One of Guyana’s most accomplished and respected scholars, Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, died earlier this week at the age of 74. We’ve spoken a bit about his work before, and now is as good a time as ever to give the man his due. Oscar Ramjeet wrote a peice on Van Sertima that appeared online today. Check an excerpt from the article below…

…Guyanese have not only contributed to the Caribbean, but the entire world.

I just learned of the passing of Dr Ivan Van Sertima, a former professor of the University of Rutgers and an important son of the soil, who told the United Nations that Columbus did not in fact discover the Americas.

Van Sertima was a Guyanese-British historian, linguist and anthropologist. He was a noted for his Afrocentric theory of pre-Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas….

Van Sertima was a prolific writer on the history of Africa and The Americas. To purchase some of his work, including his most well-known, They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, click here: Dr. Ivan Van Sertima @ Amazon.com.

Also, check out a few videos of Dr. Van Sertima at work after the jump…

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When the new Nas album first dropped I was listening to the song “We are not alone” and this line caught my attention:

I used to worship a certain Queens police murderer
‘Til I read the words of Ivan van Sertima
He inserted something in me
That made me feel worthier
Now I spit revolution
I’m his hood interpreter

That line hit me in the head and made me wonder, who was Nas talking about?
So I did some research and as it turns out Ivan van Sertima is a Guyanese historian, linguist and anthropologist at Rutgers University. He also has some interesting studies on the achievements of Africans in science and wrote They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America. I like what he

I got schooled by Nas so now I’m schoolin you to it… Check out some of his discussions to learn more.

Afrikans in Science: Ancient and Modern
They came before Columbus