Author

In the closing years of the nineteenth century, African-American historians began to look at their people's history from their vantage point and their point of view.

From John Henrik Clarke

Egypt gave birth to what later would become known as 'Western Civilization,' long before the greatness of Greece and Rome.

From John Henrik Clarke

We have been educated into believing someone else's concept of the deity, and someone else's standard of beauty. You have the right to practice any religion and politics in a way that best suits your freedom, your dignity, and your understanding. And once you do that, you don't apologize.

From John Henrik Clarke

History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are but, more importantly, what they must be.

From John Henrik Clarke

All the working-class people could feel a Malcolm X. They could hear Malcolm X, and two weeks later they could whisper back what he said. Verbatim. They could remember the way he put it, and he put it so well.

From John Henrik Clarke

There are some long silences in Scandinavian and some Japanese films, when the audience knows action is taking place, but the audience hears no action.

From John Henrik Clarke

Africans in the United States must remember that the slave ships brought no West Indians, no Caribbeans, no Jamaicans or Trinidadians or Barbadians to this hemisphere. The slave ships brought only African people and most of us took the semblance of nationality from the places where slave ships dropped us off.

From John Henrik Clarke

Anytime you turn on your own concept of God, you are no longer a free man. No one needs to put chains on your body, because the chains are on your mind.

From John Henrik Clarke

It is unfortunate that so much of the history of Africa has been written by conquerors, foreigners, missionaries and adventurers. The Egyptians left the best record of their history written by local writers.

From John Henrik Clarke

I am a nationalist, and a Pan-Africanist, first and foremost. I was well grounded in history before ever taking a history course. I did not spend much formal time in school - I had to work.

From John Henrik Clarke

John Henrik Clarke

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