RBG Who, What, Why and How: Background & Significance and A Review of the Afrikan Centered Education Literature

Liberation is impossible if we fail to see ourselves in more positive terms. For without a change of vision, we are slaves to the oppressor’s ideas and values—ideas and values that finally attack the very core of our existence. Therefore, we must see the world in terms of our own realities.”
Larry Neal, “Black Art and Black Liberation,” 1969

The time is ripe to heed the long-standing, and most often overlooked, calls for Afrikan Unity, Cultural Development, Education and Social Transformation. Such is what RBG most fundamentally represents. Contrary to the prevailing, misinformed assumptions, RBG (Black Nationalism / PanAfrikanism ) as an ideology, interaction and academic process is not a rabid assertion of Black supremacy. Unlike white Nationalism and American patriotism, RBG (Black Nationalism / PanAfrikanism ) and its proponents do not seek to humiliate, exploit, or oppress any person or people. Rather, RBG / (Black Nationalism / PanAfrikanism ) is a positive affirmation of the cultural, political, social, economic and moral identity and concerns of African people. In its most rudimentary forms, it reacts to the brutally violent and repressive conditions under which African people have and continue to live. White supremacy / racism creates an environment where whites are necessarily viewed with suspicion, but we are not anti-white. We are Afrikan/ Black on purpose and Black folks must first and foremost be beholden to each other. The most basic expression of RBG (Black Nationalism/ PanAfrikanism ) thought is that Black / Afrikan people in America and throughout the diaspora are bound by the common history and experience of historical chattel and present day mental slavery, suffering and death under the boot heel of white supremacy / racism. Most importantly, RBG is about self-reliance, self- respect and self-defense toward the total liberation and unification of all Afrikan people that desire to defend, define and develop in our own image and interest.

Our Professors and Teachers are Our Elders, Ancestors, Scholars and Revolutionaries...

cultural workers, raptivists, poets, artists and playwrights and grassroots community folk; including the likes of DPZ and Family, UNO The Prophet, Paris, KRS-1, PE/Chuck D, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Mumia Abu Jamal, Dr. Amiri Baraka, Bro. J of X-Klan, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Khallid Abdul Muhammad, Dr. Martin Luther Jr., Minister Malcolm X, Imam Jamal Al-Amin, Dr. Huey P. Newton, Dr. Kwame Toure , Dr. Amos Wilson, Dr Leonard Jeffries, Dr. Na’im Akbar, Dr Ben, Dr Asa Hilliard, Dr. John Jackson, Dr. Chancellor Williams, Dr. Mulana Karenga, Dr. Oba T’ Shaka, Rev. Khandi Paasewe, Dr. Molefi Asante and many, many more.

How We Provoke Thought, Discussion & Learning:

Please keep in mind that RBG is a Think Tank. A center of higher learning organized for intensive study, research, critical thinking and problem solving; focused in the areas of the use of technology in Afrikan-centered cultural development and education for the purpose of individually and collectively learning the social, political , economic and moral strategies to secure Black Power in the 21st century.

More frequently than not, we initiate our teaching / learning process by presenting audio and visual resources that pose semalies, parables, metaphors, analogies and oxymorons--that's what makes you think (we hope)...

...Then we have lively and well informed group discussions revolving around the various messages put forth in the learning objects and media assets. Next we research the facts overlaying our discussions using the voluminous number of resources available in the communiversity's web portals and learning environments.
Finally, each learner has the opportunity to fill our evaluation instruments on most of the 5,000+ RLOs (Reusable Learning Objects) and media assets that comprise the core curriculum. It is out of following this methodology that we devise position papers and community policy recommendations and initiatives...
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IMPORTANT TO NOTE: I use a teaching theory called Overlearning. Just like one more frequently than not under learns a topic/subject by not appreciating all the relationships; presenting previous data along with new data solidifies relational overstanding. So if you have seen or heard or read something in another context--please--don't skip over it in the new application, if you want to catch on to the program faster.

IN CLASSICAL AFRIKAN (KEMETIC) PHILOSOPHY THE HUMAN BEING AND HUMAN REALITY WERE GOVERNED BY THE BASIC DIVINE LAW OF “TO BE A SPIRIT”. THE MORAL MANDATE OF AFRIKAN HUMANITY WAS “TO BECOME AND IN BECOMING”---THE PURSUIT OF SUCH DIVINE LAW AND MORAL MANDATE WAS REFLECTIVE OF ONES PURSUIT OF GODLINESS. EDUCATION WAS KEY TO THIS PROCESS--TO BECOME AND IN BECOMING A MORE PERFECT BEING. FOR OUR AFRIKAN ANCESTORS EDUCATION AND SCHOOLING WAS ULTIMATELY ABOUT A PERSON BEING TRANSFORMED FROM A LESSER MATERIAL BEING TO A GREATER SPIRITUAL BEING.

See: AFRICOLOGY: A NEW AFRIKAN GUIDING SYNOPSIS OF RBG COMMUNIVERSITY EDUCATION

"WHAT WE BELIEVE"

1) We Believe that Along Side Every Real Black Man
There Should Be A Conscious Black Women

See: The Lost and Stolen History of the African Women

2) We Believe in the Power, Knowledge,
Wisdom and Resurrection of the Ancestors

3) We Believe it is Our Responsibility to Educate
Our Children, Youth and the Masses of the People

RBG Who, What, Why and How:

RBG STREET SCHOLARS THINK TANK is a web-based-face to face hybrid, not -for-profit research, cultural development, education, and socialization community project. It epitomizes New Afrikan consciousness raising in the Web 2.0 environment. We are an academic-action plan community dedicated to fostering progressive social, political, economic and educational change in oppressed / “ghettoized” communities throughout the United States. Our main goal is to stomp out mentacide by intellectually uplifting our youth and young adults caught-up in the many facets of systematic oppression ( including Black-on-Black violence, poverty, ignorance, death and disease). We are about preserving our rich history of scholarship combined with activism and grass-root struggle for civil and human rights and our pursuits of ultimate national liberation and self-determination. We do this by educating and providing African American youth and young adults of the hip-hop generation and their children with the information, tools and skills necessary for them to lead a productive life in a 21st century America being driven by technology. At the core of our methods is an emphasis on history’s (OUR-STORY not His-tory) power as a weapon in fighting against national oppression and its continued relevance to our current plights and struggles for a good life. By equipping our learners (student-teachers) with proper knowledge and technical skills we inspire them to become confident and committed to creating programs, projects and products that will assist in their financially supporting themselves, and at the same time encourage their practicing ongoing progressive change through activism.


This CommuniVersity's target audience is the Hip Hop Generation (Blacks / New Afrikans born between 1965 and 1984) and their children.

RBG Street Scholars Think Tank seeks to educate and empower all Black (New Afrikan) people, but we are especially committed to teaching (and learning from) urban Black youth / hip-hop headz how to be builders of a true African World Union.

4) We Believe in Mental Liberation
Through Proper Education

The education of any people should begin with the people themselves.... The chief difficulty with the education of the Negro is that it has been largely imitation resulting in the enslavement of his mind.
Dr. Carter G. Woodson,
The Miseducation of the Negro(1933)

5) We believe that the Afrikan American experience in the United States is an integral part of the "American" experience

For the past forty five, plus years scholars and students in the “Black Studies Movement” have worked to include courses on the African American experience in the curricula of American colleges and universities. Beginning in the late 1960s, they began one of the most important endeavors in mainstream American education, i.e. the creation of departments, programs and courses in African American studies. In their efforts they have continued the work begun eighty years ago by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the “Father of African American History.” In 1915, Dr. Woodson organized the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. A year later, he began publishing the Journal of Negro History. Dr. Woodson’s goal was to encourage the “scientific study of the Negro” and to dispel the ideas and notions prevalent in his time that African Americans had no history and had never contributed to the development of world civilization. An important part of Woodson’s mission in popularizing the study of African American history was to ensure that young people learned the history and culture of African Americans.

Link to the full essay
Back To School: RBG (Redeemed By God) Style,Feat.Brothas Keepa

The 1960s and 1970s were times of social and political ferment which gave rise in the U.S. to the Black Nationalist, Black Power and Black Arts Movements, all driven to some degree by a rejection of Western values and an identification with "Mother Africa." Afrocentric scholars and Black youth also challenged Eurocentric ideas in academia. 1968 signaled a new era in student unrest in the U.S. when Howard University became the first major university to be shut down by student protests, in part over demands for a more Afrocentric orientation of the institution.

The work of Cheikh Anta Diop became very influential. In the following decades, histories related to Africa and the diaspora gradually would incorporate a more African perspective. Since that time, Afrocentrists have increasingly seen Afrikan peoples as the makers and shapers of their own histories. RBG Street Scholars Think Tank is a continuation of that academic, socio-political and cultural process.

See:

RBG Blakademics ACTI- Afrikan Centered Thematic Inventory / Curriculum National Standards

“A PRESENTATION OF THE STUDY DOMAINS OUR VARIOUS CURRICULA EXECUTE IN A WEB 2.0 ENVIRONMENT” http://www.zimbio.com/RBG+Afrikan-+Centered+Cultural+Development+and+Education In NATIONBUILDING, Agyei Akoto has produced a volume that challenges all Afrikan people, particularly those of us in the United States, to confront with seriousness the responsibilities of educating for liberation, and the reality that the goal of liberation must be Nationhood. This book is a masterpiece of vision. More... Access Full Lesson

RBG Street Scholar On Afrikan Centered Education:The Historical Background

Afrocentric education is education targeted towards African people. The premise behind it is the notion that human beings can be subjugated and made servile by limiting their consciousness of themselves and by imposing certain selective aspects of alien knowledge on others.[1] To control a peoples culture is to control their tools of self-determination in relationship to others.[2] Afrocentrists argue that what educates one group of people does not necessarily educate and empower... Read Full Essay

6) We Believe that We Are An Afrikan People

"We Are Afrikan People Wherever We Were Born No matter where we were born in the world. Afrikan (Black) People are historically and culturally linked. Our history, identity, and culture are rooted in the many thousands of years of development of Afrikan civilization on the Afrikan continent. This is a consequence of the ever forward movement and motion of the New Afrikan masses. It is from this historical march of our people (Afrikan [Black] People) that we derive our African culture, the sum total of material and spiritual values created by our people. It is this invincible weapon, Afrikan culture, that has always served to fight against all forms of oppression and exploitation, to move forward New Afrikan People and Afrikan civilization. Modified with "k for c" from Ayize Atiba. 8 March, 1995 / Link to Full Lesson

A Definition of African Centered Education

African Centered Education is a system of sequentially planned educational opportunities provided for African heritage children, youth and young adults to develop the necessary and required skills to participate in the global marketplace with specific interest on the upliftment and empowerment of their African-American communities and the total development and growth of the African continent.
Dr. E. Curtis Alexander
Link to more essential RBG definitions of Afrikan Centered Education

Tony Brown's Afrocentric Education Conference
(See menu for relate videos)

RBG Reference Resource Center and Review of the Literature

Click the link for synoptic reviews of the main resources / book concepts that I have called upon to build "The RBG Street Scholars Think Tank's Educational Foundation" from a scholarly / academic perspective. The reviews are very important reading for learners as well as teachers, as they are rich with knowledge of the issues and solutions. I have also embedded video education assets throughout to enhance the reading.