Join Us!
Dr. Akuma-Kula &
Mrs. Nina Njoku in Celebrating
the book release !
Interface Between Igbo Theology & Christianity
Hardcover - Only $81.99
For a limited Sale Price of $73.79
(Click on picture below)
Click on the photo below for detail information or
to purchase your copy of the
From Freedom to Freedom book today!
Buy your copy and read it today,
then give it to a student or teacher
to a child, give it to student near you donate it to a teacher, organization or library.
1st World Igbo Arts & Cultural Festival
July 24th - 26th, 2014
at the Frontier Museum in Staunton, Virginia
Recieving Ohamadike Ndi Igbo
(Translation: The people know who is hero)
"If it is to be it is up to Us."
-
--Akuma-Kula Njoku Ph.D. March 2013 Staunton, VA
Reaching back to Africa for reconnection has always been important to African-Americans. Alex Haley's 1976 novel, "Roots": The Saga of an American Family, resulting from retracing the roots of his family to a West African village in The Gambia named Juffure, is perhaps the best known example.
| Edward Wilmot Blyden (3 August 1832 – 7 February 1912) was an Americo-Liberian educator, writer, diplomat, and politician primarily in Liberia. He also taught for five years in Sierra Leone, and his writings were influential in both countries. From 1855-1856, Blydenedited the Liberia Herald and wrote the column, "A Voice From Bleeding Africa". Courtesy of The New York Public Library. |
Other notable African American leaders who had, long before Haley, journeyed back to Africa include Edward W. Blyden, Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois.
Also worth mentioning among these heroes of the Back to Africa movement is William David Coleman who together with other African Americans from Ashland Kentucky migrated to Liberia and named their settlement Clay-Ashland.
Their settlement was named after Henry Clay, a powerful Senator from Kentucky who advocated for a colony for free African Americans in Africa and their former Ashland home-place in America.
Read this book to understand the "Back to Africa" movements from the perspective of the Trailblazers!
More Information or to schedule
book signings & speaking engagements:
Akuma-Kalu Njoku, Ph.D.
Retired Associate Professor,
Western Kentucky University
Founder/President
West African Cultural Heritage Education and Tourism
(WACHET) Institute
299 Westwood Avenue
Bowling Green, KY 42103
Phone: (270) 320-0852
Email: jaknjoku@yahoo.com
Visit Akuma-Kalu Njoku's,
"Broadly, I am interested in the folklore of forced historical population movements, especially those resulting from the encroaching Sahara, the depletion of farmlands, wars in Africa, and the Atlantic slave trade. I am presently working on the transatlantic slave journeys of the Igbo people of Nigeria together with the issues of their forced relocations and settlement patterns, survival, and the establishment of Igbo community traditions on both sides of the Atlantic.
Since 1999, I have been researching and writing about the material culture, verbal lore, and historical narratives of Igbo slave journeys from Nigeria to Virginia and through the Underground Railroad to freedom in the United States, as well as the reconnection of Africans and African Americans of Igbo descent long separated by the tragic events of Atlantic slave trade.
Since 2006, I have been using relevant lessons from my folklore studies to help shape the preparedness of Igbo immigrants in America to reestablish their ethnic community tradition in the United States. I organize and facilitate reconnection events at the Igbo Farm Village in Staunton, Virginia. The Igbo Farm Village, an outdoor museum exhibit in Staunton provides a context very close to the Igbo cultural environment for experiencing and learning Igbo culture in America."
Excerpt from his Western Kentrucky University Faculty Page.
B.A. Music, University of Nigeria
M.A. Historical Musicology, Michigan State University
Ph.D. Ethnomusicology/Folklore, Indiana Univ.
I had seen his work on-line and contacted them. I met Dr. Akuma-Kalu & Mrs. Nina Njoku, in person last year at the World Igbo Assembly Conference at the Frontier Museum in Staunton, VA.
He and his wife have continued to assist me as a resource to verify the customs, language and interpretation of artifacts and cultural history of Igbo and West African ethenic groups. He also has so much expertise and knowledge on the African American and other cultures in America.
"We are not of thoes who drew back ...."
---- "Osinachi " July 2014
Other Publications by Dr. Amaka-Kulu Njoku:
Creative Americanization
(First Edition) 2013.
While there are many approaches to teaching diversity, Creative Americanization explores how we consciously transform cultural products to suit more mainstream American tastes. With cultures mixing and mingling, different products are constantly modified and transformed, creating varieties that can be a genuine source of individual, communal, and national strength. More
Click on book cover to order your copy today!
“Before the Middle Passage: Igbo Slave Journeys to Old Calabar and Bonny” Repercussions of the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Interior of the Bight of Biafra and the African Diaspora, edited by Carolyn Brown and Paul Lovejoy. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press (2011) 57-69.
Amamihe: The Basis of Igbo Culture and Character formation. Goldline and Jacobs Publishers, NJ, Canada, and Owerri, 2010.
ENYI BIAFRA: Regimental Drill, Duty Songs, and Cadences from Biafra.
Goldline and Jacobs Publishers,
NJ and Owerri, 2009.
To order your copy of the song book today,
make your check for $12.50 payable to:
Mail your request to:
Dr. Akuma-Kalu Njoku, Ph.D.
299 Westwood Avenue
Bowling Green, KY 42103
So you do
not forget...
“The Atlantic Slave Trade, Colonialism, Gender, and Class Transformations in the Bight of Biafra.
Hinterland” in Olaudah Equano and the World. Edited by Chima Korieh. Africa World Press, (2009), Pp. 203-217.
“Civil Society Practices among the Igbo People of Nigeria,” in Comparative Perspective of Civil Society, edited by Robert Dibie. Lexington Books 2008, Pp. 209-223.
Oral tradition and the material culture of the Atlantic slave trade as historical source: evidence from the Bight of Biafra hinterland. In The Aftermath of Slavery: Transitions and Transformations in Southeastern Nigeria. Edited by Chima J. Korieh and Femi J. Kolapo. Trenton, NJ: African World Press, Inc. 2007, pp. 136-157.
Dr. Akuma-Kalu, Njoku receiving Kola from Chief and Ritual specialist at Abuma, Nigeria, while they were retracing Atlantic slave trade routes Nigeria to America.
Akuma-Kalu Njoku, Ph.D. has been conducting research on folklore and the material culture of the Atlantic Slave trade in Nigeria.
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“Igbo Mkpa”
Means to make Service,
our primary mandate.
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Dr. Akuma-Kalu Njoku, Ph.D.
