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African Contributions to Human Civilization - Storyteller

Dr. Martha Bireda - Exploring Human Origins Program

In a storytelling performance Dr. Martha Bireda will illustrate the great contributions African empires have introduced to human civilizations, past and present.

Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D., is a writer, lecturer, and living history performer. She has over 30 years of experience as a lecturer, consultant and trainer for issues related to race, class, and gender issues, working with educators, law enforcement, and business, and civic leaders.

Program Agenda

I. Introduction: I am a descendant of ancestors enslaved in the United States who came from West Central Africa, where the Ghanaian, Mali, and Songhai Empires existed. We are an oral culture and as such our history is passed through storytelling. Tonight, I will tell you stories of the history and knowledge passed generation to generation by storytellers as myself an elder.

II. What did Africans contribute to humanity? Our history:

First the tangible contributions of fire and iron that made it possible for humans to survive and ultimately to thrive. From ancient Africa  knowledge related to 1) agriculture 2) architecture 3)technology 4)art              5) music 6) science 7) medicine and 8) foodways.

III. What is the African concept of what it means to be human? Connection to family and community make one “human”;  to practice “ Ubuntu” , “ I am because we are.”

A short focus on  concepts of personhood, family, and community as related to being human.

IV. Conclusion: Recommend an embrace of African concept of being human to heal divisions in our current society. 

Thoughts from participants.

Bio

Martha R. Bi red a, Ph.D. is a true "Grits", girl raised in the sun. She is a sixth generation Floridian and a descendant of one of the founding families in Punta Gorda. Martha grew up in Punta Gorda, attended the old Baker Academy, and finished Booker High School in Sarasota, as Valedictorian of her class. Dr. Bireda returned to Punta Gorda in 2001 to honor her mother, Bernice Andrews Russell's vision to establish an African American museum in Punta Gorda. The Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County opened in May, 2004.

Presently, Dr. Bireda is Director of the Blanchard House Museum. She is a frequent public speaker, lecturer, and Living History re-enactor. Before her retirement, Dr. Bireda worked 30 years as a consultant and trainer
for issues related to race, class, gender, cultural diversity and empowerment issues. She is the author of fourteen books, the latest, Reflections of a Colored Girl, which accounts her experiences and lessons learned growing up in the Jim Crow south.

Dr. Bireda considers her greatest accomplishment to be her children; Jaha, a graduate of Dartmouth College, a businessman in Asia for 20 years, and a City Councilman for the City of Punta Gorda for three terms, now a 2050 Fellow, and her daughter Saba, a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, an attorney Washington, D.C. and the mother of Nahom, one of the smartest nine-year old's you will meet.

Learn more about Dr. Bireda in this recent article: 

https://news.wgcu.org/section/human-interest/2023-12-20/i-never-intended-to-write-about-race-reflections-of-a-colored-girl-by-martha-bireda-ph-d  

Exploring Human Origins: Promoting a National Conversation on Human Evolution is administered by ALA’s Public Programs Office in collaboration with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s (NMNH) Human Origins Program.

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