Table of Contents

Dedication
Acknowledgements
Preface

Part One
AFRICAN STAR OVER ASIA: OVERVIEW AND ESSAYS - THE IVAN VAN SERTIMA PAPERS
1.1. Overview
1.1.1. The African Presence in Asia: the first Diaspora
1.1.2. The African presence in classical civilisations of Asia
1.1.3. Racial classification and terminology
1.1.4. What is to be done in respect to the African Presence in Asia ?
1.2. Essays - The Ivan van Sertima Papers - Pioneer Contributions to the African Presence in Early Asia, 1883 to 1926: George Washington Williams to Drusilla Dunjee Houston
1.2.1. Background and Introduction
1.2.2. George Washington Williams (1849-1891)
1.2.3. Rufus Lewis Perry (1843-1895)
1.2.4. Pauline Elisabeth Hopkins (1859-1930)
1.2.5. James Marmaduke Boddy (1866-1935)
1.2.6. Alphonso Orenzo Stafford (1871-1941)
1.2.7. Georges Wells Parker (1882-1931)
1.2.8. Drusilla Dunjee Houston (1876-1941)
1.2.9. Conclusion
1.3. The African Presence in Early Southwest and Southern Asia through the Eyes of Nineteenth Century European Scholars
1.4. The African Presence in Asia in the Works of James Cowles Prichard
1.5. Sitting at the Feet of a Forerunner: an April 1987 Meeting and Interview with John G. Jackson
1.5.1. Overview by Runoko Rashidi
1.5.2. Interview by Runoko Rashidi and James E. Brunson
1.6. Cheikh Anta Diop on Asia: Highlights and Insights
1.6.1. The Origin and Evolution of the "Yellow Race"
1.6.2. Could Egyptian Civilzation have been of Asian Origin?
1.6.3. The status of Mesopotamia and the Blackheads of Sumer
1.6.4. From Sumer to Elam
1.6.5. The twilight of Elam B.C.E.
1.6.6. The Phoenicians
1.6.7. Arabia
1.6.8. Pakistan and India
1.6.9. The Indu Valley Civilization
1.6.10. Two cradles and the zone of confidence
1.6.11. The dispersal of the Nomads
1.6.12. Dravidians
1.7. From the Center to the Fringe: the Persistence of Racial Myths in Physical Anthropological Theory
1.7.1. The Hamitic hypothesis
1.7.2. The Brown race
1.7.3. The Mediterranean race
1.8. The African Presence in Ancient Iraq: the Blackheads of Sumer
1.8.1. Lord Enki
1.8.2. Kish: the Sumerian city supreme
1.8.3. Uruk: The House of Anu
1.8.4. Nippur: Sumer's religious capital
1.8.5. Adab: Sumerian city of Mother Worship
1.8.6. Ur: the Heart of Sumer
1.8.7. The Semitic Ascendancy and the Demise of the Blackheads
1.9. The African Presence in Early Arabia
1.10. The African Image in Early Afghanistan
1.11. The African Presence in Ancient Pakistan and India
1.11.1. The Harappan Civilization
1.11.2. The Aryans in India
1.11.3. The Nanda and Mauryan dynasties
1.11.4. The Dravidians
1.11.5. The Dravidian Female element
1.11.6. Dravidian Kingdoms
1.12. Dalits: The Black Untouchables of India
1.13. The African Presence in Early Japan
1.13.1. The physical anthropology of ancient Japan
1.13.2. Sakanouye no Tamuramaro: Sei-I Tai-Shogun of early Japan
1.13.4. The Sakanouye Family
1.13.4. Sakanouye no Tamuramaro: paragon of Japanese military virtues
1.14. Sakanouye Tamuramaro in the Works of Twentieth Century African Scholars
1.15. The Black Presence In Early China
1.16. The Black Presence in Classical Southeast Asian Civilization: Cambodia and Vietnam
1.16.1 The Kingdom of Chenla
1.16.2. The Kingdom of Angkor
1.16.3. Angkor Wat
1.16.4. The Kingdom of Champa
1.16.5. Early Kings of Champa
1.16.6. Pressures from the north
1.16.7. King Jayavarman VII: Angkor's most prolific builder
1.16.8. The Bayon
1.16.9. The Ta Prohm and Preah Khan Temples
1.16.10. The Decline and Fall of Angkor and Champa
1.17. A Brief Note on the Black Presence in the Philippines, from the Diminutive Africoids to David Fagen-African-American Rebel
1.18. Africans in Asia During the Age of Enslavement
1.18.1. Al-Jahiz and the book of the glory of the Blacks over the Whites
1.18.2. The revolt of the Blacks
1.18.3. Malik Ambar and the Siddis of India
1.19. Out of Africa to Asia to America: the Gladwin Thesis of "Men out of Asia"
1.19.1. Diminutive Africoids: first people on American soil?
1.19.2. The first great wave: the Australoid migrations
1.19.3. Gladwin's sources
1.19.4. The second migration: the clovis-folsom point black
1.19.5. The third migration: the coming of the Algonquin
1.19.6. The fourth migration: the arrival of the Inuit

Part Two
AFRICAN STAR OVER ASIA: TRAVEL NOTES AND LETTERS
2.1. Journeys to India in Search of the African Presence
2.2. We Are One African People: Runoko Rashidi in Trivandrum, India, April 14, 1998 on the Occasion of the Birthday of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
2.3. Looking at India Through African Eyes
2.4. Reflections: In and Around Mumbai
2.5. The Black Presence in Thailand
2.5.1. Return to Thailand
2.5.2. Ayutthaya
2.6. The Mighty Monuments of Angkor
2.7. The Cham of Vietnam
2.7.1. Ho Chi Minh City
2.8. On The Great Wall of China
2.9. The African Experience In Turkey: A Family Gathering
2.9.1. Mary's house
2.10. A Black Man in Jordan
2.10.1. A note from southern Jordan
2.10.2. Reflecting on Jordan
2.11. The African Presence in Syrian Antiquity
2.12. Looking Back at Lebanon
2.13. Letters from Indonesia
2.13.1. Borobudur
2.13.2. The Prambanan
2.14. Reflections about Myanmar (Burma)

Part Three
AFRICAN STAR OVER ASIA: MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
3.1. Images of the African in the West Asian Collections in Paris, London and Brussels
3.2. The Black Presence in Early Vietnam: Cham Artifacts
3.3. The Black Image in Buddhist Art from Thailand

Part Four
AFRICAN STAR OVER ASIA: CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN ASIA
4.1. Seeing Asia Through Joel Augustus Rogers (1880-1966) by Thabiti Asukile
4.1.1. The Black presence in Asia contextualized in Sex and Race
4.1.2. The african diaspora of Asia in world's great men of color
4.2. Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop and the Cultural Roots of the Dalits: India's Black Untouchables by V. T. Rajshekar
4.3. The Blacks of East Bengal: A Native's Perspective by Horen Tudu
4.3.1. The original inhabitants of Bengal
4.3.2. The Aryan invasion and destruction of ancient Bangladeshi civilization
4.3.3. The Arabs come to Bengal
4.3.4. The Legacy of the Arabs and the Hindus
4.3.5. The need of the hour: Pan-Africanism in Bangladesh and all of the black world
4.3.6. Pan-Africanism in south Asia
4.4. The Black East by Paco D. Taylor
4.4.1. Facts of life
4.4.2. Family tree
4.4.3. Stunted growth
4.4.4. Collective memory
4.5. In Search of the Original Filipinos by Hamara Holt
4.5.1. First contact
4.5.2. Civilization or Barbarism
4.5.3. Olongapo
4.5.4. The origin of Things
4.6. The African Presence in Arabia by Wesley Muhammad
4.6.1. Arabia as North East Africa
4.6.2. Africans in Arabia
4.6.3. The Black Arabs of the Islamic period
4.6.4. Muhammad, the great African general

Appendix-Letter to Runoko Rashibdi
Bibliographies
Glossary
Biographical notes
Index
Photo captions

About the Author

Runoko Rashidi is a histortian and anthropologist based in California and Paris, France. He is the foremost living scholar in the field of research into Black communities all over the world but he is not the kind of academic who sits in an ivory tower studying manuscripts. He has written and edited many books and articles, given thousands of lectures, leads international study group tours, has met with Black communities in over 100 countries, and visited countless museums and historical sites where he has taken beautiful photographs, many of which feature in his books published by Books of Africa.