SANKOFA

“Se wo were fi na wo san kofa a yenki.” tranlated, “It is not taboo to return and fetch it when you forget." (The Adinkra Dictionary - Willis, 1998)

Throughout the semester, students were required to incorporate the tradition of Sankofa, a West African (Akan, Ghana) concept of not only reaching back to learn the past, but bringing it forward for application to today's reality. At its core, Sankofa is the essence and function of history. Our task, should we accept it, is to bring that knowledge out of the dark into the useful light.

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For more information on the rise of Sankofa as a useful concept in history classrooms, see Dr. Christel N. Temple's article, "The Emergence of Sankofa Practice in the United States: A Modern History" in the Journal of Black Studies, Volume 41, Issue 1 (September 2010).