We hope President Biden’s trip to Angola inspires a more extensive discussion of Africa, its history, and its connection to African Americans, particularly the Atlantic slave trade. One tipping point has already surfaced, indicating that a port in Angola played a key role in the departure of captives from the continent. And we are excited to learn that Dr. Wanda Tucker’s name has entered the discussion since she claims her ancestors may have been among the first to arrive in what was to become the U.S.
Biden’s journey also reminds us of a recent article by linguist Dr. John McWorter in the New York Times back in November. The crux of his opinion is that Black Americans should dismiss their focus on ancient Egypt as “a historical precursor to American blackness.” True, as he asserts, Black Americans are “not on the whole their descendants,” but he avoids the issue of what color the ancient Egyptians were.
Avoided, too, is the vital link between West Africa and Egypt, a subject given lengthy and profound insight by the late Senegalese scholar Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop. In his book “Civilization or Barbarism — An Afrocentric Anthropology,” Diop (1923–1986) connects the Wolof-speaking people of Senegal with ancient Egypt, both mythically and linguistically. He compares the ancient Egyptian language with Wolof.
“Sa” is the Egyptian god who nourishes the intelligence of truth. Diop cites it as similar to Sa, the Wolof word for to teach, to instruct.
Diop has a long list of corresponding words from the two language groups. There is certainly an authoritative ring of similarity in the names of King Tenkhamenin of Ghana and the pharaoh Tutankhamun.
This may not be the place for a scholarly discourse on linguistics, but it is one we hope can be continued elsewhere among our enlightened Africanists with the sole purpose of taking Biden’s trip to a wider plateau of knowledge and community.