John Henrik Clarke and the Power of Africana History: Africalogical Quest for Decolonization and Sovereignty (Paperback)

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Product Description

In the late 1960s through the late 1980s, the late John Henrik Clarke (1915-1998) was one of the foremost architects of the emerging discipline of Africana Studies/Africalogy as Professor of African World History in the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York and as the Carter G. Woodson Distinguished Visiting Professor of African History at Cornell University s Africana Studies and Research Center. The study explores Clarke s development and conceptualization of Afrikan World History by examining his intellectual influences and training, his approach to teaching Afrikan World History, his notions regarding Afrikan agency and Afrikan humanity, his explorations of themes of Pan Afrikanism and national sovereignty, his ideas concerning the relevance of Afrikan culture in historical perspective, and his legacy in Afrikan intellectualism and culture, including his contribution to the Afrocentric paradigm that is the core of the discipline of Africana Studies/Africalogy. As an academician and intellectual, Clarke emerged as one of the leading theorists of Afrikan liberation and the uses of Afrikan history as a foundation and grounding for liberation. Under Clarke s formulation liberation was defined not simply as freedom from European domination, but fundamentally as the restoration of Afrikan sovereignty. He explored history s utility in moving an oppressed and subordinated people from a position of subjugation on multiple levels to full status as a self-sustaining, self-defining, self-directed, free, and independent people on a global stage. Further, the study examines the influence of indigenous Afrikan intellectualism in the United States in Afrikan cultural and intellectual history. Although a leader among European academy-trained Afrikan intellectuals who join the European academy largely beginning in the 1970s, Clarke s education and training were the product of a movement for the indigenization of Afrikan academic intellectualism in Harlem of the 1930s that can be traced back to the early nineteenth century. It is the first extensive critical examination of Clarke as an exemplar of indigenous intellectualism in Afrikan culture in the United States.

About the Author

Ahati N. N. Toure is Assistant Professor of Africana History and Black Studies at Delaware State University. He earned his Ph.D. in American History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an MA in Africana Studies at the State University of New York at Albany. He is the author of several essays exploring subjects in Africalogy and in Africana History, including John Henrik Clarke and Issues in Afrikan Historiography: Implications of Pan Afrikan Nationalism in Interpreting the Afrikan Experience in the United States in Pan African Nationalism in the Americas: The Life and Times of John Henrik Clarke published by Africa World Press.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Africa World Press; First edition (December 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592216277
• ISBN-13: 978-1592216277
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #474,316 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I have three books about the African-American historian Dr. John Henrik Clarke and I must admit this one is the best, July 24, 2009

By	Jeffrey Carey (willingboro, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is the best book written on John Henrik Clarke so far. This book focuses more on what made Dr. Clarke as an academic and activist and less about his upbringing as a child, so if you think you already have a book on Clarke and you do not need another one think again. For those out there that think Afrocentrism is for cranks and it is not academic you need to read this book and you will be amazed at the amount of research and the attention that Dr. Clarke and many of his early mentors payed to research libraries, private collections, rare books, and primary sources. The book is very indepth, it covers many things the average person does not know about especially the many unknown names who influenced Dr. Clarke and also the role that Dr. Clarke played outside of being a powerful speaker, lecturer, and historian. Dr. Clarke actully helped to construct the charter for Malcolm X's OAAU shortly before Malcolm X died. Dr. Clarke also worked for a newspaper in Ghana when Nkrumah was in power. Dr. Clarke not only taught at Hunter College but he also taught at Ivy League Cornell and Columbia. The book talks about the many unknown scholars like Willis Huggins, Arthur Schomburg, and William Hansberry(who I did not know was the uncle of Lorraine Hansberry) people who played a role in the early history of the Afrocentric movement before the movement became popular with more popular names like Molefi Asante and Maulana Karenga. In fact I did not know that Dr. Clarke used the word "Afrocentric" before Temple Universities Asante made the term famous. For all of those out there that bought a dvd with John Henrik Clarke lecturing on it or if you happened to hear John Henrik Clarke in person I advise you to get this book it will fill in many blanks. The book also talks about how two types of black intelligensia was developing in America in the early part of the 20th century one school was lead by Carter G. Woodson and was located in Washington D.C and based around Howard University it was more Americanist(solely African-American scholars) and integrationist and also more academically trained, but yet at the same time there was another school of thought developing in New York City based in Harlem and it was more Pan-Africanist,independent(was not limited to academics from European Universities),international(this school was made up of African-Americans, recent African immigrants, and people from the Carribean like J.A Rogers,Eric Williams,ex) and radical in approach. The leader of the Harlem school was Arthur Schomburg and his student was non other than John Henrick Clarke. For any teachers out there that are teaching a course in Africana studies this book actually gives you the syllabes and subject matter that Dr. Clarke actually taught in his classes. The arthur of the book Ahati N. N. Toure also does a good job explaining how Dr. Clark viewed history as an arm of Eurocentrism and European Colonalism and how an Afrocentric paradigm shift would be necessary for true liberation and self-esteem and imagination. I bought many books at the 2009 Harlem Book Fair and this is the one I have not put down yet.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars AAMBC Book Review, June 14, 2009

By	African Americans on the Move Book Club (San Antonio, USA) - See all my reviews

The author, Ahati N. Toure creates an intellectual journey of the life and theories of one the influential figures in African Diaspora studies and Pan Africanism, John Henrik Clarke. Reading this biography, one feels that without the influence of this multi-talented , intellectual giant, modern Black and African studies would not be the same. It is an amazing tapestry of figures that are cited who were teachers and peers to John Henrik Clarke including Arthur Schomburg, W.E.B DuBois, Malcolm X and Carter G. Woodson.

Richard Agnew
AAMBC Reviewer

5.0 out of 5 stars Details Well His Life As A Teacher, August 13, 2009

By	Todd S. Burroughs (Hyattsville, MD, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Brother Toure does an outstanding job putting the historian in his own historical context. John Henrik Clarke's intellectual influences are only surpassed by the tremendous volume of work he put in his 60-plus-year journey into study of Africa and the African. And Toure, who uses well the collection of papers Clarke left at the Schomburg, pours on the detail--how he taught, what he taught, where and when. I thought I knew a lot about John Henrik Clarke before reading this book. Toure's intellectually thorough work is Afrocentric without apology. For John Henrik Clarke, it's a quite appropriate lens.