GLOBAL AFRICAN HISTORY
PERSPECTIVES
Perspectives on Global African History features accounts and descriptions of important but little known events in Global African history recalled often by those who were witnesses or participants or viewpoints about historical developments shaping the contemporary black world. Many of these accounts will be instant primary sources available to current visitors to BlackPast and to future historians. Each article is accompanied by a brief biography and photo of its author.
Gold Washing Technique in Barbacoas
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The Saga of James Lloydovich Patterson: Child Film Star, Naval Officer and Poet
In the following article, Amy Ballard, Senior Historic Preservation Specialist Emerita, Smithsonian Institution, describes the life of Russian-born James Lloydovich...
The Obas of Benin: A Brief History of the Rulers of A West African State for Eight Centuries
In the following article, Collins Edigin, a historian at the University of Benin in Benin City, Nigeria, describes the rule...
Who are the Siddis? A Brief Introduction to the 800-Year African Experience in India
In the following article, University of Louisville historian John McLeod surveys illustrative episodes in the long history of the Siddis,...
On the Origins of Non-Violence in the Civil Rights Movement: Howard Thurman in South Asia, 1935-1936
In the article below, historian Amy Sommers describes the February 1936 meeting of Howard Thurman in India with Mahatma Gandhi,...
Ready, Willing and Able: James Weldon Johnson at the Institute of Pacific Relations’ 1929 Conference in Kyoto, Japan
In the account below historian Amy Sommers describes the diplomatic work of James Weldon Johnson at the Institute of Pacific...
The Black Pacific, 1919-1941: African Americans and Asia in the Interwar Period
In the following article novelist and independent historian Amy Sommers briefly outlines the experience of African Americans in Asia between...
Ladinos and Bozales: A Brief Early History of Africans in Colombia: 1500-1800
Few people realize that the percentage of people of African ancestry in the South American nation of Colombia (7%) is...
Alberta Hunter and the Rhythm Rascals in the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II
In the following article independent historian Charles Kastner describes the 1944-1945 tour of Alberta Hunter and the Rhythm Rascals who...
The Afro-Beat in Russia: The Influence of Black Music on Russian Popular Culture, 1890-2002
In the following article, Russian DJ Ivan Tchijevsky describes exclusively for BlackPast.org the long history of black music and black...
