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Afro-Latinos: The Forgotten Blacks

Henry Louis Gates Jr. has released a new documentary series titled Black in Latin America.  This documentary series highlights the history of Blacks in Latin America (including Belize & Haiti).

Blacks in the states have become the face of the African diaspora due to America’s visibility and due to our high density in the entertainment industry, yet we are the minority.

Blacks in the United States have been known for supporting legislation that disproportionally targets Latinos and we fail to realize that the majority of Blacks in the Americas like Hugo Chavez, Sammy Sosa, Tito Trinidad and Zoe Saldana are Latino! 

Because of ignorance, idiots like Torii Hunter choose to divide the African diaspora as much as possible.

Watch the below promo for the documentary series.  It’s very enlightening.

Some of my independent research on this can be found here.

Watch the full episode. See more Black in Latin America.

You can watch the full episodes here or you can buy them on DVD to watch at home.

Souree: Sickly Cat

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Who Were We Before Slavery? Part II

For such a rich and complex group, there is very little information available about who were were prior to slavery, especially coming from within our own community. Google the term “ancient Africa” and you will see a myriad of sites all with sparse information to share about the lives of our people before the transatlantic slave trade. However, I did come across a special on PBS called Wonders of the African World and a journey taken by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr to Africa to unearth some of our rich history. The first installment, Black Kingdoms of the Nile, shares information about ancient Nubia, a civilization that rivaled ancient Egypt, but is rarely discussed:

The term “Nubia” means many things to many people. In America it has come to be virtually synonymous with blackness and Africa. To ethnographers and linguists, it refers to a specific region straddling southern Egypt and northern Sudan, where black-skinned Nubians have traditionally lived. To archaeologists in the 1990s it is an ever-widening area of the Middle Nile Valley and surrounding deserts that extends approximately from Aswan in Egypt south to modern Khartoum, Sudan, and beyond.

What most people don’t know is that ancient Nubia was the site of highly advanced black African civilizations that rivaled ancient Egypt in wealth, power and cultural development. In fact, Nubian kings ruled over Egypt as pharaohs for nearly 100 years.

Read more here at pbs. org and watch more below.