Ivan Van Sertima. Making Our List 16 Times Guyanese born Dr. Ivan Van Sertima (January 26, 1935 to May 25, 2009) is a literary critic, linguist, anthropologist, and writer.  In 1977 he wrote They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, for which he won the Clarence L. Holte Prize for excellence in literature and the humanities relating to the cultural heritage of Africa. He is the editor of the Journal of African Civilizations, and has edited numerous recent books including African Presence in Early America, Great African Thinkers, and Great Black Leaders: Ancient and Modern.In They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, which was reprinted over 20 times, Van Sertima defends this highly controversial thesis before the Smithsonian, which has recently published his address. Check out the reading list compiled by Dr. Ivan Van Sertima,Dr. Yosef “Dr. Ben” Ben-Jochannan, and Dr. John Henrik Clarke.Some of the volumes of the Journal include: It is the only historical journal in the English-speaking world which focuses on the heartland rather than on the periphery of African civilizations. It, therefore, removes the “primitive” from the center stage it has occupied in Eurocentric histories and anthropologies of the the African. The Journal of African Civilizations is dedicated to the celebration of black genius, to a revision of the role of the African in the world’s great civilizations, and to the contribution of Africa to the achievement of man in the arts and sciences. It emphasizes what blacks have given to the world, not what they have lost. -Ivan van Sertima

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Ivan Van Sertima

Ivan Van Sertima. Making Our List 16 Times Guyanese born Dr. Ivan Van Sertima (January 26, 1935 to May 25, 2009) is a literary critic, linguist, anthropologist, and writer.  In 1977 he wrote They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, for which he won the Clarence L. Holte Prize for excellence in literature and the humanities relating to the cultural heritage of Africa. He is the editor of the Journal of African Civilizations, and has edited numerous recent books including African Presence in Early America, Great African Thinkers, and Great Black Leaders: Ancient and Modern.In They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, which was reprinted over 20 times, Van Sertima defends this highly controversial thesis before the Smithsonian, which has recently published his address. Check out the reading list compiled by Dr. Ivan Van Sertima,Dr. Yosef "Dr. Ben" Ben-Jochannan, and Dr. John Henrik Clarke.Some of the volumes of the Journal include: It is the only historical journal in the English-speaking world which focuses on the heartland rather than on the periphery of African civilizations. It, therefore, removes the "primitive" from the center stage it has occupied in Eurocentric histories and anthropologies of the the African. The Journal of African Civilizations is dedicated to the celebration of black genius, to a revision of the role of the African in the world's great civilizations, and to the contribution of Africa to the achievement of man in the arts and sciences. It emphasizes what blacks have given to the world, not what they have lost. -Ivan van Sertima