Obituary for John Hope Franklin

"The long, tragic history of the continuing black-white conflict compelled me to focus on the struggle that has affected the lives of the vast majority of people in the United States ." - John Hope Franklin

John Hope Franklin, a revered Duke University historian and scholar of life in the South and the African-American experience in the United States , has passed away at the age of 94. Duke spokesman David Jarmul said Franklin died of congestive heart failure at the university's hospital in Durham .

Franklin was born Jan. 2, 1915, in the African-American town of Rentiesville , Oklahoma . His father, Buck, was an attorney. His mother, Mollie, a teacher, began taking him to school with her when he was 3. He could read and write by 5; by 6, he first became aware of the "racial divide separating me from white America ." Franklin, his mother and sister Anne were ejected from a train when his mother refused the conductor's orders to move to the overcrowded "Negro" railroad coach.

Franklin attended historically black Fisk University , where he met Aurelia Whittington, who would be his wife, editor and rock for 58 years until her death in 1999. Franklin 's doctoral thesis was on free Afrikan-Americans in antebellum North Carolina , and his wife spent part of their honeymoon in Washington , DC , at the Census Bureau, helping him finish his research. The resulting work, "The Free Negro in North Carolina , 1790-1860," earned Franklin his doctorate and, in 1943, became his first published book.

Four years later, he completed his seminal work, "From Slavery to Freedom," which was a landmark in Afrikan-American history. The text sold million of copies and remains required reading in college classrooms. He accepted a job at Howard University , beginning his long academic career.

As a scholar, his research helped Thurgood Marshall win Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case that outlawed the doctrine of "separate but equal" in U.S. public schools. Franklin broke numerous color barriers. He was the first Afrikan department chair at a predominantly white institution, Brooklyn College; the first Afrikan professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke University; and the first Afrikan president of the American Historical Association.

Franklin received more than 100 honorary degrees, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Spingarn Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America 's highest civilian honor. In 1985, Franklin was in New York to receive the Clarence Holte Literary Award for his biography of historian George Washington Williams, a 40-year project for which he was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize. The next morning, he and his wife were unable to hail a taxi in front of their hotel. In 1993, President Clinton honored Franklin with the Charles Frankel Prize, recognizing scholarly contributions that give "eloquence and meaning %u2026 to our ideas, hopes and dreams as American citizens." Clinton awarded Franklin the Medal of Freedom two years later.

In June, Franklin had a small role in the movie based on the book "Blood Done Signed My Name," about the public slaying of an Afrikan-American man in Oxford in 1970. The book's author, Tim Tyson, said at the time he wanted Franklin in the movie "because of his dignity and his shining intelligence."

Another great scholar has died. Historian and anthropologist Ivan van Sertima, author of They Came Before Columbus, has gone to join the ancestors.

Van Sertima was a Professor at Rutgers University, which Paul Robeson once attended. Van Sertima's work challenged the accepted hegemony which claimed that African people were inferior to other races.

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"I am more concerned with the 'rivers' of life than the narrows through which they pass." - Christopher C Taylor

One of the most intriguing things about this book is that it was published in 1992 so it gives a comprehensive snapshot of the healing techniques of Rwanda right up to the period immediately prior to the killings of April - July 1994 when the Rwandan Patriotic Front took over power.

For three centuries, the Tutsis established themselves as cattle patrons with the Hutu as their clients under a system called Ubuhake. The system was based on what the author called gift logic, as opposed to the western commodity logic, which was introduced into the region by the Catholic Church and other colonizers.

"Visible hands manipulate gifts; 'invisible hand' - the market - manipulates money and commodities%u2026gift exchange makes social relations evident." [p6] Debts in a gift economy often persist and do not revert to zero. Failure to differentiate between gift and commodity logic can lead to personal crisis and illness.

Central to gift logic were the concepts of blockage and flow. It was good for gifts, bodily fluids and essential items to flow freely and any blockage to the system was a situation that required healing. Fluids that were essential to flow for the well-being of society were: water, rain, river, springs, blood, semen, saliva, milk, honey and beer. In the case of marriage women flow in one direction and cattle in the other. "Fire is not compatible with things which produce or contain milk. Milk is never cooked in Rwanda , nor should drops of milk ever fall on a fire, for fear the cow will stop giving milk." [p167]

Three clans - Zigaba, Gesera and Singa - were termed abasaangwabutaka (those who were found upon the earth). They could contact the earth without ritual pollution.

"When other Rwandans wished to establish a dwelling, bury their dead, or recommence agricultural activity after mourning (activities of transition involving the earth), the abasaangwabutaka accomplished the necessary ritual action for their abase (those to whom they were linked through the ubuse relation)." [p15-16]

King Gihanga was considered the inventor of pottery making and iron working. "The king's body was a metonym of the entire cosmological system. Since he was the conduit between sky and earth his body had to be kept open%u2026Imaana and the king were associated with milk and fertility. Death was associated with blood and sterility." [p34] According to Rwandan cosmology death came into humanity through the folds of a woman's skirt and she passed it on to her children through their food. Death destroys female fertility from within. Death is frightened of rain. The origin of Death is the same as the origin of witchcraft.

"Every Rwandan king ruled in conjunction with the preceding deceased cowherd king, whose cadaver was mummified and kept in the half of the realm where the living king resided." [p41] As the king had the power to block fluid flow he sometimes had to be killed to open the flow between earth and sky. The Queen mother must also die before the kingship is transferred (by suicide if needs be). "Thus two of the four rulers within each dynastic cycle had the responsibility of war and conquest, and the other two were charged with consolidation and renewal%u2026Like a gourd holding liquid, sometimes the gourd contained its kings, sometimes the gourd poured them out over new land." [p43]

Imaana relates not to a person but a fluid that must be captured. "Imaana was thought to invest certain trees and plants, royal residencies and tombs, animals and objects used in divination, and protective talismans. Diviners, ritual specialists, and ancestral spirits were also believed to embody imaana." [p26]

Across Rwanda, education and health were in the hands of Catholic missionaries. Traditional religions were the Nyabingi in the north and Ryangombe in south and central Rwanda . Ryangombe was linked to divine kingship and was also found in Burundi and Tanzania . Umuko, the tree beneath which Ryangombe died, was the only plant to come to his aid when he was impaled by a buffalo. It is a symbol of rebirth and resurrection and the milky white sap relates to milk and semen.

There were fewer Tutsis in the north and the region of Ndorwa was once ruled by the pastoralist Abashambo. Catholics learned the lessons of Kimbanguism in DR Congo and suppressed syncretism. Christianity emphasised internal causes of misfortune and confession over accusation.

The Nyabingi, ('she who possesses very much' in Rukiga, and Nyabyinshi in Kinyarwanda) were based in northern Rwanda and south-western Uganda . Abaheko ba Nyabingi is a woman possessed by the Nyabingi spirit. The Nyabingi resistance leader priestess, Muhumusa, was one of the former wives of Kigeri Rwabugiri who died in 1895. Musinga, who was Christianised, deposed his appointed successor Mibambwe Rutalindwa. Muhumusa was captured by the Germans in May 1909. Musinga abandoned traditional rituals in 1924-25 for fear of appearing pagan.

Belgium was awarded a League of Nations mandate for Ruanda-Urundi after the German defeat in the First Imperialist war (1914-18). Belgians toyed with the agricultural Hutu but reverted to partnering Tutsi rulers. Disillusioned Hutus in central Rwanda then converted to Protestantism - especially Seventh Day Adventist and the Balokole.

French / Francophone priests had previously sided with the Hutu masses and the Hutus had thus used the Catholic Church to diminish Tutsi kingship rule. "Virtually no Tutsi nobles converted to Christianity until 1917%u2026Before then, new converts were overwhelming Hutu. The first ones tended to be the most impoverished among them, those without patrons and without protection. In fact they often sought out missionaries as possible protectors." {P53]

In 1954, the ubuhake system was abolished by Mutara IV Rudahigwa. In 1957 the Bahutu Manifesto was published. The Tutsi monarchy was abolished after elections in 1960 and Gregoire Kayibanda was named Prime Minister. Rwanda gained its independence in July 1962. In 1973 there was a military takeover, supported by the Catholic Church which was considered to have discouraged persecution of Tutsis. The army was mainly northern, led by Juvenal Habyarimana. In neighbouring Burundi the Tutsi government still see the Catholic Church as supporters of the Hutu. Over 200,000 Hutus were killed in Burundi in the 1960s and 70s - Hutus with education were especially targeted.

The Center for Traditional Medicine was inaugurated by the late President Juvenal Habyarimana in July 1984. Curphametra - Centre Universitaire de Recherches sur la Pharmacopee et la Medecine Traditionelle was at the Universite National du Rwanda in Butare. Healers ply their trade and funds came from central government. Centre director, the late Father Kayinamura, established it for healers who use medicinal plants but not magic rites or night practices. Night healers claim bad spirits are more active at night. Chinese medicine was available in Rwanda and even Catholic priests were practising as acupuncturists. "Although syncretism is notably absent from the religious domain%u2026the therapeutic realm seems almost promiscuously open to experimentation, combination and variety." [p140]

Witches or poisoners do not abide by reciprocity. "Relations between collaterals are the most conflictual in rural Rwanda . Next most troublesome are relations with neighbours, and then those with occupational rivals or associates." [p77]

Divorce is not granted when one member of the couple is ill. In divorce, children belonged to the father, so no one could accept the idea that a father would bewitch his own daughter. Ingobyi (placenta) is a sheepskin used to carry children given by the husband to show child is legitimate. "Drinking's lamb urine, therefore, would reinforce the man's ability to give a lamb's skin, that is, his ability to be potent and produce legitimate offspring." [p98]

Gutsirika is to treat spirits at their source to prevent a return. Some of the ailments healers treated were: Kumanikira Amaraso which impedes a woman from delivering a baby or from conceiving; Umuvu is when a woman's menstrual flow becomes haemorrhagic, which can cause sterility or be life-threatening and is caused by poisoning; Urukarango (Umukobwa Utajya Mu Minango) afflicts a girl who cannot menstruate or the flow has been stopped.

Ibiteega entered Rwanda from Tanzania in the 1930s. Amaheembe (horn) entered Rwanda from Uganda . The deceased person was not always related to the sufferer. They are young men or women who died affianced but before marriage. Abazimu, spirits of ancestors, were only used for the pathological state not for venerating ancestral spirits which is guterekeera. Ababyeeyi were relatives and abakuraambere, the ones who came first. The world occupied by the living is buntu. The Underworld, occupied by the spirits of the dead, is buzimu [a word that turns up in Jamaican religious concepts].

Amajini spirit affliction affects muslims or people close to muslims. It was Tanzanian in origin. Amajini attack thieves, rapists, chiefs and wrongdoers. There were four types: Pao were associated with the sea. They can stop the sea or take a person from a vessel and hurl him or her into the water; Jyabali is associated with rocks, they often appear as Black people; Korongo are the amajini of cliffs. They attack pregnant women and babies. They can shapeshift; Mwitu are found in bushes. They can castrate a young man or render him impotent and make young girls sterile or miscarry. A victim may speak a previously unknown language

What does a person lose converting from one religion to another or altering their worldview? "Then there is the question of exchange relations between the living and the dead. In effect, what occurs when a man becomes a Catholic and ceases to give sacrifices to his ancestors, neglects them to the point where he can no longer recall their names%u2026Western symbols (biomedicine, Catholic words and gestures) could neither correctly articulate nor cure his symptoms, because they reflect the history and symbolism of a commodity culture." [p168]

NUBIART: Focus on arts, business, education, health, political developments and the media.

Review of 'The Enlightenment Abolished: Citizens of Britishness' - Geoff Palmer

APR PROMO

'Léman' - Blick Bassy [World Connection. Released 20 Apr]. Singer / songwriter / guitarist / percussionist Bassy moved to Paris in 2005 where he started working with Manu Dibango, Cheikh Tidiane Seck, Lokua Kanza and Etienne Mbappé, leaving behind Cameroon as well as Macase, the award-winning group he had been a member of for almost 10 years. Regarded as the new soul voice of Cameroon , Bassy sings in, Bassa, one of the 260 Cameroonian languages that fewer and fewer children know how to speak. Bassy's soulful sound blends influences such as Gilberto Gil, Marvin Gaye and Nat King Cole. On his debut solo album Bassy connects the music of Central and West Africa with bossa nova, jazz and soul. 'Léman' was recorded in Salif Keita's studio in Bamako , Mali , and in Paris , and co-produced by Jean Lamoot (known for his work with Souad Massi, Salif Keita, Nneka and Kasse Mady Diabaté) and Jean-Louis Solans. For more info: http://www.myspace.com/blickbassy2

NUBIART LIBRARY - APR MEDIA:

We will recommend books we have read and DVD / videos we have seen and that are available in shops or libraries. However, given the nature and current state of Afrikan publishing and production there may be books, games and films on this list that are worth the extra effort to track down.

For more about Black history, see For more information, see Black History International.

~ ETF PRESENTS' African- British Civil Rights Heroes 1596-2006'. The bias in schools gives the impression that racism and civil rights was an American issue and totally ignores the struggles Black British people endured. For example: Shops in Oxford and Regent Streets in London refused to employ Afrikans; Afrikan and Asian children were bussed out of local schools so that there would not be "too many" of them.

Racial attacks were a daily occurrence, ignored by police when they were not instigating them; Afrikans had to pay more to rent houses and for mortgages; There were calls for Afrikans schools as far back as the 1700's.

In the 1790s, a group of Afrikans in London were lobbying the government for the abolition of Afrikan enslavement; and In 1820 a Jamaican in London bought guns in order to overthrow the government.

Every area of life was contested at great cost. This presentation will give you the names and achievements of those who fought against British racism over the last 400 years. On Sun 26 Apr at 1-4.30pm at Imperial War Museum , Lambeth Road, London , SE1. Adm: Free. For info e-mail: etf@100bmol.org.uk
Web: Imperial War Museum

Olive Morris - Olive Morris


~ BLAK FRIDAY. Nu-Beyond in partnership with The African Development Forum presents Dr. Robert Beckford delivering his awesome presentation, 'Kanye West Says, "Jesus Walks." But Are Black Christians Standing Still?' Dr Beckford will explore the Christian values necessary to produce the prophetic faith represented in "Jesus Walks," a Christianity offering shelter to the marginalised and a challenge to the structural evil that affects us all.

On 17 Apr at 7.30pm at The Drum, 144 Potters Lane , Aston, Birmingham , B6 4UU .
Tel. 0121 333 2444
Email: info@the-drum.org.uk
Web: The Drum

~ UN WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM (WCAR) in Geneva April 20-24 2009. GAC-UK (Global Afrikan Congress - UK ) will be sending a delegation and would welcome your input in to this work.

For more info contact Co - Chair Gee Bernard on 020 8771 9700.

~ CTJ DEMONSTRATION: Against judicial corruption, unlawful imprisonments and human rights abuses in the UK . 'In a government of laws existence of the government will be imperilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law. It invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy'. Every Sat at 12-3pm HMP Wormwood Scrubs, Du Cane Road , London , W12 0AE .

For further info contact Campaign For Truth & Justice.
Tel 020 8516 4668. Mobile 07950 827 015.
E-mail info@ctjnet.co.uk
Web: Campaign for Truth and Justice

Kubara Zamani, Afrikan Quest International, PO Box 35165 , London , SE5 8WU . Tel: 07811 494 969. E-mail: afrikanquest@hotmail.com
Web: Afrikan Quest


NB: Nubiart Diary can also be read at www.ligali.org and on the Afrikan Quest website.