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    Before We Were Black
    Before We Were Black
    Before We Were Black
    Ebook82 pages1 hour

    Before We Were Black

    By Eric A. McMiller

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    This book adds the missing pages of history and restores the original first family to their rightful place by weaving together discoveries from the past thirty years with common knowledge about Africans and their descendants into a complete story. Written in the twenty-first century, this book is the first of its kind that asks its reader to think outside the box. The author takes on the challenge presented to Americans by Senator Barack Obama during his speech in Philadelphia on March 2008 when he addressed the issue of race relations in America.

    Before We Were Black looks at old history from a different angle with a fresh pair of eyes. The reader will be asked to participate and take a ride with the author; suspend some of their own preconceived notions; and for the moment, look through the lens of the twenty-first century. The purpose of this book is not to accuse but to take a judicial approach where the facts complete the story.

    Before We Were Black does not bog its reader down with demagoguery. Instead, the reader will feel like they are on an amusement park ridesometimes flying so high that it takes their breath away and other times falling so low that it brings them to tears; but when the reader has finished the book, they will look back and say, I want to read it again!

    A book of this kind comes along once every twenty years. Its a book rendered in the same genre as Why We Cant Wait by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; As a Man Thinketh by James Allen; The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin; and The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino. All relatively small books, yet they leave their reader with a life-long impression. This book is for everyone, young and old, and is a catalyst to the nations ongoing discussion about race relations. The time has come for a new model on race relations. Finally, the full story about world history is presentedare you ready?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXlibris US
    Release dateNov 11, 2008
    ISBN9781465314482
    Before We Were Black
    Author

    Eric A. McMiller

    Eric A. McMiller, born in 1961 at the height of the civil rights movement in America, considers himself the child that the civil rights movement produced. Eric lived three years in Europe while serving in the United States Army as an administrative specialist. He was awarded the Army Achievement Medal. Eric’s educational achievements include a master’s degree in public administration from Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in economics from Northeastern Illinois University, and an associate’s degree in accounting from Truman College. Eric’s twenty years in government has afforded him the opportunity to gain a broad range of experience in financial and budget analysis, auditing, strategic planning and implementation, and program management for the third largest city in the United States. Eric successfully completed a mayoral appointed assignment to oversee the country’s largest minority/women and disadvantage business enterprise program. Staying true to the spirit of the ’60s, Eric has spent his entire adult life volunteering his time with community-focused organizations such as the United Negro College Fund (a percentage of the proceeds of this book will be donated to the UNCF), city of Chicago Police Department’s “We Care Role Model” program, and the city of Chicago Public School “Real Man Read” program as well as working with local political organization voters registration drives. Eric lives in Chicago with his wife and two kids.

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      Book preview

      Before We Were Black - Eric A. McMiller

      Copyright © 2008 by Eric A. McMiller.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

      heir.png HEIRpublishing

      A HEIR Organization

      This book was printed in the United States of America.

      To order additional copies of this book, contact:

      Xlibris Corporation

      1-888-795-4274

      www.Xlibris.com

      Orders@Xlibris.com

      49934

      Contents

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      INTRODUCTION

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      SUMMARY

      INDEX

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I would like to dedicate this book to my wife, Tammy; my two sons, Tiger and Luke; and my oldest brother, Lincoln McMiller Jr.—because of him, I have known of my African roots all my life.

      I would also like to dedicate this book to those people in Birmingham, Alabama, who we have seen through old black-and-white news clips for over forty years being hosed with water and bitten by dogs. They were not aware of most of the information that’s contained in this book. Yet they knew their existence on this planet was bigger than what they had been told. There is not one day that goes by that I do not think about them and feel a sense of gratitude toward them for their sacrifice. It is because of them I am able to pursue my dreams today. It is with their spirit that I was able to attend ten different schools before graduating from high school, three junior colleges before receiving my associate’s degree in accounting from Truman College; attending six more universities before receiving my bachelor’s degree in political science (minor in economics) from Northeastern University; and finally obtaining a master’s degree in public administration from the Illinois Institute of Technology—all while working a full-time job. I have always felt that it was on their shoulders that I sat.

      The people we see in the old black-and-white news clips knew that they would never fully experience any of the rights that they were protesting for, but they continued to sacrifice to provide the next generation with a life that they hope would be more equal and fair than the life that they had experienced.

      I dedicate this book to them and hope that a new generation will be formed with a sense of duty and responsibility and they will jump on my shoulders and reach for even higher goals.

      INTRODUCTION

      Whether it’s African American, black, Negro, or colored, it seems that every decade we choose a different name to be called. I think the energy is ill focused. More energy should be spent exploring the period before we were so-called black, Negro, or colored. With the discovery of ancient African history and people becoming more aware of its facts, it will not matter what we call ourselves; once the focus is applied to our ancient African history and the contributions Africans and their descendants have made to the world, we will no longer need a specific word to describe us.

      The information contained in this book has only come to light during the past twenty to thirty years. For more than a thousand years, significant contributions made by Africans have been purposely concealed, destroyed, or withheld.

      For the most part, when we mention our African American or black history, we generally refer to slavery and not to ancient African history. This is certainly understandable; for the human race, it would be very difficult to find any other experience that comes close to the five-hundred-plus years of the slave trade. Not even the Holocaust compares to the slave trade, which is another category itself. We are talking about a period of more than five hundred years, and the slave trade was the major catalyst in moving most of the industrial nations to the economic powers that they are today. The United States as it is today could not have emerged to such a level so quickly without the slave trade. Yet to only talk about five hundred years of African history is like talking about six months in the life of a fifty-year-old man. African history can be traced back to the beginning of modern man. That’s right, you heard me. African history is human history. This is not a secret. This fact was mentioned in a Newsweek magazine, November 2006 article titled, Who Gave Us Our Smarts? The article discussed where human intelligence originated. The article covered how the Neanderthals, who once populated much of Europe and Western Asia millions of years ago, were cousins to the Homo sapiens (humans). Dr. Edward Rubin, a scientist from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, confirmed what anthropologists already suspected—the human and Neanderthal lines of descent began to separate about seven hundred thousand years ago and diverged permanently about three hundred thirty thousand years later. But it was what Dr. Bruce Lahn, a scientist from the University of Chicago, revealed that really piqued my interest. According to Dr. Lahn, a human gene called microcephalin evolved as long as 1.1 million years ago and was carried for most of that time by a different hominid species then reintroduced into the human population—conceivably even by a single mating some thirty-seven

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