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My Bachelor of Science Research Proposal is Submitted Waiting for Approval
Summary of Research Proposal
‘Black’ Before Colonial Racial Theory: A Historical Analysis of ‘Black’ in Precolonial African Text and Languages
K.D Hartley
Or Duul Neter Neb
Bachelor of Science, History
MA in Interdisciplinary Research (History & Linguistics)-TBAThis research investigates whether Africans historically identified and described themselves using “Black” as an autonym a self-designation prior to colonial European contact. The study was prompted by an unsourced claim on Wikipedia asserting that indigenous African societies did not use “Black” as a racial identity outside of Western cultural influence. Because Wikipedia provides no citation to support this widely circulated claim, this research steps into that scholarly gap to examine what the historical and linguistic record actually shows.
My primary‑source corpus directly refutes that blanket statement and my academic cultural anthropology training will assist here on definitions of “racial identity”, it shows Africans using “Black” or “black/dark‑skinned” as self‑descriptive or ethnically descriptive labels in their own languages and scripts, millennia before colonial Europe. Precolonial African societies already constructed a racial‑like identity centered on Blackness, using their own language, cosmology, and social categories long before the modern European racial system and the term “race” crystallized.
Key factors in my research proposal, Primary Materials by Region
North Africa – Nile‑Valley Africans (Egyptians and Nubians) used km “Black/dark‑skinned” as a self‑descriptive term and associated it with a shared cosmological lineage (e.g., Horus as km wr, “Great Black”), while not applying that Black label to Asiatics or Europeans.East Africa – Africans in this region likewise used “Black” as a self‑descriptive or ethnolinguistic marker, as shown in the inscriptions of King Ezana of Axum. In these pre‑colonial monuments, Nubians are explicitly described as “Blacks” (Noba), documenting that Africans themselves used “Black” as a category to mark other Africans within the Northeast African world, while distinguishing them from other groups
West and Central Africa– Proto‑Bantu reconstructions suggest that early African speakers had lexical tools to distinguish Africans (Black, dark‑skinned) from other groups (pink/yellow/red coded), again pointing to a self‑descriptive Black identity rather than a label imposed from outside.
Jeff, Kwaku and 2 others2 Comments-
162,053
Abibisika (Black Gold) Points
Way to go! The isft squad is left in the cesspool where they belong.
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Look forward to seeing the final product!!! I want to put this in my syllabus for my classes!!
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