’re finished the first thing they want to do is fly away. Let us give them some sense of staying home, building and doing what they are doing,” Georges remarked.

He said to those gathered that his family has made the decision to assist students through scholarships under the condition that an essay must be written once a year about Black History.

Georges explained that the conditions of the scholarships pave the way for students to be engaged and become knowledgeable in their Black History.

“If I could get one to do it, imagine here. Give a child a scholarship and give them the same skills and donations together. Imagine we are not teaching Black History at schools, or in the community or anywhere…” he said.

He reiterated that the children must be the main target in keeping the existence of Black history and its commemoration alive and well.

“Parents, educators, activists, please let us recapture, reclaim, rebuild. Let us do that with our children because, without the history, there is no roots,” he remarked.

He called for a recapturing and empowering of the children and giving them “something meaningful that they need, have to hold, and must carry on.”

The theme for the celebration of Black History Month 2017 is “Liberty Lost, Freedom Won.”

Activities for the day included a ceremony and a book exhibition showing various black writers, which brought the event to an end.

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15 Comments

  1. The Baptiste
    February 4, 2017

    Mr. georges being a activist and historian, should take objection at been described as Black rather than an African.
    We talk a lot about colonialism and the evils of western religion, yet we continue to use the term invented by the Christian west to define and describe people of African descent. As a historian, Mr. Georges should know that even in English history, and in older empires people were Celts, Saxons, Highland Scotish Irish, Ulster Scottish Irish, in older civilizations, there were Romans, Ethiopians, Greeks, Jews, Gentiles, etc. There never was white and/or black to define persons. It was the introduction of African slaves that brought that terminology, in an effort to distinguish the poor Ulster Scottish Irish, who were slaves , but were called indentured servants.
    The arrival of the Africans created a risk for the masters, fearing that their economic conditions being the same they may just join forces against their masters, hence the need to identify and give…

  2. out of south city
    February 2, 2017

    Brother Georges, I applaud this great undertaking. No other race will teach our story like us. We are a great and resilient people even though we have been demonised, by those, who still today, pillage, kill, steal, rob and plunder. Our story is second to none and we need not be ashamed to talk about it. It is incumbent upon us to teach, especially the young, so that they, in turn, will continue the legacy. However, we should not wait to do so at a specified time but continuously. Since we have been ordered and dictated to do things, we need to break the trend and have our own thing going. We need to rise up and erase the damage that has been done to our mental state and and take a stand against oppression and white supremacy. We MUST paddle our own canoes because no one else will.
    Continue the work which has been started until the truth resonates in our psyche. Liberation from oppression starts in the mind.

    HOTEP (PEACE)

  3. zandoli
    February 2, 2017

    I applaud the effort, but I think we need to be talking about the issue from January to December – not just in February which like carnival, will be forgotten in March.

  4. Massacre.
    February 2, 2017

    Very good topic that we should all learn and continue to be proud of our history. So many young Black kids are not proud of their Blackness just because they do not know our history. These sort of awareness and activities , serves a very important role to teach our kids about themselves.
    We Black People are not what the historians and politicians are making us to be. We came from the Middle East and walked across the Sahara Desert all the way to west Africa. It is written in the Bible when the invading forces over powered the Canaanites , they had to flee to avoid total capture. ( In more detail next time) So Africa is not our original land. We do have civilization and a rich culture.
    Many of our history are hidden in the belly of the Vatican.
    The anger to suppress Black people is not normal, there is a much bigger ideology behind the hidden agenda. One day Black People will regain its rightful place in the world. So tell our youths to be proud of their Blackness.

    • out of south city
      February 2, 2017

      Massacre, there is some substance to your comment but our story did not originate in the Middle East. What is the Middle East? In the middle of what? That term was coined by those who separated the rest of the continent form North East Africa, (hence the Middle East). The Suez canal was dugged and completed in 1869. That was for political purposes, especially for the control of oil.
      Also, the king james bible has a lot of allegories and metaphors and is very confusing to one’s mind. When we know our story, then there will be no need for the bible, which was copied from the Egyptian coffin text. Every thing that we have been taught was taken and twisted from our story to HIS-tory. We have a story that is second to none but because a lot of us do not know, we tend to believe what has been taught, which are based on lies and deceit. No other race will tell and teach our story but us. In other to acknowledge our story, we have to get rid of these lies ad deception.

      • Annon
        February 5, 2017

        Yeh, Massacre means well, a bit confusing but well intentioned. I always wondered why the continent Africa was excluded from the all bible text. However, history teaches us that the same king james who ordered the last revision circa 1710 was himself preoccupied with the enslavement of one-half of Humanity at the time, the whole continent of Africa. Thus ordering the omition with the intention of achieving this end we have today. He was a beast, evil. :twisted:

  5. Warsaw
    February 2, 2017

    The places from which the slaves came seem to have been various. It is possible to ascertain this through colonial records preserved in Dominica, where data regarding the arrival of boats to the island seems quite complete, indicating not only the different ports where slaves embarked (and in some cases the ethnic groups to which they belonged) and the date of their arrival at the island, but also the number of enslaved people on board these boats and the number of those who survived the journey to reach Dominica.[2] Based on these records we can affirm that the majority of slaves came from the Bight of Biafra,[3] both from present-day south-eastern Nigeria (Igbo, Ibibio) and coastal Cameroon.[2] They made up 62% of the slaves imported to Dominica. Slaves from the Bight of Biafra numbered more than 57.000 in Dominica.[3]

    The rest of the slaves came from the established ports in what is now Senegal.

  6. John Jules
    February 2, 2017

    If 40,000 slaves from Biafra which is a Black Hebrew Israelite people were taken to Dominica, then our roots were from Nigeria and to a larger extent Israel. Other sub groups of slaves were from Angola, Yoruba and the Ewe tribes. These were only slave ports as our people were taken across the sahara desert to the west by Mohammedan tribes aka Arabs. We are not originally African we are of a Shemitic branch which caused a major uprising and thats why they dumped such a large number on the island and we are still warlike in our behaviour today. The spirit never rests.

    • out of south city
      February 2, 2017

      John Jules, why is it that we always try to find a way to refrain from identifying with Alkebulan (Africa)? That has been our problem which was created by the slave masters. Please read the Willie Lynch Letter, “The Making of A Slave.” So if Africa is the birth place of civilization and every other race descended from the African why is it we are not really Africans? We are always eager to identify with another race except the original people.
      We should be proud of our race and we should wear our black skin as a badge of honour and not be ashamed or want to associate with someone else. Why is it that some people cannot endure sunlight? Have you ever thought of that? Someone once said, “if the sun is against you, then you were not meant to be here.”
      Let’s not be ashamed of who we are as a people but rather, let’s be proud and find out more about who we really are so that we will be able to teach our children and their children after them.

      UNAPOLOGETIC

    • John, let me ask you one simple question; if you know what you are talking about. My question to you is this: Is Nigeria in West Africa?

      Think carefully before you answer, because all of the black people brought to the America’s and the West Indies during slavery came from West Africa. If true Black history has to be taught, it cannot be distorted with lies and innuendoes.

      If you said every ethnic group of people alive derive from Black people, you would have made more sense, because that would be true, since it has been proved scientifically, but that what you wrote cannot be substantiated at all!

      Be informed since the discovery of human deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) every life on earth has been trace back to Namibia in Africa. So think about and conclude if your theory is right or wrong. And unless you are trained in health science, and know plenty of human biology, don’t even bother to argue with me!

      • out of south city
        February 3, 2017

        My brother Francisco, I agree with you 100% on this piece of information, especially as you stated, “if true Black History has to be taught, it cannot be distorted with lies and innuendoes.” The Busmen, or San people of Namibia, are the original people of Alkebulan. It is incumbent on us as a people to be eager to learn about our story. I know that the time to be ashamed of being called an African is over. As African ascendants, are ashamed because of the terrible past which our ancestors encountered. We are the only race of people who always want to be grouped with another race and not our own. This rich story must be taught at every school where African students attend. I would like to share these great African scholars with you, if you have not yet known about them. Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Josef Ben Yochanan, Dr. Marimba Ani, Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, Booker T. Coleman, Dr. Leonard Jeffries, Phil Valentine, Dr. Amos Wislon, Dr. Laila Afrika, Ashra Kwesi, Tariq Nasheed,etc.,

      • Some of the names you mentioned sounds familiar; however, to be honest with you I am sort of limited on sound Black history, the reason I know that every human alive came out of black people, and life itself originated in Namibia is due to me perusing a medical degree, hence I had to major in Health Science, which caused me to become involve in human biology: Human Anatomy & Physiology.

        As a result I became involved in genetics from where I derive my knowledge in regards to tracing the origin of humans through deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to Nabibia. We cannot throw our old ancestors under the Buss, because they knew who they were, and were not ashamed to be African. They were beaten into subjection not to even mention the name Africa. If you review the movie Roots, you will get an idea of where we could with this.

        In any event the colonial masters who dominated us long after slavery was abolished did a fare amount of brainwashing which seems to be affecting many back people…

      • Finally:

        In any event the colonial masters who dominated us long after slavery was abolished did a fare amount of brainwashing which seems to be affecting many back people today even some intellectuals in Dominica! Do not hesitate to put your knowledge and ideas out there because people learn from other people! This might be a very good forum to begin.

        Let it be understood that only the descendents of Slaves were somewhat ashamed of their ancestry. One of the reasons is that religion played a roll in this thing when the use the Bible to convince a bunch of illiterate to believe we are inferior to white people, what they did not teach that Black people were the power dating back to ancient times: The word Egypt means Black, and we know the ancient Egyptians were great scientist, and I can prove that; nevertheless we are limited here with space. I’ll only say many of the Pharaoh were black kings! Remember the Bible teach that Moses learnt from the Egypitians!

      • Annon
        February 5, 2017

        Great insight from ‘out of South city’. I will add to the list of must-read books: STOLEN (greek Philosophy Is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy) by Geoge G.M James. Should be A must-read for our schools!

      • out of south city
        February 7, 2017

        Hi my brother, It is indeed an open door for you to learn about our story at a greater extent, coupled with the scientific knowledge that you have acquired. Since were were the first, every form of discipline that we now know originated with us. The credit has not been given to us by those who seem to be in control but our story tells us so. Our ancestors left us the blueprints (hieroglyphs), inside the pyramid walls in Egypt.
        On a yearly basis, Brother Ashra Kwesi visits Egypt with many visitors, so that the evidence can be witnessed first-hand.
        Brother, our story is so vast that sometimes I wonder, do we really know what or who was first?
        Sometimes I don’t accept things at face value. I let my imagination do its work. I’m glad that you mentioned king james. You are sure right that he was also engaged in the slave trade. (The bible, which was copied from the Egyptian coffin text, was altered and filled with allegories, myth, metaphors and lies.) Do your researching…

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