Participants: Host: Yvonne Lewis (Host), Dr. Joel Freeman
Series Code: UBR
Program Code: UBR000238A
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00:01 Did you know that there were
00:02 ancient African secrets unlocked 00:04 even as the slave trade was expanding 00:06 from Europe to the Americas? 00:08 Do you wanna hear some of those secrets? 00:10 Well, stay tune to hear about that and more. 00:13 My name is Yvonne Lewis 00:15 and you're watching Urban Report. 00:44 Hello, and welcome to Urban Report. 00:46 My guest today is Dr. Joel Freeman, 00:49 co-author along with Don Griffin 00:51 of "Return to Glory, 00:53 the Powerful Stirring of the Black Man." 00:56 Dr. Freeman is a historian 00:57 and committed to sharing the truth 00:59 about the black man's role and contributions to our world. 01:03 Welcome to Urban Report, Dr. Joel. 01:06 Yay! 01:07 It's good to be here with you. 01:09 I can't believe, I finally, have you. 01:13 If the viewers knew how hard I've been trying to get to you, 01:15 you are such a busy man. 01:18 But we appreciate you being here. Thank you. 01:20 Even if it's by Skype, we've got you. 01:25 So may I call you Joe? I'm looking forward to it. 01:27 Thank you. May I call you Joe? 01:30 Absolutely. Can I call you Yvonne? 01:31 Absolutely, for sure. My pleasure. 01:33 So okay, Joel, 01:34 let's just get rid of the elephant in the room. 01:37 What's a white guy doing, 01:39 really digging into black history? 01:42 What led you into that? 01:45 Well, it's... 01:47 A number of years ago I got involved in... 01:50 I was from Canada, left home when I was 17. 01:54 Long haired hippie, hitchhiked by five or six thousand miles 01:58 around North America. 01:59 When I came to United States, it was kind of, like, 02:04 what's going on down here? 02:06 I couldn't quite grasp how it all fit together. 02:10 And so what happened is I became a pastor, 02:14 I became chaplain for 02:16 the Washington Bullets/Wizards in the NBA. 02:19 And some of the players, what they would do is, 02:23 they would ask me questions about, 02:24 you know, 'cause they're in a position 02:27 where they're kind of in a spot 02:30 where people are looking at them funny 02:33 and their position attracts sincere people 02:35 and insincere agendas. 02:37 And so they were kind of testing me out. 02:40 And so one of the things that they looked at is, 02:44 "what did Jesus look like?" 02:45 They want to know about that. 02:47 They want to know about some other things 02:48 about ancient African history 02:50 and how people of African descent 02:51 fit into Biblical history, and also external history. 02:56 What happened with me is that I just became 03:00 a very intervention or I didn't have a clue, 03:04 I didn't know what to say to them. 03:06 And so what happened was, I began to research. 03:10 I began to study very hard about these things 03:14 because they would ask questions, 03:15 I don't know what response to that and... 03:18 but, you know, maybe next time we get together 03:20 I might have some type of response. 03:22 Then that's really what happened. 03:24 And later, we fast forward to, when I met Don Griffin, 03:28 who was the co-author as you mentioned of book, 03:30 the film, "Return to Glory." 03:33 And what happened is that 03:34 Don began to share some things with me, 03:37 I was doing some leadership training 03:39 for his company up in New York City. 03:43 And so it was a program called 03:45 "Dealing with People Who Drive You Crazy." 03:47 I like that. 03:50 And between sessions, I've found out very quickly 03:54 that he was a follower of Jesus as I was. 03:57 And then he began to communicate with me 04:00 some things from Isaiah Chapter 18. 04:04 Now I had done a series on the Book of Isaiah 04:06 and I never saw what he communicated. 04:09 Isaiah 18 talks, 04:12 this is in the Freeman translation. 04:13 It talks about people from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, 04:17 tall, smoother skin, awesome to be feared 04:21 from the beginning onwards. 04:22 Of course, Jimmy says, they are terrible 04:26 from the beginning on the word. 04:27 So that particular phrase 04:29 is what's really, really grabbed me, 04:32 terrible from the beginning on. 04:34 So I began to look in original Hebrew. 04:36 And I know enough original Hebrew 04:38 and Greek to be dangerous. 04:40 And so what happened is I began to take a look 04:45 at what that phrase meant because I figured the Bible 04:48 is not given to hyperbole or exaggeration, 04:51 and so there must be some extra Biblical information 04:54 that corroborates that they're terrible, 04:58 to be feared from the beginning onward. 05:00 So that's really what hunched me. 05:02 It wasn't the social or the justice issue 05:04 that pulled me in, 05:05 that was the caboose of the train. 05:07 The engine was Biblical dynamics. 05:09 And that's where it all began. All that stuff came later. 05:12 I love it. 05:13 You know, one of the things that 05:18 I'm impressed with is the abs... 05:24 I'm not impressed by it in a positive way, 05:26 I'm concerned. 05:27 I think that's a better word. 05:29 Concerned about the seeming absence 05:35 of black presence in the Bible. 05:38 Now there, it's not absent, 05:43 it's just that it's never been taught. 05:46 I think, I need to specify that 05:48 because it makes it seem as though, 05:51 we're not there, now we are there 05:53 but been taught that way. 05:56 And so, it's very interesting to hear, 06:01 and unless you really do your own digging 06:04 and study for yourself 06:05 and then you realize certain things 06:07 about various groups of people in the Bible. 06:10 If you don't do that, 06:11 you think black people weren't even in the Bible, 06:13 that everybody was white. 06:14 That is the way it's presented 06:17 in our schools and institutions. 06:21 And so that's why I find it very fascinating 06:23 that you as a white man 06:25 have really dug into this and you found out 06:28 more than just what, you know, the surface information is. 06:33 So what did you find 06:36 when you did some more digging on this Isaiah 18? 06:41 What did you find? 06:43 Well, in the beginning it talks about a rise of 06:47 and then a fall of epic proportion. 06:50 And of course, it's talking about 06:52 an ethnically specific group of people, 06:54 a geographically specific group of people. 06:57 And this rise and fall, 06:59 and then it talks later on about a return to glory. 07:03 And I don't know what that looks like, 07:05 or what that means, but all I know is that there, 07:09 that coupled with a verse in Zephaniah and Psalm 68, 07:13 some other passages of scripture. 07:15 It seems to indicate that the Lord has not forgotten 07:19 the people from African descent 07:21 with all the terrible things that have happened. 07:24 And it's, by the way its impossible to exaggerate 07:27 when trying to describe 07:29 the horrific nature of the slave trade, 07:31 slavery, Jim Crow laws, 07:34 The Black Code Laws lynching 07:37 and these other thing that have happened. 07:40 But it is just God is one that has not forgotten 07:45 and is very much involved 07:47 I believe in bringing and return to glory. 07:51 So that, I began to then study about people of nations 07:55 in Genesis Chapter 10. 07:57 There are 70 nations in all. 07:59 And actually, Ham, and Shem, and Japheth, 08:03 you have more nations with Ham than the other two combined. 08:10 And what's fascinating is that, 08:12 you can see the way gene flow loose. 08:15 And then, of course, we have the whole Lemba people. 08:20 I don't know if you have done any research about the Lemba, 08:24 but there is this theory, the Eve, the common Eve theory. 08:31 Now we believe in Eve as a theological, 08:33 from the theological perspective, 08:35 but just from biological perspective, 08:38 mother of all living. 08:40 How the gene flow has moved through Eve, to Noah, 08:44 to his wife, Misses Noah, and the kids, 08:47 and then you begin to move throughout the entire earth. 08:50 It's a whole another fascinating discussion. 08:52 Wow! 08:54 So, okay, so what do you say to people who say that, 08:59 you know, Ham was cursed, 09:02 and so then the whole black race 09:05 was cursed? 09:06 What do you say about that? 09:09 Well, actually the curse was not on Ham, 09:12 it was on Canaan. 09:14 And it's a, the situation where, 09:18 you look now in the scriptures. 09:20 Well, even you just pick up the newspaper today 09:23 and you have Ham, Shem, and Japheth, 09:27 and then you have the sons, you know, of Ham, 09:32 and you have the Phut, P-H-U-T, 09:37 he ended up dwelling in the area around Libya. 09:42 And then you have Kanan or Canaan, all the ites, 09:49 the Amorites, the Arvadites, and the Hittites, 09:52 and all those ites, sons of Kanan or Canaan. 09:56 And you can see that all, the Holy Land here, 10:00 that whole region. 10:02 And then have a Kush. 10:05 And Kush was in the region around Ethiopia and Somalia, 10:11 that whole region there. 10:14 And you pick the paper and you can see 10:17 that Libya is still around 10:20 and you have also, Ethiopia still around, 10:25 and then Mizraim, 10:26 which literally means two Egypt's, 10:29 Upper, and Lower Egypt. 10:31 And Egypt is still existing, but Canaan is not existing. 10:36 And when one looks at the scripture 10:37 about sins of father going down 10:39 to the third, fourth, fifth generation, this curse, 10:44 it seems to me, and I don't know for sure 10:47 but it seems to me that somehow Canaan, 10:50 somehow wiped out, 10:52 that lineage was wiped out because we don't see anymore. 10:56 That's just my theory, my idea. 10:59 I won't go to jail over it. 11:00 But, yeah, that's, that direction I leave. 11:03 Yeah, you know, I think it's important 11:08 for people to understand that, 11:12 that whole group of people were not cursed. 11:16 I mean, this is kind of an idea that still exists today 11:21 among certain churches that, you know, 11:25 that the whole black race was cursed 11:27 and, or that the mark of Cain, 11:30 that Cain received after killing Abel 11:33 was that he was black. 11:35 I mean, these are things and it's so bizarre to me, 11:37 but this is what some people are taught. 11:40 And I think it's so important to dispel this, not just for, 11:46 just for truth sake. 11:48 I mean, just to really get to 11:50 what the truth is about 11:52 what has happened with the Bible 11:55 and how people have misused the Bible, 11:58 because the Bible itself is God's inerrant word. 12:02 It's how it's been used, that's been an issue. 12:06 And I think even... 12:10 Oh, go ahead. Oh, yeah. 12:11 That's good, I'm sorry. 12:12 I just want to say something here that, that could be... 12:16 I developed a whole website about this 12:20 which maybe I can share with you later, 12:21 but and you can include in the program 12:24 once you look at it. 12:25 But it's a whole website dealing with how this happened. 12:30 And it all started with Table of Nations 12:33 in the 1500s. 12:36 Because I've done a whole study around 12:37 how the King James Version came about 12:39 and the scholars that were at Cambridge, 12:42 Oxford, Westminster, 12:43 and how they separated different parts of scripture 12:46 to translate it so that we could have this 12:48 particular King James Version of the Bible. 12:51 But around the same time, there was a whole situation 12:56 that they had developed called the table of, 12:58 called the, not the Table of Nations, 13:02 but it's the "Order of Being." 13:04 I'm sorry. 13:05 Where the king was at the top, 13:08 and then you had these layers 13:09 of individuals animate, inanimate objects, 13:13 they're all in this great chain of being, 13:16 then they added God and angels about five layers of above. 13:20 And then of course when you get to white man, 13:23 the black man from Africa 13:25 is two layers below the white man. 13:29 And so what happened is that the Linnaeus 13:33 and others him up with all of this. 13:35 They said that the place of the people 13:39 and entities that are in the chain beneath 13:42 are there to serve the ones that are above 13:45 in order to keep calm and pious 13:48 and in society you could not break 13:51 this great chain of being. 13:52 Then you can take a look at 13:54 when Charles Darwin came along and the origin of the species. 14:00 And you have this whole thing, 14:03 this fall in the middle of the culture, 14:06 the whole idea of the black race 14:08 being at least two points, 14:10 two layers under the white male. 14:13 And so what happened is that, 14:15 of course, you have apes 14:18 and animals trying to figure out 14:20 how people came into existence. 14:23 There is no creation, so we got to figured this out 14:26 from a natural perspective. 14:28 And so, then the whole idea of black people 14:31 coming from apes, 14:32 and then humans come from apes, 14:35 you know, all this, this little thing. 14:37 It became a situation that was very challenging 14:41 for people who fight against. 14:44 And so then you have the economic engine 14:47 of the slave trade developing. 14:50 Because initially people just came a naval, 14:54 a navies came and people, boats came 14:57 the outer part of Africa. 15:00 And then, of course, 15:02 with folks like David Livingston and others, 15:04 they went into the interior of Africa. 15:07 And then the King of Belgium, 15:12 terrible man, Leopold took over the Congo 15:15 and that whole region. 15:17 And then that set it up for Africa to be viewed 15:20 as kind of a cake to be cut up into the pies, 15:22 where the French get this, 15:24 German get this, the English get this, 15:26 Portuguese get that, 15:27 and it becomes, then transcend the geopolitical lines... 15:33 I'm sorry, the ancient African kingdom lines, 15:38 the boundary lines, and you put in these geopolitical lines. 15:41 And you're putting these artificial countries in place 15:45 in Africa, all across the continent of Africa. 15:48 So all of this was set up. 15:51 And then of course, you have Sir Galton, 15:54 who was a second cousin to Charles Darwin. 15:58 He came up with the whole concept of "Eugenic," 16:01 some years later and he wrote about it. 16:03 And, of course, eugenics, you have the word euphoria. 16:07 It's good gene if you will. 16:09 And so the whole idea of... 16:12 There are bad genes, there are good genes, 16:14 and there are certain facial features 16:16 and certain things, a certain structures 16:18 that are deemed to be superior. 16:21 And, of course, then intellectual capacity 16:24 is aligned with the place a person is in the genetic code 16:29 if you will. 16:30 And then that set up this whole thing 16:32 for Hitler later, 16:34 who was an avid reader of Charles Darwin 16:37 and Sir Francis Galton. 16:40 And then eugenics, the reality of eugenics 16:43 came into being in Nazi Germany. 16:47 It wasn't just a theoretical idea anymore, 16:51 now it was real, it was reality. 16:54 And now the whole concept of ethnic cleansing... 16:57 Comes in to play. Yes, yeah. 17:01 So racism really... 17:03 People have tried to say, the King James Version, 17:05 you know, they weren't black but comely. 17:07 You know, you're black but you're smart. 17:09 You know that kind of thing. 17:12 All the racist ideas about the Bible, 17:16 all were brought about saying that the Bible was translated 17:20 during this period of time 17:23 when the Great Chain of Being was bound to plates. 17:25 And one of the things in my dreams 17:27 is to create a film about this 17:29 and to maybe write a book about it. 17:30 Because the Bible is, 17:33 when you start looking at the essence of the Bible, 17:36 it is not racist, in fact, it's egalitarian, 17:38 it is opened up to slaves and to women, 17:42 and all the different morals and values and culture. 17:47 We're definitely dealt with Jesus Christ 17:52 in a way that was unbelievable. 17:54 Because you have the ancients believe 17:56 that you had the air and the fire, 17:59 you know, tending upwards, 18:01 and the water and Earth tending downwards, 18:06 and that's where Jesus came at water level, at Earth level 18:10 and he revealed divinity to the Earth 18:14 to show that there is a different way to do things. 18:17 There's a different way to be, and there's a different destiny 18:20 that is available. 18:22 Wow! Wow! 18:23 I want to come back to the concept of 18:30 what Jesus looked like in just a second. 18:32 But I think, again, you know, you made a really good point 18:39 that the Bible itself, it transcends race. 18:42 I mean, the Bible says, "There's no Jew, nor Greek, 18:45 male, nor female." 18:46 I mean, so it's, 18:49 the Bible teaches an equality of men. 18:53 But man has taken the Bible and has taken... 18:56 it's just like that, that whole order of being 18:59 and the whole concept of eugenics. 19:01 Man has taken all of that and twisted it so much that, 19:06 you know, all groups of people have felt oppressed 19:10 by those whole concepts of superiority 19:16 and all of that. 19:17 And it's ingrained in the psyche of men and women. 19:23 And it's to me right now 19:26 with all that's going on in society, 19:28 we have these culture wars happening. 19:33 And at the root I think, 19:35 is a spiritual issue, of course, 19:39 but also this whole concept of value. 19:45 What is valued? 19:47 Who is valued? 19:48 And I think, we really as Christians 19:53 have to step back and look at what's going on, 19:58 not let it dominate our psyche, 20:00 but certainly be aware of what's going on. 20:04 That it is another trap of the enemy 20:07 to divide us, to keep us down. 20:10 It's all the trap. 20:12 And if we just stay focused on Jesus 20:16 and really do some digging, 20:18 like what you've done and what you're sharing. 20:21 I think it can clear up a lot of misconceptions. 20:24 Like for example, 20:26 when you look at television now, 20:29 when you look at Africa. 20:33 If anything's on TV about Africa, 20:35 most of what you say, it's the jungle. 20:37 It's like there are no cities over there. 20:39 There are no wealthy people over there. 20:41 There are no people who are achieving over there. 20:43 It's all the jungle. 20:45 And it's like, it just kind of blows me away 20:49 that we're still kind of stuck in that place of looking. 20:55 And certainly there are areas in Africa that are just jungle. 20:59 But I think, you know, we have no idea 21:02 of what Africa has contributed to society at large. 21:07 Would you share a little bit of that? 21:08 What has Africa given to society? 21:12 Because according to TV, it's nothing. 21:16 It's basically nothing. 21:19 It just blows me away that people think that, 21:23 you know, King Tut for example, he was African, 21:27 but nobody talks about that. 21:29 You know, they just think, "Oh, he was King Tut." 21:31 What do you think about that, Joe? 21:33 Well, I want to go back just for a moment 21:35 to what you said about equality and everything. 21:38 I see, I believe that in the scripture it says that, 21:41 when we get to heaven, every tongue, every kindred, 21:44 every nation is going to be there. 21:46 So there is going to be 21:47 some type of distinctiveness I think, even in heaven. 21:51 Yes. Which I think is wonderful. 21:52 Yes. 21:54 And I think, also like the writer of Acts, Luke said, 22:00 talked about one blood. 22:02 Then also we see great pains throughout the scripture 22:05 to say that, it's a Syrophoenician woman. 22:08 You know, that she's not just a woman, 22:10 she's a Syrophoenician. 22:11 All right. 22:13 A woman from Samaria. 22:14 It's a man from, you know, wherever. 22:18 It is the whole idea 22:19 I think of the scriptures showing the difference 22:24 and how important it is for us to have those distinctive. 22:27 You know, I think it comes from a good place 22:30 in someone's heart when they say 22:31 they are colorblind, but I'm not colorblind. 22:33 I really, I'm thank for the variety that is there. 22:37 And I think that the Lord works in and through that. 22:40 And I'm not even concerned even with churches be, 22:44 you know, a black church or white church. 22:46 And we say that the greatest divide 22:47 is on Sunday, or Saturday, or someone worships. 22:51 That's the greatest divide on the planet. 22:54 But, you know, what? 22:55 I think that there's different distinct of music, 22:58 of taste, of types of preaching, 23:01 and understanding. 23:03 And so I'm not even against that merely. 23:06 I think it's good we get together. 23:08 But I think it's also it's good to understand this natives. 23:12 It's just my idea about it 23:14 and through great respect to seek to understand 23:17 before seeking to be understood, 23:18 it doesn't preclude that, need to be understood. 23:21 This means there's a chronological sequence 23:23 involved. 23:24 Now to get to your question about Africa 23:27 and what it's brought. 23:29 I just think, you know, 23:31 there are things that I'm hoping to develop. 23:33 I have a pretty huge black history collection, 23:35 over 3,000 pieces. 23:37 I missed that. 23:38 I'm sorry, with the Skype, I missed. 23:39 You have a pretty big...? 23:41 Black history collection. 23:43 It's over 3,000 pieces. 23:45 The oldest piece staged about 1553. 23:48 And one of the things that my goal is to do 23:52 is to help develop galleries around the country 23:55 and even internationally. 23:56 Now one of the first things 23:57 I want to put in these galleries, 23:59 is the Rosetta Stone. 24:01 I'm only one in the world that has developed 24:03 the full size, 24:05 three dimensional replica of the famous Rosetta Stone 24:07 that was used to crack code to hieroglyphics, 24:09 which then unlocked the secrets of Ancient Egypt. 24:12 Without the Rosetta Stone, you would not... 24:14 We'd see all the hieroglyphics 24:16 on obelisks and temples and papyrus 24:20 and we would not understand anything about the morals, 24:24 the values and, you know, 24:26 the different aspects of culture of ancient Egypt. 24:29 But the thing about it is, 24:31 "why would I put the Rosetta Stone 24:33 is the first thing in a gallery." 24:35 The reason why is because 24:36 I don't want to support the notion, 24:38 "black history started with slavery 24:40 and the slave trade." 24:41 I want to have something that isn't, 24:44 almost a literal touched to ancient Egypt 24:48 which happens in Africa. 24:50 And then from there we can then segue, 24:53 we can talk about all the other ancient African Kingdoms, 24:56 Songhay Kingdom, the Ghanian Kingdom, 24:59 the Malawian Kingdom, 25:02 and then the different people groups at the house, 25:04 the Igbo, the Luo, 25:06 and different other people 25:09 throughout the continent of Africa. 25:12 And all the bonds were developed, 25:14 especially in West Africa. 25:18 The different things that we have learned 25:20 about communication with drums, 25:23 and all these different other aspects 25:26 of technology that have been developed in ancient times. 25:31 And in fact there is a place in Zimbabwe called, 25:34 a city called Great Zimbabwe. 25:36 That is made of stone without mortar. 25:40 Now I will dare anyone to go out, 25:43 just get a bunch of stones, 25:45 build a fence, and then live for 40 years. 25:49 And you'll find that the movement of the Earth 25:52 will cause that stone fence to fall and crumble 25:55 over a period of time. 25:56 And yet somehow, someway, the ancient Africans 25:59 had something in their understanding a building, 26:03 to create this city Great Zimbabwe 26:06 without mortar that still stands today, 26:09 just made of a large stone. 26:12 Wow! That is amazing. 26:16 And there's something else additional to that 26:19 is the pyramids were built 26:24 1.5 ton per block. 26:28 They were all put together in a way 26:31 that you could not fit a piece of paper through them. 26:35 Just the mathematical tolerances, 26:37 it's like one, one millions 26:39 or one, one thousandth of an inch. 26:41 And to think that they put them... 26:43 How did they put them in place? 26:46 Once scholar sat down with a mathematician 26:49 and figured out the number of blocks. 26:51 If it was 20 years with 100,000 workers 26:54 working X number of hours a week, 26:56 they figured, it took one block 26:58 would have to be set in place in 20 years. 27:01 Each block would be set in place every 96.5 seconds. 27:08 And I don't know how that would happen in 20 years 27:10 because the volume of blocks. 27:11 And the volume of a block is enough to build a fence, 27:15 10 feet tall 27:16 around the entire country of France. 27:17 That gives an idea 27:19 of what has come out of the continent of Africa. 27:22 Wow! 27:23 Thank you so much for sharing all this. 27:25 This is some powerful, powerful information 27:29 that most people don't know. 27:31 And I'm just so happy and thankful 27:34 that we had you on today. 27:36 Do you have a five second closing thought 27:38 for our viewers? 27:41 I just go back to the... 27:43 St. Augustine said, he said, "Seek to understand 27:47 before seeking to be understood." 27:48 And I think if every one of us tried that 27:50 for 30 seconds, 30 days, it would change the world. 27:54 It is so much. 27:56 Now, Joe, I try to get you here. 27:58 I got you here this time. 28:00 I've got to get you next time too for an hour. 28:04 Thank you for being here. Let's work on that. 28:06 We will. And thank you. 28:07 Join us next time 28:09 'cause it's just wouldn't be the same without you. |
Revised 2024-04-10