Rethinking Columbus Day

I wrote about this last year for Columbus Day, but, now, working for the oldest continuous African-American newspaper in the United States, I have been given yet another point of view.

That being that Africans were in the Americas - Central & South - long before Columbus, even before the times the Irish and Vikings were to have landed on North American continent.

But, the story that did run in my paper included comments from an African American Studies professor from Temple who wasn't completely against Columbus. The ramifications of his journey made him an imperialist, but he was a product of the times, and if it wasn't him, it would have been someone else.

It was his voyage to the "New World" that drastically altered human history, but it would be nice to see history books make this distinction, correcting centuries of miseducation.

Here's to hoping. In the meantime, we'll all have to investigate the truth ourselves, as education in America is less about being correct and more about pushing a certain agenda.