An Afrikan Warrior's Reading List - BLAFROKAN

Title summaries, excerpts, and quotes provided by authors or publisher.

Afrikan Martial Arts: Discovering the Warrior Within

By Balogun O. Abeegunde

For the first time ever, a book has been written that reveals the concepts, strategies and self-defense applications of the African martial arts. AFRICAN MARTIAL ARTS: Discovering the Warrior Within takes the reader to the African bush, where they are then taught to examine martial arts through the “tribal eye” for greater insight into the African Warrior Traditions. In addition to teaching the history and principles of the African martial arts in general – and the Egbe Ogun Traditional African Martial Arts System, in particular – the book also teaches practical self-defense and combat techniques, as well as teaching teachers how to teach African martial arts with an African mindset. Finally, this book was written – first and foremost – to educate people about the rich history and culture of the African Warrior Traditions. Written by African martial arts Master Instructor, Ancestral Priest and journalist- Balogun Oyabode Abeegunde.

Nationbuilding: Theory & Practice in African Centered Education

By Kwame Agyei Akoto

“Kwame Agyei Akoto impressively defines the essence and ideology of what is meant by Afrikan-centered education:
‘Afrikan centered education is rooted in the unique history and evolved culture of Afrikan people. It is defined in its singular commitment to the elucidation of that history, that culture, and the confirmation, invigoration and perpetuation of the Afrikan collective identity that emanates from that history and culture. Afrikan centered education is concerned with the origins, current status and future of the Afrikan world. Afrikan centered education is committed to correcting the historical distortions born of three millennia of foreign invasion, destruction, enslavement, physical and mental colonialism, cultural disruption, and dependency. Afrikan centered education is committed to rooting or anchoring the spiritual and intellectual energies of Afrikan people in the spiritual, moral and philosophical traditions of Afrika. Afrikan centered education, whether in the several nations of the diaspora or on the motherland, is concerned to fully develop the sense of Afrikan nationality within a broader Pan Afrikan world. Afrikan centered education is concerned to sever irrevocably the pathological and slavish linkage of Afrikans to the European or Asian ethos. Afrikan centered education is concerned to enable the Afrikan person with nationbuilding, nation management, and nation maintenance abilities. Afrikan centered education is concerned to motivate teacher, student, parent and community to advance the Afrikan nation/world by any means necessary.”
– Amos N. Wilson

The American Directory of Certified Uncle Toms

By James B. Low

being a review of the history, antics, and attitudes of handkerchief heads, aunt Jemimas, head negroes in charge, and house negroes against the freedom aims of the Black race

The African Personality: Lubrication for Liberation: Can African People Get Along? A Primer on Conflict Management

By Fundi Sanyika Anwisye

The ability to live and work together to attain and maintain freedom is ot granted automatically at birth. It must be taught. this ability, this AFrican Personality, is a set of characteristics, qualities and behaviors that must be taught, developed and reinforced – womb to the tomb – by our educational process. the educational process starts at home and extends to all other parts of the village. This book discusses some of the many components needed to manage and resolve conflict within te family, organization and village

Two Thousand Seasons

By Ayi Kwei Armah

“She spoke of those needing the white destroyers’ shiny things to bring a feeling of worth into their lives, uttered their deep-rooted inferiority of soul, and called them lacking in the essence of humanity: womanhood in women, manhood in men. For which deficiency they must crave things to eke out their beings, things to fill holes in their spirits.”
― Ayi Kwei Armah,

The Genocide Files

By N. Xavier Arnold

Gripping suspense, sinister plots, love, murder and government malfeasance. First-time novelist, N. Xavier Arnold, skillfully spins a yarn blending historically conscious fiction with a contemporary flavor that captures readers and thrusts them forward through a menagerie of climactic spoils in the life of central character, Matthew Peterson.

Kebuka!: Remembering the Middle Passage Through the Eyes of Our Ancestors

By Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti

Remembrance is the process of finding what has been lost to memory. It is how we come to know ourselves again when others have confused our Way. Kebuka!: Reclaiming Our Ancestral Memory is an essential tool for those who seek remembrance, for those who endeavor to find their Afrikan way. It is a journey for those who want to be healed and those who will become our uncompromised healers. It helps open our Afrikan mind to ancestral remembrance by giving the real feel of our Maafa (Great Destruction). Through it, we can see our forced movement out of Afrika as our ancestors experienced it. It gives us their memory.

IWA: A Warrior’s Character

By Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti

No nation can stand as a principled, honorable power without the sense and strength of its traditional convictions. And no people, determined to be independent, empowered and sovereign, can build and progressively maintain itself without a motivated, diligent, disciplined, respectful, knowledgeable warrior class who considers itself duty-bound to defend the name and secure the existence of their people. At the heart of every decisive warrior class we have produced, we find this IWA, these virtuous qualities and enduring strength of mind which reflect good character at the deepest psychological and spiritual levels. To be of good character, to possess IWA, our warriors must know how to think, speak and act as our Ancestors have. Above all else, this requires that there be no contradiction between these three manifestations of consciousness. Still, warriors have to recognize that this is an evolutionary process within. Developing good character takes both righteous instruction and ample time for the seeker to become one with it. Our Ancestors, and those who have continued their movement along with the revolutionary, nation-building path, have already given us these warrior’s rules through their words and examples. They have left us an abundantly rich tradition of warriorhood. Through them, we can easily see what constitutes good character among warriors. What they have given the new vanguard is a dynamic, balanced way of thinking and living which offers loving guidance in their pursuit of good character on the home front as well as battlefields in this anti-Afrikan reality. This book is an examination of that character and the methods for building it.

The Irritated Genie: an essay on the Haitian Revolution

By Jacob H. Carruthers

From the Introduction… Race Vindication has long been a major theme in the consciousness of Blacks living in the United States… Early conceptualizations of this consciousness in the second decade of the 19th century reflected on the Haitian Revolution as a demonstration of race redemption… The liberator of Haiti, Jean Jacques Dessalines, in his speech accepting the office of Governor-General for Life of the newly Independent Black Nation, referring to the possible attempted invasion of Haiti, asserted that upon their approach… “The irritated genie of Haiti looming out of the bosom of the sea appears, his menacing face rouses the waves, stirs up storms and his might hand smashes or scatters their ships.” We may well describe the spirit of the Haitian Revolution as the “Irritated Genie of Haiti” The author earned a Ph.D in Political Science. He was a Professor Emeritus of Northeastern Illinois University. Dr. Carruthers was also past President of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations and Director of the Kemetic Institute of Chicago, Illinois.

Who Betrayed the African World Revolution? and other speeches

By John Henrik Clarke

“History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are but, more importantly, what they must be.” – Dr. John Henrik Clarke

Message to the People: The Course of African Philosophy

By Marcus Garvey

“Our success educationally, industrially and politically is based upon the protection of a nation founded by ourselves. And the nation can be nowhere else but in Africa.” – Marcus Garvey

War on the Horizon

By Irritated Genie

This book is the most compelling discussion on “homosexuality” and racism white supremacy available on the market. I have never read a book that was so direct when confronting “homosexuality” and pedophilia (child molestation) in the Black community. The author spares no feelings and deals with the problems affecting the Black community with honesty and directness absent in today’s Black political environment. The author’s documentation and analysis of the history of european sexual deviance are remarkable and the connection he makes between the militant “homosexual” movement and the epidemic of child molestation is the most important sociological breakthrough in the modern era. His boldness in confronting the ills of “homosexuality” and other forms of sexual deviance which target the Black community for destruction is unparalleled. Every Black person on the planet must read this book!

The Spook Who Sat by the Door

By Sam Greenlee

A fictional story of Dan Freeman, the first black CIA officer, and of the CIA’s history of training persons and political groups who later used their specialized training in gathering intelligence, political subversion, and guerrilla warfare against the CIA.

When Africa Awakes

Hubert Henry Harrison

In this collection of articles, Harrison advocates an independent Black political thrust and a kind of education that prepares African people for nationhood. Introduction by John Henrik Clarke.1920

The Maroon Within Us:Selected Essays on African American Community Socialization

By Asa G. Hilliard

Written to provide strategies for the collective development of Black people, Hilliard’s fifteen essays address issues essential for socialization, self-determination, and cultural identity. Within the context of “community socialization,” Hilliard examines the economic, educational, spiritual, and political aspects of the African American reality. Hilliard’s insight is fresh and ripe with solutions to many of the problems that affect Black people in America.

The Black Holocaust: Global Genocide

By Del Jones

A searing indictment of the violence against blacks by white supremacists and white culture.

Black Guerrilla Warfare In Amerika

By Kamau R. Kambon

“THE BEST OFFENSE IS A GOOD DEFENSE- AND THE MOST EFFECTIVE DEFENSE/OFFENSE IS HAVING CORRECT LIFE SAVING KNOWLEDGE, ANALYTICAL CRITICAL THINKING AND HIGH LEVEL REASONING: COMMITTING SUBTLE SUICIDE IS NEITHER GOOD DEFENSE NOR GOOD OFFENSE!!!
DON’T GET GOT BY THE GETTERS OF THOSE WHO ALREADY GOT GOT!” – Dr. Kamau Kambon

Garvey, Lumumba and Malcolm: Afrikan National-Separatists

By Shawna Maglangbayan

Garvey, Lumumba, Malcolm: Black Nationalists Separatists by Shawna Maglangbayan, is a very critical assessment of the role Black Nationalists have played in raising the level of consciousness of Black People. Through the life of Marcus Garvey, Patrice Lumumba, and Malcolm X, Sister Maglangbayan illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of the Black Nationalist position when the dominant forces in society are mobilizing to destroy. The work is serious, Scholarly, and leaves the reader with a clear picture of the gravity of the problem.

Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association

By Tony Martin

A classic study of the Garvey movement, this is the most thoroughly researched book on Garvey’s ideas by a historian of black nationalism.

Race and Reparations: A Black Perspective for the 21st Century

By Clarence J. Munford

Interpreting the skein of evidence trailing from the racism inherent in white civilization, the author of this book rescues Black nationalism from junk-jive hallucinations and grounds it in the political-economic realities of racist America. Dr. Munford wields the historic method with surgical precision to examine issues vital to today’s African Americans-unemployment, the economic redundancy thrust upon Black youths, and Black capitalism and the role of the entrepreneur; the criminalization of Black males, police brutality, and the political economy of prisons; health, education, miscegenation, and the system of welfare-for-white-folks; affirmative action, parity and compensation for racial discrimination past and present, majority Black electoral districting, constitutional amendments to guarantee proportionate Black political representation, “Rainbow” alliances and 21st century strategy and tactics, and the meaning of latter-day Black Power.

Infused with the spirit of Pan-Africanism, this book exposes the global incompatibility between white world supremacy and Black liberation. It confronts all Africans-continentals and diasporans-with the twenty-first century’s stark imperative: Power through reparations? Or the holocaust of continued white racism?

The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews: Volume 1

By The Nation of Islam

An accurate accounting of the history of Blacks and Jews from the Columbian era to the Civil War, including the extensive record of Jewish slave trading in the western hemisphere. 334 pages – 1,275 footnotes – More than 3,000 sources – Jewish journals, encyclopedias, newspapers & other publications – Jewish scholars & rabbis – Court records – Shipping records – Jewish wills – Runaway slave notices – Auction notices – Published sermons – Census data – Slave bills of sale – Tax records Full Index – Bibliography.

Red, Black and Green: Black nationalism in the United States

By Alphonso Pinkney

From the first slaves who rose up against their master in the early period of American history to the prominent modern figures such as Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammed, Eldridge Cleaver, Red, Black, and Green traces the origins, the struggles and the accomplishments of black nationalism. Its broad discussion of the ideology of black nationalism and of the conditions that gave rise to this ideology provides the foundation for a thorough account of the black nationalist movement in the peak years of its momentum, roughly the decade 1963 to 1973. The author deals both with specific milestones, such as Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association in the early twentieth century, and with the far-reaching implications of the movement for the black community and for the United States as a whole. He looks at the many facets of black nationalism – revolutionary nationalism, cultural nationalism, religious nationalism, and educational nationalism – analyses the relationship between this movement and liberation movements in general.

Black Empire

By George S. Schuyler

George Samuel Schuyler was a noted black satirist of the early 20th century. This book is an intricate tale of black nationalism, science fiction, and incredible feats of derring-do intended to bolster black pride and accomplishment in the uneasy years before World War II. The book originally ran as weekly serialized fiction in the Philadelphia Courier from 1936 to 1938. The principal character Dr. Henry Belsidus is obsessed with releasing blacks from the crushing tyranny of racism and poverty, and he plans to take over the world and enlists black intellectuals to help him. Underlying the story is an attempt to resolve the philosophical, economic, and cultural chasms between blacks and whites. The book reflects the hope and despair felt by blacks during this time–From Library Journal.

“Parable of the Africans and the Foreign Oasis”

(in Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti, Notes Toward Higher Ideals in Afrikan Intellectual Liberation)

By Esmeralda Simmons

Sankofa: African Thought & Education

By Elleni Tedla

“To prevent the alienation and crisis facing African youth, this book urges the building of a new form of African education that is firmly founded on all that is positive in indigenous thought and education. It also examines the impact of the concepts that underlie indigenous and Westernized education. As an in-depth illustration of African thought and education, traditional Amara (Ethiopian) thought and education is discussed in two chapters. The book underscores the need to understand Africans on their own terms within the context of their culture, and the necessity to be judicious in importing foreign ideas and institutions to Africa. Otherwise, the cultural and spiritual fabric of African way of life will be torn beyond repair. This book has great implications for African and African American education.”

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

By Harriet A. Washington

From the era of slavery to the present day, the first full history of black America’s shocking mistreatment as unwilling and unwitting experimental subjects at the hands of the medical establishment.

Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge—a tradition that continues today within some black populations. It reveals how blacks have historically been prey to grave-robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the twentieth century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of blacks, and the view that they were biologically inferior, oversexed, and unfit for adult responsibilities. Shocking new details about the government’s notorious Tuskegee experiment are revealed, as are similar, less-well-known medical atrocities conducted by the government, the armed forces, prisons, and private institutions. The product of years of prodigious research into medical journals and experimental reports long undisturbed, Medical Apartheid reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and makes possible, for the first time, an understanding of the roots of the African American health deficit. At last, it provides the fullest possible context for comprehending the behavioral fallout that has caused black Americans to view researchers—and indeed the whole medical establishment—with such deep distrust. No one concerned with issues of public health and racial justice can afford not to read Medical Apartheid, a masterful book that will stir up both controversy and long-needed debate.

The Isis Paper: The Keys to the Colors

By Frances Cress Welsing

During the course of the struggle of African people against European racism, brutality, and domination, many innovation thinkers have risen from our ranks. The greatest and most courageous scholars have devoted their lives to the pursuit of an explanation for the virtually inherent animosity most white people appear to have toward people of color.

The Destruction of Afrikan Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D.

By Chancellor Williams

The Destruction of Black Civilization took Chancellor Williams sixteen years of research and field study to compile. The book, which was to serve as a reinterpretation of the history of the African race, was intended to be “a general rebellion against the subtle message from even the most ‘liberal’ white authors (and their Negro disciples): ‘You belong to a race of nobodies. You have no worthwhile history to point to with pride.'” The book was written at a time when many black students, educators, and scholars were starting to piece together the connection between the way their history was taught and the way they were perceived by others and by themselves. They began to question assumptions made about their history and took it upon themselves to create a new body of historical research. The book is premised on the question: “If the Blacks were among the very first builders of civilization and their land the birthplace of civilization, what has happened to them that has left them since then, at the bottom of world society, precisely what happened? The Caucasian answer is simple and well-known: The Blacks have always been at the bottom.” Williams instead contends that many elements—nature, imperialism, and stolen legacies— have aided in the destruction of the black civilization. The Destruction of Black Civilization is revelatory and revolutionary because it offers a new approach to the research, teaching, and study of African history by shifting the main focus from the history of Arabs and Europeans in Africa to the Africans themselves, offering instead “a history of blacks that is a history of blacks. Because only from history can we learn what our strengths were and, especially, in what particular aspect we are weak and vulnerable. Our history can then become at once the foundation and guiding light for united efforts in serious[ly] planning what we should be about now.” It was part of the evolution of the black revolution that took place in the 1970s, as the focus shifted from politics to matters of the mind.

Negroes with Guns

By Robert F. Williams

First published in 1962, Negroes with Guns is the story of a southern black community’s struggle to arm itself in self-defense against the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups. Frustrated and angered by violence condoned or abetted by the local authorities against blacks, the small community of Monroe, North Carolina, brought the issue of armed self-defense to the forefront of the civil rights movement. Under the leadership of Robert F. Williams (1925-1996), Monroe became the test case of the right of blacks to armed self-defense when law and order broke down. The single most important intellectual influence on Huey P. Newton, the founder of the Black Panther Party, Negroes with Guns is a classic story of a man who risked his life for democracy and freedom.

Afrikan-Centered Consciousness Versus the New World Order: Garveyism in the Age of Globalism

By Amos N. Wilson

”We could not be Africans and slaves at the same time; we could not hold on to our African identity, our African selves, knowledge of our African culture, and be enslaved…the subordinates of another people. It is only when that knowledge is removed, erased, degraded, stolen, taken and distorted that we lose our identity. It is then that our identity is placed upon us by another people and by external forces. Therefore a lack of self-knowledge is a lack of self-awareness is also an insensitivity to the self. But an insensitivity in the self is also an insensitivity to reality and to the outside. Without the sensitivity of the outside world and the self, we are left to blindly stumble from one point to another.” – Dr. Amos Wilson

Blueprint for Black Power: A Moral, Political, and Economic Imperative for the Twenty-First Century

By Amos N. Wilson

Afrikan life into the coming millennia is imperiled by White and Asian power. True power must nest in the ownership of the real estate wherever Afrikan people dwell. Economic destiny determines biologial destiny. ‘Blueprint for Black Power’ details a master plan for the power revolution necessary for Black survival in the 21st century. White treatment of Afrikan Americans, despite a myriad of theories explaining White behavior, ultimately rests on the fact that they can. They possess the power to do so. Such a power differential must be neutralized if Blacks are to prosper in the 21st century … Aptly titled, ‘Blueprint for Black Power’ stops not at critique but prescribes radical, practical theories, frameworks and approaches for true power. It gives a biting look into Black potentiality. (Back cover)

The Miseducation of the Negro

By Carter G. Woodson

“Philosophers have long conceded, however, that every man has two educators: ‘that which is given to him, and the other that which he gives himself. Of the two kinds, the latter is by far the more desirable. Indeed all that is most worthy in a man he must work out and conquer for himself. It is that which constitutes our real and best nourishment. What we are merely taught seldom nourishes the mind like that which we teach ourselves.”

– Carter G. Woodson

The Psychopathic Racial Personality and Other Essays

By Bobby E. Wright

Presents a thought-provoking examination of the group personality of Europeans, as manifest in their behavior towards Black people. In the essay “The Psychopathic Racial Personality,” Dr. Bobby Wright contends that viewing white behavior towards nonwhites as psychopathic provides a new lens through which to analyze and combat the actions and aims of Europeans. The essay “Black Suicide: Lynching by Any Other Name” positions the phenomenon of Black suicide within the context of centuries of white genocide. In other essays, Dr. Wright discusses ways in which to best educate Black children and sheds new light on the evolution of white supremacy.

Black Revolutionary Authors Warriors Reading List

An Afrikan Warrior’s Reading List