5 Benefits of African-Centered Education

afro building

Produces Black Nation Builders

Along with culture and identity, education must help restore the concept of nationhood, manhood and womanhood for African people, according to historian and educator Dr. John Henrik Clarke.

African-centered educators believe that wherever Blacks happen to be in the world, they constitute a nation or a nation that is within a nation, and that concept is called Black nationalism.

Dr. Kmt G. Shockley states in Culture, Power, and Education: The Philosophies and Pedagogy of African Centered Educators:  “Black nationalism requires that Blacks develop a sense of agency toward fixing the problems within their own communities. Agency eventually leads toward nation building. Agency and nation building involve the intentional and focused attempt to ‘develop African youth to be specifically trained to further develop and ‘administrate the state’ (that is, control the community).

“Blacks cannot learn to ‘administrate the state’ if they are not equipped with attitudes that teach them that they, in fact, should administer and be agents for Black upliftment.”

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