Following the discussion on this subject, may I say thanks to the
contributors for enlightening me further on this matter.

Some few months back, I happened to listen to a BBC world service program
discussing a topic similar to this. I found it exciting and I was so much
amazed by what was being said about black presence in the Americas before
Colombus that I burst out of my room that early morning to invite my flat
mate to tune in to the program. To my disgrace, when my flat mate heard what
I was excited about , he gave me one of those looks and asked if that was
news to me. Having boasted with a 1 in my History paper of the O'level WAEC
Exams you can imagine how embarass I felt.

Anyway, I made a record of the program for furture ref. And as if I was not
embarassed enough I wanted to spread the news with some friends.
Unfortunately for me, the third person I discussed the program with also
just gave me that look as if I ought to have known my history better. Coming
to my rescue he offered to lend me a book entitled 'They Came Before
Colombus, The African Presence in the Americas' (Sorry I did not note the
Author's name).

I must admit I tried reading it but found it was not some kind of light read
material. It was heavily researched stuff and I could not go past the 3rd
chapter as I was studying for my course work at the time.

In any case, I thought I might share this personal experience of mine to
show how much there is for some of us to get to know about our history in
the passage of world events regardless of what we might have been taught at
school.

Can you believe me but until now I never knew that those items listed on the
list of black inventions were actually masterminded by black. Regardless of
their nationality or where they live at the time of their invention I am now
better able to associate those things to the respective heritage. At least
thanks to your enlightenment, I would not be like those who attribute
everything that makes our life easy on earth to the white race.

By the way, for those who may have the tendency to class others by name,
please be assured that I maybe one of the most black breed of Africans
around. As a matter of fact, where does name differences come into equation?
Will names such as Nelson, Jerry, Abdoulie, Charles etc. necessarily makes
one less black African than others with name like Kwame, Kojo, Dawda,
Obasanjo etc?.....Maybe its time to give this name thing a break and think
objectively and give credit where it belongs regardless of name and its
origin.

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