In this chapter from the African Background Outlined or Handbook for the Study of the Negro, published in 1936 and written by Carter G. Woodson, he sketches the history, politics, and culture of various African “tribes.” He covers a huge swath of time, from the 1400s to the present. He was explicitly writing against scholarship on the African continent that presented it in opposition to the United States and Europe as a means to prove the inferiority of Africans and African Americans. He was also trying to shed light on a history of African Americans that predated their forced migration as enslaved people to the United States.
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