I

magine living in a world where most of the people who look like you are perceived as underachievers, lazy, parasites, ne'er-do-wells. Then imagine that your world has been like this for generations. Your mother and father knew this world, and so did your grandparents and their parents.

Now imagine that, while people who are different from you speak proudly of the achievements of their ancient ancestors, you tend to shy away from speaking about yours, because you learned at a very early age that your ancient ancestors never achieved anything of note; never fought great battles; never conquered their neighbors; never created great art or music, or pondered the mysteries of the universe. Then, too, they never governed a city or town, let alone a nation or an empire. You were always told that your ancestors were little more than savages in their native land, and that is why they were enslaved and brought to the world that you now inhabit.

Well. . .welcome to the world of black children who live in Western societies. Welcome to a world of insecurity and low self esteem, of ambivalence and apathy. It is not a pretty world or a world peopled with kindly witches and wizards or fairy tale princesses and gallant knights. It is, as countless generations of African Americans have learned, a world that is dark, brutal and unforgiving.

By contrast, a white child growing up in the same society sees a much different world — a world of beauty and light and endless possibilities. Theirs is a world of enormous accomplishments, mostly stemming from a long history of European imperialism. The white child's world is, by all accounts, a privileged world, full of promise and hope and glorious precedences.

The Asian child growing up in that same society may not have the privileged worldview as the white child, but his or her world holds much more promise than the black child. For one thing, Asian children can at least boast of ancestral accomplishments that are on par with their white counterparts.

But not so the black child.

Yet, when you reexamine world history, as many black scholars have done over the years, you quickly learn that African history is not something to be ashamed of but, rather, something that should be embraced and treasured by all people, not just people of African ancestry. How refreshing to learn, for example, that black pharaohs ruled the ancient empires of Egypt and Kush long before the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans conquered that part of the world; that life in what is now known as the Middle East was once dominated by people named Nefertari, Hatchepsut, Amenhotep III, Piye, Taharqa, Makeda, and Amanirenas — all of them African kings and queens. All of them to be admired.

How many knew, for example, that a Kushite queen, Amanirenas, who was referred to by then Roman governor Gaius Petronius as the "One Eyed Candace" after she lost an eye in battle against the Romans, fought Augustus Ceasar's 10,000-strong army to a standstill in 24 BCE? Perhaps remnants of this army occupied Jerusalem a few years later and carried out the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Also, this was the same Augustus Ceasar who defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra and was later declared a "god" by his countrymen. How refreshing for black children to learn that the man whose name is used for the month of August was forced to sign a peace treaty with a black woman who led her nation in battle against the most powerful army in the world!

Moving on, how many people in the Western world are aware that a black pharaoh named Taharqa dispatched an army of Kushite troops to Jerusalem in 701 BCE to save the holy City of David from destruction by the Assyrian's King Sennacherib? Although the Kushites were later driven from power in Egypt by the Assyrians, had Taharqa not sent his troops when he did, Judaism, Christianity and Islam might well have had a different outcome. This historic event was recorded in the bible (Kings II, 19:9; Isaiah 37:9) and in Judaism's Torah.

Another important event involving African people that was recorded in the Torah and the Qur'an was the story of what happened to Moses after he killed an Egyptian. The biblical account says Moses fled into exile after killing the man and later returned to Egypt to demand that Pharaoh let his people go. The Torah and Qur'an go a step further and report that Moses didn't simply hide out for a few years but that he fled to Ethiopia and became "King of Ethiopia," or Kush, and lived there for some forty years, even taking an Ethiopian wife, Zipporah, the daughter of a Midianite priest. The bible mentions Zipporah, but not Ethiopia or that Moses lived there for forty years.

There are numerous examples like these, where African people are marginalized as onlookers rather than major participants in historical events. Racism? Not really. Usurpation? Yes, to some extent, especially when you follow the dictum: "To the victor goes the spoils." To paraphrase a famous contemporary writer, the people who win the war get to write the history of the war. For example, throughout their 1000-year history of empire building, both Egypt and Kush never ventured from their respective borders to attack, say, Greece, Persia, Assyria, or Rome. Egypt and Kush fought each other—and Libya—and they duly noted their battles in funerary texts and temple art. To their detriment, they were not imperialists, like the Europeans and Asians; they were protectors of the status quo. Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans won the wars against the Egyptians and Kushites, and they got to write the history.

Nothing is written about these events in history books, let alone exhibited or depicted in museums. Museum Africa will change all of that.