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Rating: 
Summary: 5-Hour, 4-CD Audio Book read by the authors
Review: Book Description
Endorsed by Bill Cosby, Julius Erving, Ben Carson, Joe Frazier, Tony Evans and many others, these pages are filled with the glorious historical and contemporary contributions of black people. Beginning with a careful documentation of how God entrusted people of African descent with the initial development of civilized societies, this book then directs its readers on a magnificent tour of life in America through the triumphant stories of contemporary African-American men. This 5-hour, 4-CD Audio Book is esigned for busy professionals and also for those who have a hard time reading. Don't forget that there is also a powerful 45-minute film version and a 184-page book. About the Co-Authors
Joel A. Freeman, Ph.D. has served as chaplain for the NBA Washington Bullets/Wizards since 1979. As president of the Freeman Institute consulting firm, Dr. Freeman conducts team building/leadership/cultural diversity initiatives for churches, corporations, U.S. government agencies, and the leaders of other nations. Joel and his wife and family live in Maryland. Don B. Griffin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Lafayette College. Don conducts seminars of practical Christian living as well as pulpit ministry. He is also the top human resource executive for a $350 million corporation in the metro New York area. Don lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and son.
Rating: 
Summary: A little good with a lot of bad
Review: If you are already an Afrocentrist, you'll like this book. If you're not, you'll probably find it partly amusing and partly offensive. It is a book for kids and is written at a very elementary level. It is not a scholarly book by any means. It takes snippets from other Afrocentric authors such as Yosef Ben Jochannan, Chancellor Williams, Diop, plus some other sources, many of which are biblical, and compiles them into very short chapters to make a book that can be read, cover to cover, in an hour or two. One of the more frequently cited references for this book is Chancellor Williams and his book "The Destruction of Black Civilization," a work of almost complete fiction that claims, among other things, that there was such a thing as an "African constitution," that Napoleon ordered the nose of the Sphinx blown off with a canon, that Napoleon initiated a "cover-up" about the supposed blackness of ancient Egypt, and that white people went around chipping the supposedly Negroid noses off the Egyptian statues (one could make an equally specious claim about, say, black Cushites chipping off the Caucasian noses, with equally little evidence). None of that is true or remotely supportable, to put it mildly, and is itself a rewriting of history, but even so Williams goes on to compile a list of tactics supposedly used to obscure the achievements of black people, tactics employed in fact by Afrocentrists almost to the exclusion of all else. First on that list is this (cited by the authors): "Ignore or refuse to publish any facts of African history that would not support their racial theories." Of this tactic, the authors are eggregiously guilty, as are Afrocentrists in general. They start with a false assertion,i.e., that the "average man on the street" would not know that Egypt is in Africa. There's probably no one of remotely average intelligence with at least an elementary school education that does not know where Egypt is, but the authors asserted otherwise, as they also assert that "African" must equal "black," (a tactic employed by Joel Rogers wherein he claims that any ancient of note on the continent of Africa must have been black). Africa is not now and has not been monoracial for a very long time, and certainly "African" does not always and everywhere mean "black," but again, the authors cling to this. It would be like saying that "Asian" must equall "Mongoloid," therefore Russians, Tadjiks and Armenians must be Mongoloid. This is the kind of silliness that saturates the book. It argues that there's been a "cover-up" to conceal the true racial identity of the ancient Egyptians, when no such cover-up ever took place. The ancient Egyptians simply were generally not of the race they'd like them to have been. There were some black people there, no doubt, but there is nothing to indicate that it was predominantly black. In this way, the book is also racist. When a false assertion such as this (the "cover-up" nonsense) is put forth with the intent to vilify a race of people, as this does regarding whites, it is racist. It is referenced, but it is not accurate. This is what happens when you get second- and third-generation Afrocentric books. Someone like Joel Rogers can, for instance, write a book claiming, falsely, that St. Augustine or Tertullian were black, simply because they were born on the continent of Africa, ignoring the inconvenient fact (as per Williams' first admonition) that the were descendants of Roman colonists in North Africa, and then other authors such as these two can quote Rogers, giving them a reference but leaving them still with an assertion that is false. Citing other Afrocentric authors such as Roger, Williams, et al., in a book supposedly about history would be like quoting Star Trek books as sources on astronomy; one can quote from here to eternity, but what's being quoted or cited is not remotely accurate. Were the ancient Mesopotamians black? No, but Runoko Rashidi and Ivan van Sertima imagined that they were, so by quoting them they can assert, however falsely, that the ancient Mesopotamians were black. Were the early Jews "black folk?" No, but the authors parrot that false assertion as well. Did other ancient people think the ancient Jews were black? No, but by quoting someone else who's made that false assertion, they again think they've established it as true. And so it goes. Quoted, referenced, yet false. As I said at the beginning, if you're already a believer in Afrocentrism, you'll like this book. If you prefer real history, you'll be amused and/or offended by this book.
Rating:
Summary: Silly
Review: If you are already an Afrocentrist, you'll like this book. If you're not, you'll probably find it partly amusing and partly offensive. It is a book for kids and is written at a very elementary level. It is not a scholarly book by any means. It takes snippets from other Afrocentric authors such as Yosef Ben Jochannan, Chancellor Williams, Diop, plus some other sources, many of which are biblical, and compiles them into very short chapters to make a book that can be read, cover to cover, in an hour or two. One of the more frequently cited references for this book is Chancellor Williams and his book "The Destruction of Black Civilization," a work of almost complete fiction that claims, among other things, that there was such a thing as an "African constitution," that Napoleon ordered the nose of the Sphinx blown off with a canon, that Napoleon initiated a "cover-up" about the supposed blackness of ancient Egypt, and that white people went around chipping the supposedly Negroid noses off the Egyptian statues (one could make an equally specious claim about, say, black Cushites chipping off the Caucasian noses, with equally little evidence). None of that is true or remotely supportable, to put it mildly, and is itself a rewriting of history, but even so Williams goes on to compile a list of tactics supposedly used to obscure the achievements of black people, tactics employed in fact by Afrocentrists almost to the exclusion of all else. First on that list is this (cited by the authors): "Ignore or refuse to publish any facts of African history that would not support their racial theories." Of this tactic, the authors are eggregiously guilty, as are Afrocentrists in general. They start with a false assertion,i.e., that the "average man on the street" would not know that Egypt is in Africa. There's probably no one of remotely average intelligence with at least an elementary school education that does not know where Egypt is, but the authors asserted otherwise, as they also assert that "African" must equal "black," (a tactic employed by Joel Rogers wherein he claims that any ancient of note on the continent of Africa must have been black). Africa is not now and has not been monoracial for a very long time, and certainly "African" does not always and everywhere mean "black," but again, the authors cling to this. It would be like saying that "Asian" must equall "Mongoloid," therefore Russians, Tadjiks and Armenians must be Mongoloid. This is the kind of silliness that saturates the book. It argues that there's been a "cover-up" to conceal the true racial identity of the ancient Egyptians, when no such cover-up ever took place. The ancient Egyptians simply were generally not of the race they'd like them to have been. There were some black people there, no doubt, but there is nothing to indicate that it was predominantly black. In this way, the book is also racist. When a false assertion such as this (the "cover-up" nonsense) is put forth with the intent to vilify a race of people, as this does regarding whites, it is racist. It is referenced, but it is not accurate. This is what happens when you get second- and third-generation Afrocentric books. Someone like Joel Rogers can, for instance, write a book claiming, falsely, that St. Augustine or Tertullian were black, simply because they were born on the continent of Africa, ignoring the inconvenient fact (as per Williams' first admonition) that the were descendants of Roman colonists in North Africa, and then other authors such as these two can quote Rogers, giving them a reference but leaving them still with an assertion that is false. Citing other Afrocentric authors such as Roger, Williams, et al., in a book supposedly about history would be like quoting Star Trek books as sources on astronomy; one can quote from here to eternity, but what's being quoted or cited is not remotely accurate. Were the ancient Mesopotamians black? No, but Runoko Rashidi and Ivan van Sertima imagined that they were, so by quoting them they can assert, however falsely, that the ancient Mesopotamians were black. Were the early Jews "black folk?" No, but the authors parrot that false assertion as well. Did other ancient people think the ancient Jews were black? No, but by quoting someone else who's made that false assertion, they again think they've established it as true. And so it goes. Quoted, referenced, yet false. As I said at the beginning, if you're already a believer in Afrocentrism, you'll like this book. If you prefer real history, you'll be amused and/or offended by this book.
Rating:
Summary: A little good with a lot of bad
Review: Perhaps the oddest thing about this book is to be found near the end of the book in a section titled A Message Especially for White Readers. In that, the author advises us to "Try an experiment. Purchase an extra copy of thie book and give it to your African-American neighbor, church member, or coworker and tell him 'This book has made an impact on my life. I am giving this to you as a gift. Read it and then let's get together for lunch and discuss it." This comes at the end of a litany of false charges against whites about a "cover-up" of the "true" history of black people in Egypt, and other equally falacious charges. It would be like asking a Jew to give a copy of Mein Kampf to his German neighbor and saying "This book has made an impact on my life. Let's get together and discuss just how bad Jews really are" It's preposterous and offensive. I came upon this book by accident. On an online message board, someone was proclaiming how superior black people were to white people kept referencing the web site associated with this book, so I finally decided to have a look at it (the web site). After a quick perusal of that site, I decided to order the book and have a look. It was what I expected. Before I get to the book, a few words about the web site might be in order. It includes a gallery of ancient Egyptian artwork that the authors seem to think the world was not already well aware of, that had been covered up, and that somehow showed the Egyptians to be black. It is artwork known the world over and that can be seen on display at any of several different museums and in various books on ancient Egypt. Far from being covered up, it has been made available to the entire world. Claiming it to be covered up would be like claiming the Empire State Building to be "hidden." Absurd. The artwork also shows the people of ancient Egypt not to be Negroid in appearance. It doesn't show them to be blonde-haired Nordic Europeans, either, but it doesn't depict the inhabitants of ancient Egypt as being black, unless, of course, one thinks that a statue made of granite, a dark stone, means that the person depicted on it is therefore black. Perhaps worst of all was the depiction of an image of the Sphinx, drawn shortly before Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, showing it to look more Negroid than it really is, with the nose missing long before Napoleon set foot there. Any rational person would take a drawing as being an inherently inferior depiction of an object to a photograph or the actual object itself, yet rather than take that drawing as an inexact attempt at reproducing the Sphinx's image, the authors, incomprehensibly, take that inexact drawing as better evidence than photographs or the Sphinx itself. Amazing. And again, even with the nose clearly missing in that drawing, the authors STILL protest that Napoleon blew it off with a canon (as though a canon could be that accurate, as though there is any evidence of a canon shot, and as though the best evidence does not indicate that a Caliph Omar or Umar defaced the Sphinx hundreds of years earlier). There are some inoffensive parts of the book -- the stories about contemporary African-American people such as David Robinson and Darrell Green, which is all well and good. There are also some questionable interpretations of the Book of Isiah, but I'll let someone more knowledgeable about the bible address those. What is quite disturbing is that some promiment people such as Bill Cosby and Julius Irving endorsed this book. They are endorsing a book that is, in many instances, racist. I would have hoped that they would have shown better judgement. For that matter, I would have hoped that the authors would have shown better judgement. If someone wants to write a book to help black youth in some way, any way, I'd gladly encourage them, but that doesn't mean history has to be conveniently rewritten or that others have to be demonized in the process.
Rating:
Summary: Return to the Shelf
Review: This book is not worth the time of anyone serious about history and biblical exegesis. The historical research is shotty and the biblical exegesis is horrible, even offensive in places. As a Christian Bible student and an African-American, I can confidently and credibly say the Bible speaks nothing, I repeat, nothing of the return to glory of African-Americans. It speaks clearly and overwhelming of the Return of Christ in Glory. I don't advocate the burning of books. Just return this one to the shelf and see if it might spontaneously combust. Hopefully.
Rating:
Summary: Return to the Shelf
Review: This book is not worth the time of anyone serious about history and biblical exegesis. The historical research is shotty and the biblical exegesis is horrible, even offensive in places. As a Christian Bible student and an African-American, I can confidently and credibly say the Bible speaks nothing, I repeat, nothing of the return to glory of African-Americans. It speaks clearly and overwhelming of the Return of Christ in Glory. I don't advocate the burning of books. Just return this one to the shelf and see if it might spontaneously combust. Hopefully.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: This book is riveting! The more I read the more hungry I became to know more. I would have read it all in one night if it wasn't so exhausting. I forced myself to only read one chapter a night to give the text the respect it deserved. I believe everyone owes it to themselves to study this book, you will come away stronger, wiser and energized.
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