Somewhere, somehow, someone told us a very big lie. That lie is this… behind every great man is a great woman…WRONG!! We need to throw that concept in the trash…effective immediately. Somehow, we as women have fed into the foolery, the foolery being that men are superior. Beside a man is a woman, not behind, she is his divine equal. As a Black woman, i’m going to focus mainly on Black women by using Black women in antiquity to disprove the idea that women are inferior. I think every Black woman, or anyone, should read Ivan Van Sertima’s Black Women in Antiquity. I haven’t put much of a dent in the book but from what I’ve read so far, Black women in antiquity were just as powerful if not more than the Black men in antiquity. We have women like Makeda, Queen of Sheba, whose empire included Upper Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, India, and more. She had an extensive and successful trade network by land and sea, this helping her maintain a prosperous economy. Mekeda formed successful diplomatic relations as well as a strong militia. She did all this as an independent ruler. Her husband, King Solomon, recognized her for her achievements and respected her for it. Sertima emphasizes that it was not her just her beauty that made Solomon love her, it was her power and ability to manage an empire. She mothered Menelik, the king who started the Solominid line of Ethiopian kings down to the Haile Selassie I. Then there are the Candaces or the Kentake, which were Queen-mothers. Two out of many that Sertima mentions are Yaa Asantewa of Ghana and Nzingha of Angola. Yaa Asantewa stood up against the British when they exiled King Prempeh in 1896, shaming the men for their lack of bravery and will to fight. She later inspired her people to push back against European forces. Queen Nzingha  also fought against the forces that sought to take her land and position. During her fight against the Portuguese she suffered losses but that did little to stop her from combating imperialism. Having read about these women and what they’ve achieved does something for me. The fact that men of this time respected and honored these women makes me take a look at how men regard women today. Although the relationship between Black men and women is often seen and talked about negatively, books like this prove that there was a time where love, respect, and equality was present. And that love and respect is still here but overshadowed. There are many more African Queens and madonnas in Sertima’s book and I highly recommend everyone to read about them.

Kalae Mobley