Dr. Ivan Van Sertima passes at 74
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Author of "They Came Before Columbus" dies leaving his profound mark on African studies.
The Guyana Cultural Association New York Inc. /Guyana Folk Festival committee yesterday announced the passing of Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, a former professor of the University of Rutgers and an important son of Guyana’s soil.
Ivan Van Sertima, born January 26, 1935, is a Guyanese-British historian, linguist and anthropologist noted for his Afrocentric theory of pre-Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas.
Van Sertima was born in Kitty when Guyana was still a British colony and remained a British citizen up until his demise. Van Sertima’s, father Frank Obermuller, was a trade union leader. Van Sertima completed his primary and secondary education then commenced poetry writing.
In 1959 he began pursuit of his university education in London where, in addition to producing an array of creative writings; he completed undergraduate studies in African languages and literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London in 1969, and graduated with honours. During his studies he became fluent in Swahili and Hungarian dialects.
He worked for several years in Great Britain as a journalist, delivering 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.
Van Sertima began his more than 30-year teaching career at Rutgers as an instructor in 1972 and completed his master’s degree in 1977. He was Associate Professor of African Studies in the Department of Africana Studies.
Van Sertima has written books in which he argues that the Ancient Egyptians were black and 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 did not receive much professional attention when published, and has been criticized by academic specialists.
On July 7, 1987 Van Sertima appeared before a United States Congressional committee to challenge giving credit for the discovery of America to Christopher Columbus.
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What a tremendous loss. Dr. Van Sertima offered profound insight into cultural theory and cultural history. He set a standard to which all who enter the field should aspire.
Prayers and condolences.
> Shantella Sherman
Anyone who has travelled widely in the Americas know that Van Sertima was right.The columns holding up the Step Pyramid at Altun Ha in Belize, are heads of Yoruba warriors, so too are the Olmec Heads elsewhere on the e Yucatan pennsula. At an archaeological site high in the Altiplano of Bolivia,Tiwanico, the excavated courtyard is hung with carved African heads in stone. The pyramids on the Yucatan coast of Mexico, match the step pyramids of the Kushite people of Upper Egypt.
Only people blinded by hundreds of years of European racial bias will refuse to see this.
I regret the fact that he never became a citizen of Guyana. Dual citizenship would have shown a pride in the Caribbean emerging from colonial rule, and a rejection of the British forced occupation of British Guiana in 1955.
> Linda Edwards
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> Dr. Ivan Van Sertima passes at 74 | Arts & Culture | Black Power | Bolivia today
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A great man has gone from this earth and we African American and our brother and sister in the mother land of Africa should him the respect that he deserves and read his some of his books
with understanding that´s the greatest honor we as a people could give him. White American should also read this book the truth hurts but its still the truth and all people should want the truth no matter how much it hurts.
> butch
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I would like to express the honour that has been restored by such an important person that so few people never even heared of?..
> albert dacosta
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