Dr Ivan Van Sertima is a celebrated Guyanese-British historian, linguist and anthropologist noted for his Afrocentric theory of pre- Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas. He is also renowned for his bravery and advocacy against allegations falsely made by colleagues regarding African history.
He was born on January 26, 1935 in Kitty, Georgetown, Guyana, and was one of the most brilliant scholars and historians to hail from Guyana. He belonged on the same podium as the late Guyanese scholar and union organizer Dr Walter Rodney, and American giants such as Dr. John Henrik Clarke and Martin Bernal. His father, Frank Obermuller, was a trade union leader. Van Sertima initially focused on writing poetry after completing his primary and secondary education.
He was educated at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the London University, and the Rutgers Graduate School, and holds degrees in African studies and anthropology. From 1957 to 1959, he served as a press and broadcasting officer in the Guyana Information Services. During the decade of the 1960s, he broadcast weekly from Britain to Africa and the Caribbean. Van Sertima moved to the United States in 1970.
His most famous work “They came before Columbus”, was published by Random House in 1977 and showed African influences in Central and South America before the arrival of Europeans. That work is presently in its twenty-ninth printing. It was published in French in 1981, and in the same year was awarded the Clarence L. Holte Prize, a prize awarded every two years “for a work of excellence in literature and the humanities relating to the cultural heritage of Africa and the African Diaspora.”
As a literary critic, Van Sertima is the author of ‘Caribbean Writers’, a collection of critical essays on the Caribbean novel. He is also the author of several major literary reviews published in Denmark, India, Britain and the United States. Van Sertima was honoured for his work in this field by being asked by the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature from 1976 to 1980. He has also been honoured as an historian of world renown by being asked to join UNESCO’s International Commission for Rewriting the Scientific and Cultural History of Mankind.
As a linguist, he has published essays on the dialect of the Sea Islands off the Georgia Coast. He is also the compiler of the Swahili Dictionary of Legal Terms, based on his field work in Tanzania, East Africa, in 1967.
Van Sertima also authored “Early America Revisited”, a book that has enriched the study of a wide range of subjects, from archaeology to anthropology, which has resulted in profound changes in the reordering of historical priorities and pedagogy.
Professor of African Studies at Rutgers University, Dr Van Sertima was also visiting professor at Princeton University. He was the editor of the Journal of African Civilizations, which he founded in 1979, and published several major anthologies which have influenced the development of multicultural curriculum in the United States. These anthologies include “Blacks in Science: ancient and modern”, “Black Women in Antiquity”, “Egypt Revisited”, “Egypt: Child of Africa”, “Nile Valley Civilizations” (out of print), “African Presence in the Art of the Americas in 2007”, “African Presence in Early Asia” (co-edited with Runoko Rashidi), “African Presence in Early Europe”, “African Presence in Early America”, “Great African Thinkers”, “Great Black Leaders: ancient and modern”, and “Golden Age of the Moor”.
As an acclaimed poet, his work graces the pages of ‘River and the Wall’ (1953), and has been published in English and German. As an essayist, his major pieces were published in “Talk That Talk” (1989), “Future Directions for African and African American Content in the School Curriculum” (1986), “Enigma of Values” (1979), and in “Black Life and Culture in the United States” (1971).
Dr Van Sertima lectured at more than 100 universities in the United States, and also lectured in Canada, the Caribbean, South America and Europe. In 1991, he defended his highly controversial thesis on the African presence in pre- Columbian America before the Smithsonian institution.
In 1994, they published his address in “Race, Discourse and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View of 1492”.
He had intellectual battles with conservative scholars who criticized and challenged his Afro- pre-Columbus teachings. He even appeared before a United States Congressional committee on July 7, 1987 to challenge crediting Christopher Columbus with the “discovery” of America. This landmark presentation before Congress was illuminating and brilliantly presented in the name of all peoples of colour across the world.
“If we are to have a commemoration, let us take this opportunity not to consolidate a myth, but to open a new window upon the universe of peoples. Let us take full cognizance of other civilizations here in a true cross-cultural fashion, so we can really speak of ourselves as true Americans, New World people, because that is what the New World means… the bringing together of all these Old World elements into a new world,” he said to the United States Congressional committee.
Dr Ivan Van Sertima died peacefully on May 25, 2009. Many remember him by his famous empowering quote, “You cannot make yourself whole again by brooding one hundred per cent of the time on the darkness of the world. We are the light of the world.”
Comments are closed.