The Book of Awesome Black Americans is a look at some of the people who have made this country—and the world—greater by defying the odds, pushing through adversity, and paving a path for others to follow. This book is also a reflection of my own childhood, which was spent researching and reading about Black leaders, inventors, and innovators who shaped how I viewed myself and my place in the world. While this book is just a pittance of the debt they’re owed, I hope that it serves as my recognition for the incredible lives they’ve lived.
There are some things we need to get out of the way before we dive headfirst into this book together. Most of us already know about Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and the like. Indeed, a few folks we always learn about will be included here. But this book is largely dedicated toward those faces and stories we don’t see or hear about a lot in the mainstream. This includes LGBTQ+ voices and the voices of people who lived in a time when their stories were considered unimportant. This includes individuals who predate the African American experience, such as the African nobles who are the genesis of African American history. This also includes everyday people past and present who have worked behind the scenes to make our lives, and our futures, better and brighter; they might have gotten accolades for their work, but, if you met them on the street, you probably wouldn’t recognize them. Those are the individuals this book is highlighting.
Another thing to note is that I use “Black American” in two different ways in the book. The first way is to discuss African American people, people who are descended from African slaves brought to America. The second way is to write about people from the diaspora who are of African descent but are American citizens. This is because there are some people in the book who might not be descendants of slaves in the United States, but they are, indeed, American citizens of an African background.
I hope that you, the reader, have fun with this book. As a child who loved learning, I was entranced by Africana, an encyclopedia set comprised solely of Black American accomplishments, historical dates, and facts written by W.E.B. DuBois and later edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah. Through Africana, which I read when it was in its website form, I was transported through time and learned so much about my own African American history. Of course, the book you’re reading now isn’t an encyclopedia. Still, my wish is that it engenders the same type of curiosity and love for learning as Africana did for me. I hope that you are inspired to learn more about the people highlighted in this book. I want it to inspire you to go on your own personal, enlightening journey.
(Also, you’ll hear a lot about Alabama in this book, since that’s where I’m from!)
I hope this book accomplishes its goal of showcasing how vast Black history actually is, particularly Black American history. We live in it every day, whether we realize it or not. It’s time to start showing honor to those who have provided us with so much. One of the best ways to do that is to start learning about their impact on our lives.
As with all good stories, we must start at the beginning. When it comes to Black American history, that story doesn’t start with slavery. Instead, we must go all the way back to where civilization as we know it began: Africa.
African Roots
If we’re starting from the beginning, let’s make it count by starting with the first humans ever. Yes, African history actually encompasses all of human history, because the first hominins actually arose from Africa. So, regardless of our ethnicity or nationality, we all have much more in common than we’ve made ourselves believe.
The most famous hominin ancestor is “Lucy,” the nickname for AL 288-1. She’s the female skeleton from the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis and was discovered in the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia in 1974. While we know her as Lucy, she also has another name, the Amharic “Dinkinesh.” Dinkinesh means “you are marvelous,” and she certainly is, seeing how she holds some of the answers to human evolution.
Another ancient skeleton—”Little Foot”—was discovered in a South African cave in 1994. Whereas Lucy was dated as being 3.2 million years old, Little Foot was dated as being about 3.7 million years old, several hundred thousand years older than Lucy.
More recently, others born in the same land became inspiring leaders, generals, royalty, and adventurers rivaling the likes of the Roman and British Empires we are always taught about in schools. Of course, you have Egypt’s ancient rulers, the pharaohs. One cool pharaoh is Amenhotep IV, who renamed himself Akhenaton after establishing something no other Egyptian ruler had done—a monotheistic religion. This religion was based around Aten, the god of the sun. Even though Akhenaton’s monotheistic religion was abolished with the crowning of his son Tutankhamun (otherwise known to us as “King Tut,” the teenage pharaoh), his contribution to religion affected the practice of worship for world religions for hundreds of years to come.
The Kushites, who lived in current day Sudan, came to power in Egypt when the Kushite King Piankhi, also known as Piye, and his brother King Shabaka staged a successful coup and established Egypt’s twenty-fifth ruling dynasty with King Piankhi’s son, Pharaoh Shebitku and Shebitku’s brother Taharqa.
Even though the Egyptians eventually regained their dominance over their region, Nubia cranked out exceptional leaders, like Queen Amanirenas, a battle-tested queen who lost an eye in her conquests. She successfully waged an extended war against the Romans occupying her land. Her battle strategy led her to victory against Roman emperor Caesar Augustus, who not only ordered his troops to retreat, but canceled Rome’s demand for Kushite tribute.
Another warrior-queen was Queen Aminatu of Nigeria. Born in 1533, she was the daughter of Queen Bakwa Turunku and inherited her mother’s throne in 1576. Aminatu was known for her military might and was able to expand Hausa territory with each of her campaigns. She conquered the neighboring Nupe and Kwararafa states as she expanded her nation. She also succeeded in securing the trade route under Zazzau control, bringing Zazzau even more power. Her reign was the closest any ruler has come to unifying Nigeria under the power of one person.
Mansa Musa was the tenth Mansa or “sultan” of the Mali Empire. Musa is known as one of the richest people in all of history, reigning over a kingdom that is thought to have possibly been one of the largest producers of gold in the world. His wealth was documented throughout history, including in a 1375 Catalan Atlas, which depicts him holding a gold coin. This gold coin represented unfathomable riches, which he displayed throughout his pilgrimage to Mecca. It’s been recorded that his retinue consisted of sixty thousand men dressed in Persian silk and brocade. Of these, twelve thousand were slaves, carrying four pounds of gold bars each. The procession also included expensively dressed heralds wielding gold staffs and animals including horses and camels, the latter of which carried 50 to 300 pounds of gold dust. Even though Musa was, of course, flexing on those he passed by, the flex was supposedly for a good cause; Musa reportedly gave his gold away to the poor he met while on his trip. His wealth also allowed him to build a mosque every Friday of his journey, spreading the message of Islam while letting folks know he was on an economic level other rulers could only dream of.
Even more incredibly, Musa managed to buy back all of the gold he gave away, after realizing that his acts of charity devalued the price of metals in the cities he visited. So, on the way back from Mecca, he borrowed as much gold as possible from Cairo’s brokers. While hard to believe, Musa was indeed able to recover all of the gold he gave away. On top of that, he did it all in the same trip to Mecca. That legendary trip makes him the only man in recorded time to control the price of gold in the Mediterranean region. Wall Street and its brokers have nothing on the likes of this leader.
Askia Mohammad I, also known as Muhammad Ture or Askia the Great, was an emperor of the Songhai Empire.