I had recently begun to study the subject, but did not say a word. He wanted to use the photos to illustrate a new issue of the journal. I remember that Ivan, Legrand, myself and a San Diego brother named Chuck Ambers, were parked in front of a liquor store talking about what spirits we were going to buy when Ivan asked no one in particular if anybody knew anybody who might know somebody if they knew anybody who had photographs of the people of ancient Iraq. Legrand Clegg and I had driven down to San Diego to attend a program highlighted by Ivan and John Henrik Clarke, another wonderful scholar who I would get to know and develop an excellent personal relationship.

How I began to write for the journal makes for a good story. In 1977, his great book, “They Came Before Columbus” was published and in 1979, he began publication of the Journal of African Civilizations. Sometime in 1982, I started writing for Ivan. Whatever the case, his speaking style and presence were clearly captivating. You know, I think a lot of it had to do with his British manners. He was a great orator and had a grand and commanding on stage presence. Author and scholar Jan Carew who, like Ivan, was from Guyana, South America, and who was Ivan’s major mentor, I also invited in as a speaker. Jackson.Īnother person that I got to know during those early days at Compton College was Egyptian scholar and author Dr. Among the other early speakers that I brought to Compton at that time were political activist Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) and the great cultural historian John G. I believe that Ivan was our first speaker. My job was to organize cultural awareness programs designed to expose the students and the community in Compton to things African. It was around this same time that I quit my job with a mortgage company and started working in the Extended Opportunity Program and Services (EOPS) department at Compton Community College. And he really seemed to appreciate the ladies! He seemed rather detached and aloof, but you could tell that he was a great scholar. He was clean-shaven except for a mustache and wore a short Afro.

He was a light-skinned Black man of medium build.

The lecture was about the African presence in America before Columbus, and the reception gave us a chance to have an up- close interaction with Van Sertima. Clegg II, noted authority of African and American history and culture. An evening or so later, I attended a reception in his honor at the residence of Legrand H. I went to a lecture that he gave in a classroom at UCLA. I first met Ivan Van Sertima in either late 1980 or 1981.

Van sertima ivan