Personal message from Professor Kiteme:

These essays were born out of a series of lectures which evolved over a period of many years. Every time I gave one of the talks, whether at the City College of the City University of New York, where I have taught since 1968, or at some other institution in the United States, Europe, the Caribbean or Afrika, the positive feedback from my audience told me that a crystallization of these ideas in written form would be useful to my people.

Between 1969 and 1979 I wrote a series of about twenty-five articles based on the lectures, collectively entitled, "Black America, Africa and the Black World." The pieces were published in over twenty magazines, journals and newspapers on the Afrikan continent and her Diaspora.

As an educator, and as my philosophy evolved, developed, and matured over the years, I gradually became aware that a relevant education for our people was of paramount importance but sadly lacking. My research and observations demonstrated to me that a PanAfrikan education, i.e., one that takes into account the entire scope of Africentric knowledge, thought and world-view, was the only feasible one. I began revising, improving and enlarging upon my original ideas in the hope that students, teachers and parents would find something applicable to themselves, their students or their children. This was the basis for compiling the book.