Philosophically, literature indeed reflects the African concepts of Sankofa. This is an axiom: all art embodies the concepts of Sankofa if we view art as a dialogue, a soliloguy between the selves of our present, our past, and our future. This is just what we will be doing in the literature devoted to this inchoate section.

The first section will be devoted to poetry centered on the theme of South Carolina written by myself and by students at Benedict. By visiting this website, in regard to the poems centered on the black experience in South Carolina, readers will get the chance to see whether or not the following quote written in the 1970 & #146;s by I.A. Newby in his book History of Blacks in South Carolina from 18651968 can still be applied to the black experience in South Carolina today as quoted in the 1991 issue of The International Review of African American Art: "The black experience in South Carolina must be explained in ‘unAmerican’ terms for it is an ‘unAmerican’ story"(5). The poetry sections will run for a month. The second month will feature excerpts from picture books for children written by faculty and by students. The third month will focus on short stories written by faculty and students. You can email us your submissions also.

Be sure to watch the video of the movies Sankofa, directed by Howard University & #146;s theatre arts professor, Dr. Haile Gerima. It was filmed on location, according to Dr. JoAnne Braxton, at a former slave fortress on the Ghanaian coast. Centered on slavery with the Sankofa bird being the dominant motif, it will enable you to ascertain a deeper meaning of this African term and the relevance of the title of this website. For in this movie, a woman is taken back to the past to see the etiology of this "peculiar institution." When she returns to reality, her journey back does influence her present. Unequivocally, it will affect her future because now, through a welcomed epiphany, she knows African is more than the second largest continent; it is her first home, her ancestral home, home to her first "self".