THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY
H I S T O R Y N O T E S
TRIBUTE TO A GREAT MAN: DR. JAN RYNVELD CAREW
Jan Rynveld Carew was born in Agricola-Rome, Guyana, South America on December 24, 1920. He is a remarkable man who has been described as a "Novelist, playwright, poet, educator." He describes himself as "an inveterate wanderer for whom travel is like the breath of life." He was educated at Howard University, Western Reserve University, Charles University in Prague and the Sorbonne in Paris. He has taught at London University, Princeton, Rutgers, Illinois Wesleyan, Hampshire College, Northwestern and Lincoln Universities. He has been a major contributor to the Journal of African Civilizations and Race and Class. He is the author of Grenada: The Hour Will Strike Again, Fulcrums of Change, and Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa, England and the Caribbean. His essays include: "Estevanico: The African Explorer," "Columbus and the Origins of Racism in the Americas," and "Moorish Culture-Bringers: Bearers of Enlightenment."
He has resided in Mexico, England, France, Spain, Ghana, Canada and United States. The men and women that he has interacted with, including W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, Shirley Graham DuBois, Maurice Bishop, Cheikh Anta Diop, Edward Scobie, John Henrik Clarke, Tsegaye Medhin Gabre, Sterling D. Plumpp and Ivan Van Sertima, form a veritable pantheon of illustrious African scholars and activists.
Jan Rynveld Carew is one of the truly great men of our era and represents the finest traditions of our people. He is an intellectual and an activist whose life personifies the maxim of Kwame Nkrumah: "Thought without practice is empty, action without thought is blind." He writes and speaks with passion and poetry. His scholarship is flawless. Of all the men I have met, none have impressed me more than Jan Carew. Listen to him and mind his words.
SOURCES:
Fulcrums of Change, by Jan R. Carew
The Golden Age of the Moor, edited by Ivan Van Sertima
Copyright © 1998 Runoko Rashidi. All rights reserved.
Revised: January 03, 2002.
Webpage design: Kenneth Ritchards