Dr. Van Sertima speaks at U.C.B.

He addressed a packed Bliss Institute on Monday and today anthropologist, literary critic and linguist Dr. Ivan Van Sertima spoke to enthralled U.C.B. students in his final presentation in Belize. The professor from Rutgers University has lectured at more than one hundred universities in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, South America and Europe. He has challenged the accepted ideas about colonialism and the history of the New World by contending that people from Africa were here long before the Europeans brought them here as slaves. Dr. Van Sertima told News Five about his most famous book and what he hopes each student at the lecture today will remember.

Dr. Ivan Van Sertima

“What has happened since I wrote “They came before Columbus” about twenty something years ago is that scientists have new evidence that establishes beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Africans did come before Columbus. But some of them came before Christ at the time when Egypt was African. It no longer is because it’s run by so many foreigners, but at the time when it was African we have this evidence of this contact and influence.

I feel that those who have grown up to despise Africans and despise themselves will have a different vision all together. They will be able to see things that they rarely see. They will be able to see the evidence that has accumulated within the past quarter of a century. The evidence that has accumulated establishing beyond the shadow of a doubt of the equality of man and the remarkable things that Africans have done in orient times before they were enslaved.”

Dr. Ivan Van Sertima says that he is very pleased by the reception from Belizean students and the general public during his few days in Belize. His lecturers were part of the University College of Belize Lecture Series and his visit was co-sponsored by the Amandala newspaper. Last year, the guest lecturer in the series was Guatemalan activist and noble peace prize winner Rigoberta Menchu.