Back When I Was An African American I believed...

We Blacks in America came from the West Coast of the continent of Africa.  Coming over on ships, packed like sardines for a voyage from the east to America.  I later found that even Blacks from the central portion of the continent were also bought and sold into the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade.  The people of the Kongo would march as many as 500 miles from the interior of Africa to the Ghanian sea coast, into Goree Castle to be shipped to the Americas as chattel.  This was big for me, after having been spoon fed on the idea of the powerful Mandingos (I never could pin down whether there was ever a people called Mandingos), Ashanti and Mau Mau (I later learned the Mau Mau had nothing to do with a tribe or nation of Africans on the west coast.)  My belief in this version of our history would be later confirmed by a book I thought long and hard as to whether I would read it or not.  Not only was I Black, and African American from a world view, but I also knew Jesus was a Black man.  I was a Christian.  Black and Christian.

 Years and years ago there was this huge book store chain called Book Star that soon appeared in several major cities.  Now that I think about it, it probably was one of the first of the big book store chains that was dedicated to books as the primary product.  At any rate, a friend and I would frequent this book store at least once a week to go and read, thumb through and eventually buy books.  We rarely read the same genre, but we would break off and later somehow bump right into each other at some point in time in the store.  On the way out one night a book caught my attention, The Secrets Of Voodoo by Milo Rigaud.  Black Power Vic wanted it right off the rip, but Christian Vic said "maybe you shouldn't buy that and put that in your home.  It says Voodoo right on the cover.  Christian Vic won out. In fact Christian Vic won for several more years too  .Eventually Black Power Vic got his way after reading so much about Egyptian Religion and eventually reading African Origin of Major World Religions by Dr. Ben Jochannan.   In the book Dr. Ben  clearly states Christianity comes directly from Voodoo.  After about 5 years of mental battle and evolving, Black Power Vic could finally read about Voodoo from an Haitian Perspective.

Mr. Rigaud's family is/was part of the branch of free Haitians during and after the revolution known as the Mulattos and his direct decendent was Andre Rigaud rival to Jean Jaques Dessalines.  Milo Rigaud does a masterful job of showing the inter-relatiions of the Vodou to Judaism and Christiantiy.  Yet, at the time, the most powerful information that came clear to me was learning the several nations of people that actually came to the Americas from Africa. This was based on what Vodou rites that exists on Haiti. The nations of people enslaved on Haiti each had their own Vodou rite.  There was the Congo rite, Nago rite, the Ibo rite, the Rada rite from Ouida in Benin and the Petwo rite.  The Petwo rite is said have been the only rite to develop in the Americas and not have an origin in Africa.