Two Continents One Hope: Searching The Atlantic For The Souls Of Black People

Two Continents One Hope

Searching The Atlantic For The Souls Of Black People

S. Denice Newton

Two Continents One Hope

Copyright 2012 by S. Denice Newton

Published on Smashwords

Formatted by eBooksMade4You

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

ISBN 10-1475061005

ISBN 13-978-1475061000

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Endorsements

Denice Newton is an amazing teacher and voice in the humanitarian movement now sweeping the world today!

~Skyler Jett: Singer/Songwriter (My Heart Will Go On-The Titanic)

I believe that many readers will enjoy and benefit from this remarkable compilation of history and cultural research that led Denice to some very interesting sets of solutions to the future of black people.

~Lewis Marklin Mash: Host, Icon News

Denice is an inspiration to all leaders who wish to aid those needing a role model to overcome.

~Milliea Taylor McKinney: Owner, Conscious Music Ent.

Denice is a dedicated and motivated woman who shares her vision of awakening the black community to the problems that are destroying us.

~Diane Latiker: 2011 CNN Hero/Founder of Kids off the Block

We need this information very much and so do our next generation. This is good, powerful information!

~Vet Stone: Sly’s Lil Sister/Sly & The Family Stone

This is an amazing recall of the horrible acts of man here on earth...and always remember, at the end of the day we are ALL accountable to God for our actions.

~Pat Melfi: President, MuZart World Foundation

S. Denice Newton, time has brought to fruition the prophetic utterances of many regarding your future in journalism. It is clear to me that this is your season and you are in the Hebrew origin, the Isha that God has chosen to inspire the world with your literary passions.

~Bishop Evelyene Davis: Host, Breakfast with the Bishop

May this work that God has placed within your heart resound loudly in the ears of the masses! May it deeply move the souls of nations and cause mankind to act compassionately and responsibly! May God bless the work of your hands!

~Pastor Dameion L. Royal: Pastor, Contending For the Faith Min.

This wholesome book addresses issues regarding AIDS, crime, violence, and poverty which resonate with me personally because of my love for the people of Africa and the black race in general.

~Arif Khatib: Founder, Multi-Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame

I consider this book a perfect read for entire families. It is something that will incite conversation, smiles, and likely tears. I have no doubt that Newton's words will touch the lives of many, the way they have touched mine.

~Robert X. Golphin: Filmmaker/Actor (The Great Debaters)

This book is dedicated to the trailblazers and pioneers of yesterday that saw tomorrow’s triumphs through tears of their today. Dedicated to the memory of my grandparents, Bruce and Betty Newton and a special matriarch, Mrs. Daisy Peoples. A special dedication to my oldest sister, Doretha Newton Peoples who traded earth for paradise in 2005 and Alonzo Wayne Fuller who unexpectedly left us in 2004. I also dedicate this work to the late Bishop Nathaniel Simmons, founder of the Sounds of Praise Pentecostal Fellowship Ministries.

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Acknowledgments

I first give thanks to Almighty God for choosing me for this critical book project. I am grateful for my two children, Tierra and Torey, always the source of my inspiration. I am thankful for my family, specifically my mother Dorothy and sisters Deanna and Karen for being a part of the whole experience. Special gratitude to my sister Lillie Matthews Gorham and husband William for ensuring that obstacles to the completion of this book were removed. I am indebted to Getrude Matshe for making it possible for me to visit the continent of Africa.

I humbly salute those that helped me lay the foundation for Generation BEFY Network, Dr. Forest Toms, Apostles Calvin and Judy Ellison, Filmmaker Robert X. Golphin (The Great Debaters), Minister Marcedes Fuller, Filmmaker/Producer Reggie Bullock (A War for Your Soul), and inspirational speakers Jacque Howard and Sheila Fowler-Davis. Much love and gratitude to my current pastor Elder Dameion Royal for his prayers and support, Elder Carletha Ward for her coaching, and my former pastors Bishop Evelyene and Elder Michael Davis for taking me under their wings. Heartfelt thanks to my Solutions Now! Radio co-host Skyler Jett for always being in my corner and Thaddeus Howze for simply being a great friend.

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Did You Know…?

The Constitution does not set forth requirements for the right to vote. As a result, at the outset of the Union, only male property-owners could vote. African Americans were not considered citizens, and women were excluded from the electoral process. Native Americans were not given the right to vote until 1924.

www.constitutionfacts.com

During most of the 20th century, South Africa was ruled by a system called Apartheid, which was based on the segregation of the races. The term comes from an Afrikaans word meaning ‘apartness.’

africanhistory.about.com

The Atlantic Ocean takes up one fifth of the earth’s surface. The deepest point of the ocean is 28, 374 feet.

library.thinkquest.org

Though a lion can’t actually roar until age 2, once the switch is flipped, it’s hard to ignore. The mighty bellow used to ward off predators has enough force to raise a cloud of dust and can be heard up to five miles away!

animal.discovery.com

Victoria Falls is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the world. Statistically speaking, it is the largest waterfall in the world. This recognition comes from combining the height and width together to create the largest single sheet of flowing water.

sevennaturalwonders.org

The First American poet to achieve any notoriety was an African female named Phillus Wheatly. One of her poems was first published when she was 13. She wrote a poem about George Washington and later met him. She died tragically at the age of 30.

teachersindex.com

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Ch. 1: Weapons Of Black Destruction

Ch. 2: Taking My Ancestors Home

Ch. 3: When History Is A Mystery

Ch. 4: In The Village

Ch. 5: Dangers Of Unlit Torches

Ch. 6: The Ruins And Orphans

Ch. 7: Faith Under Fire

Ch. 8: Creation And Natural Habitats

Ch. 9: Under The Influence

Ch. 10: South Africa's Politics And Pandemics

Ch. 11: America's Politics And Epidemics

Ch. 12: Back over the Atlantic

Ch. 13: The Diving Expedition

Bibliography

About the Author

Africa Alive Education Foundation

Organizations

Poetic Pause…

Stripped Naked

African Royalty

Obama 44

The Visitor

Peace Unveiled

Letter To Daddy

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Two Continents One Hope

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek…

~Barack Obama

Foreword

When S. Denice Newton approached me with the request to author this foreword, I had just finished reading the Ghanaian Amma Darko’s uncompromising novel Faceless – one of those many books that one buys but hardly ever gets the chance to read. And so as I went through Two Continents One Hope, I was struck by the many contemporaneous similarities between the two books, even though the one is a work of fiction and the other, not. There is no end to the similarities in themes the books explore and sincerely grapple with.

Without wanting to repeat the cliché, I honestly think we need more of such books to help guide us in our ongoing interrogation of what we in Africa refer to as our humanism. Towards the end of his essay on Darko’s book – about the recklessness of parents, child prostitution and all the attendant horrors– scholar Kofi Anyidoho writes, [T]here is a wake-up call to us as Grandmothers/Grandfathers, as Mothers, but especially as Fathers. It is not enough to sow the seeds of human life in quick, repeated sessions of reckless ecstasy. Beyond the passionate intensity of countless orgasms, the future of our children, of our own mortality and ancestry awaits our constant vigilance and careful nurturing.

Echoing these sentiments in her preface to this book, Denice, writing about the delinquent and violent character of some of the school children she has taught in the US over the past twenty years declares: While the finger of blame can be pointed at various factors, I wholeheartedly believe that lack of parental involvement, low expectations, and a thug culture are a major culprit. And she concludes the preface with a declaration of hope, a declaration repeated over the many millennia since Europe’s first encounter with, and subsequent raping and ruthless pillaging of Africa and the advent of slavery.

It is a hope that Africans and African Americans will, before it’s too, late have to rediscover their humanism and bequeath it as a lasting gift to the rest of humanity. As the title of this book suggests, it is concerned with the stories (which are never innocent, as the sagacious Chinua Achebe reminds us) of the African people – especially the African poor in South Africa and Zimbabwe – and of those who were forcefully made to cross the Atlantic Ocean as slaves to America. And so it is that for Denice… a labor of love beyond measure. We owe and must express our gratitude to Alex Haley that celebrated African-American journalist and author, most famously of Roots. Ngugi wa Thiong'o must have been thinking about Haley’s Roots when he wrote his seminal book, Decolonising the Mind. That is because it was after reading Roots that Denice started getting itchy feet about visiting the continent whence the book told her, her ancestors and those of Kunta Kinte came from. In other words, it was after Roots that Denice became thoroughly decolonized, so to speak, and was thereafter imbued with an unquenchable thirst to visit her mother continent.

This book is a result of those many years of a great thirst. While Denice handles competently the narratives of both Zimbabwe and South Africa, it is in the US that she is on surer ground, which is not surprising, given that that is where she was born and has spent most of her adulthood. But I feel there is something also to be said about the image in general, of the Africans on my continent and those in the Diaspora, which I have observed in my many travels, and that is the worrying image of the African as ever so helpless; in need always of the guiding hand of those of a ‘superior’ race.

And I am not only talking about those Africans in all societies, whose poverty and misery is palpable and instantly distressing, but about those Africans also who have got an education, are professionals, but trapped in institutions that, because of the colour of their skins, are forever required to prove their worth. They too need to be decolonized, for how else will a true liberation of the self come about; how will those we seek to pull from the bottom of the sea of despair be encouraged to realize their full potential if they see that those who sought to liberate them are themselves yet to be fully emancipated?

Ultimately, Two Continents One Hope is not an eloquent book by an African American for other African Americans or even Africans in Africa (much as it is primarily concerned with parallel societal segments of the two groups in both continents); no, this is a work of a true humanist for all of humanity. It has lessons for all of us interested in the pure wonder that this beautiful world can truly become.

Thandi Lujabe-Rankoe is South Africa’s former Ambassador/High Commissioner to Mozambique and Botswana.

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I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all…

~Zora Neale Hurston

Preface

In the more than twenty years that I’ve worked with children in public and private schools, I’ve seen too many