Former Member of Parliament and founder of the African University College of Communication (AUCC) Kojo Yankah has launched an African history-themed book titled ‘Jamestown to Jamestown: Letters to an African child’.
The book is about an African child who was frustrated by the half-truths and justifications of the treatment she suffers as a result of being an African.
It conveys a message to Africans on the continent and the Diaspora to reclaim their heritage and to correct some misconception that has divided the African people.
According to the author Kojo Yankah, “Jamestown to Jamestown is a long painful journey of the African whose original civilization was destroyed and replaced by a deliberate programme to reduce him or her to an inferior race”.
“But Jamestown to Jamestown is also a weapon to have the African redeem his pride and fight further for racial equality and justice and freedom. More than that, Jamestown to Jamestown provides the building blocks which a solid United State of Africa will be constructed,” he stated in a speech.
Launching the book, the African Union (AU) Ambassador to the America, Arikana Chihombori-Quao, opined that Africa “has been put to sleep” for so long.
According to her, the most dangerous thing for Africa now was a colonized mind.
“When you look at the status of Black people, particularly Africans on the Continent, I am baffled everyday as to how we have allowed what is going on in our Africa to go on as long as it is going on. It is stupidity of the highest order and yet we seem to be oblivious to it.”
She said the book was a timely “attempt to get us to rise up and begin to do the right thing for us. Because no more shall we continue to be asleep”.
“Jamestown to Jamestown is the beginning of us healing each other, the ones who were left on the colonized continent and the ones who were taken away in shackles,” she remarked.
There were glowing tributes from illustrious African professors to celebrate the book.
Meanwhile, the book has won a citation by the Jamestown County in the United States of America.
This was disclosed at the launch of the book in the US on July 13.
Part of the citations read, “…Whereas the honourable Mr. Yankah is currently working on his next book from Jamestown to Jamestown, highlighting our shared history; Now therefore, be it resolved that I chairman of the Board of Supervisors of James City country, Virginia, hereby proclaim the 18th day of June to be a proclaimed as “From Jamestown to Jamestown Day” in the county of James City and call on citizens of James city to join in the observance of this occasion and extend the hand of scholarship and hospitality…”
By Paul Selorm Agbo|3news.com|Ghana
