Help students connect with Black History all year long with "Select Your African Name" (free ebook)

 

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Free ebook helps students connect with Africa

A new ebook called Select Your African Name is being distributed free by Dr. Molefi Asante, a professor of Afrocentricity at Temple University. “This book is a way to help students focus on Black History all year long,” said Asante. The free ebook is an updated version of Asante’s Book of African Names published in 1994. 

The book begins with a quote by Malcolm X: 

The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves, and then the name of the slave master was given, which we refuse.

The lesson plan available in the book was developed at SunFire High School in Oakland Park, Florida. Students there have said “That is so true” after reading the quote by Malcolm X, which is the opening that teachers need to introduce the exercise of selecting an African name.  

“We are all connected to Africa,” Asante points out. “There is only one race: the human race.” Asante advocates a switch in our dialogue about discrimination from a focus on race. “Our differences are cultural, not racial,” writes Asante in a recent book Being Human Being, written with professor Nah Dove.  “We need to examine all events in history from the standpoint of being human. This applies especially to people of African descent,” observes Asante, founder of an academic approach called Afrocentricity. “It is about freeing us all from the grips of seeing history exclusively from the point of view of Europe.”

The electronic book is available for free download at www.TINYURL.com/SelectYourName30 

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