“Black consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the Black world in a long time. Its essence is the realization by the Black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression; the Blackness of their skin, and to operate as a group to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude.” Steve Biko
As a teacher of African History/ Social Studies, I work very hard to help my students recover their memory of suppressed principles, and practices of African culture. As their memory slowly reconstructs, the inspirational process to restore themselves to their traditional greatness begins.
Many questions are asked when teaching young Africans about our history in the classroom. The daily struggle as a Black man and father has enabled me to learn from my experiences and to include those lessons in my classroom pedagogy.
Today, unfortunately, many young brothers are growing up without a strong Black male presence in their homes or communities. It becomes more difficult to transform into a powerful Black man when there are ‘NO’ examples of such in your environment. Fortunately, throughout my life experiences and self-study, I was blessed to learn what Black manhood was; through watching and directly learning from my beloved father, reading about the lives of great African men, and absorbing strong literary working definitions of Black Manhood. One working definition that I ‘absolutely’ share with all the young Black brothers–and I’ve been blessed to teach is derived from Brother Haki Madhubuti’s book ‘Black Men: Obsolete, Single and Dangerous? I am confident that these excerpts will help to enlighten, reaffirm and re-align–not only the readers of this article but those you choose to share it with.
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