Hilary Robertson-Hickling (PhD)
Senior Lecturer
Mona School Of Business and Management
The University of the West Indies
Mona
It is now fifty years ago that the Jamaican musician Jimmy Cliff wrote the following song.Many Rivers to Cross. The word are as follows;
Many rivers to cross
But I can’t seem to find my way over
Wandering I am lost as I travel along
The white cliffs of Dover
Many rivers to cross and its only my will that keeps me alive
I’ve been licked, washed up for years and
I merely survive because of my pride.
And this loneliness won’t leave me alone
It’s such a drag to be on your own
My woman left and she didn’t say why
Well I guess I have to try
Many rivers to cross but just where to begin
I’m playing for time
There’ll be times I find myself thinking
Of committing some dreadful crime,
In a plaintive voice with a haunting melody Cliff expresses the grief, loss. desperation and experience of the Caribbean migrant to England hence the reference to the white cliffs of Dover. I am writing to say that these same feelings are embedded in the experience of Africana Studies both inside and more importantly in this short article outside of the Unted States of America, Africana Studies is itself a river drawn from tributary rivers of such disciplines as History. The idea of the journey from and to Africa crisscrossing the Nile, Zambezi, and other rivers to the Mississippi and the Hudson is filled with excitement, danger death and peril.as well as power and majesty.
So Africana Studies is both the rivers to be crossed and those brave souls who attempt the perilous crossing from one side of the world to the other, and also cross disciplines. From outside of America there is a need to provide metaphors and explanations of how during the period of the last fifty years tributaries such as Black Studies have arisen to meet the need for the expression of Africa in the academy, There is the need to go beyond racism and the white supremacist discourse there to explain , interrogate and celebrate Africa in the world of ideas, Africa is worthy of studies/study.
Beyond the ideas of the colonisers there is a space for Africans at home and those abroad to inhabit the world in the words of the panafricanist Jamaican National hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Africans exist outside of the gaze of others and have their own agency beyond the limitations of the post slavery societies of the New World. Africa existed before and after that period of history and it must be recovered and recuperated and the river and its crossings represent a visual and dynamic metaphor,
The river also travels across vast lands sometimes destroying and flooding but sometimes nourishing crops and life in countries and cities providing life giving water. There are rivers in almost every country and people understand their awesome power and we also understand the impact of waterlessness and drought. Africana studies can provide ideas concepts and bodies of knowledge to empower those who have been disempowered by history and the work of the academy. There are those who are skilled travelers on the rivers, boat builders, sailors, traders and more. I recollect a wonderful experience as I was lifted across the rapids by Maroons in Suriname as we approached the rapids on my journey into the hinterland. The Maroons knew the river intimately . I know that the scholars have had to master their disciplines and cross the perilous landscapes to provide knowledge and to foster ideas.
I was amazed when I looked through my window at the arches in St Louis. I subsequently learned that that great African American writer Langston Hughes had written his wonderful poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers “right there on the Misissippi
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I recently saw a rerun of Henry Louis Gates Jr. six part miniseries form 2013 on the PBS. It took viewers across two continents to explore the transition of African Americans