A Guide to Selected Resources
Compiled by: Alicia Ann Randolph, MLIS

"Once the perspectives accepted until now by official science have been reversed, history of humanity will become clear and the history of Africa can be written."

CHEIKH ANTA DIOP

Introduction

Much is said and written about African-Americans shaping the popular culture of the United States with their endeavors in sports and entertainment. However, the same fervor of attention is not given to people of African descent participating in the world of science and innovation. There are a significant number of African-Americans making notable accomplishments as astronauts, chemists, inventors, information technology specialists, neurosurgeons, cancer specialists, electronic engineers and holistic practitioners centered in the African tradition of healing.

Over the past century, African and African-American scholars—Cheikh Anta Diop, Ivan Van Sertima, Charles S. Finch, Beatrice Lumpkin, Wini Warren, and Hattie Carwell, to name a few—continued to recover omitted, distorted, lost and suppressed histories about Africa's true gifts to humanity from past Black civilizations of Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mali and Ghana. The coalescence of this reclaimed information interestingly suggests a traceable lineage of African creativity and ingenuity that managed to survive and flourish despite the evil and violent institution of slavery. Today, communities worldwide continue to benefit from the ingenious heritage of African people.

Objective and Scope

A selection of resources in print, electronic and video formats were brought together in this guide for the purpose of assisting Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) users in their search for materials documenting those original fruits in science, health, medicine and innovation contributed by Africans, their descendants in North America and throughout various parts of the African global community. Sources highlighted include essays and monographs, which often time exist hidden between the pages of magazines and journals or buried in chapters of books with seemingly unrelated titles. Although items cited can primarily be found in the Science, Technology and Patents Department of the Central Library, others have been identified from collections in the Social Sciences, Philosophy and Religion Department (located on lower-level three) and the History and Genealogy Department (located on lower level four).

Some resources for this webliography were identified by searching over four decades worth of entries from the Index to Black Periodicals (housed in the Social Sciences Department on lower-level three, (call# 326.973 O37) and conducting reviews of LAPL's online catalog. The remaining sources were actually "hand-picked" during painstaking, cursory manual examinations of sections within the Science department. This resource guide was divided into two parts: Part I, traces the legacy of African Science and Innovation; and Part II--explores both male and female African-American inventors and scientists. All sources were briefly annotated.