(Click to enlarge)

Inspired by the Ripley’s Believe It or Not comic strip, I created the Black History comic strip Our Roots during a school project at the end of my last year at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in New Jersey. As a Nigerian studying Cartoon Graphics in the U.S., I felt the need to educate about the neglected African history through my drawings. I remember going to a small library in the same town as my school where I researched images and information about Africa for my illustrated educational comic strip. My classmate, artist and good friend David Cuccia did the lettering for the feature. The format looked professional and was originally titled African Sketchbook.

The Our Roots Comic book launched in Brooklyn, New York during Black History Month in February.

While studying at the Art school, I had no idea that Black History month was celebrated in the U.S. every year in February. Originally it was call Negro History month. I was aware of African Americans identifying themselves with Africa. My intention was then to educate and let people know more about Africa, its people, achievements, places and things through my drawings and to be proud of their race. I eventually renamed the drawing Our Roots to cover Black people in the diaspora that is, in the Caribbean, the U.S., Europe, South America, Africa, Australia and so on. It was a move that would have many embracing the concept and use it for educational purposes. It’s a comic strip that also got syndicated in U.S. newspapers with special thanks to Jerry Robinson, creator of the Joker. Our Roots was selected for exhibition at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, one of the foremost American institutions for African contemporary art.

Britain celebrates Black History Month in October. Our Roots was featured in The Voice, a Black British newspaper, and many families cut out and pasted the comic strip into a scrap book for their children because of its educational contents.

Our Roots - featured in Helsingin Sanomat - the biggest subscription newspaper in Finland. (click to enlarge)

African American Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) began Negro History Week in 1926, later called Black History Month. He chose the second week of February to take in the birth dates of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two key players in African-American history.

February is also the month when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. He was once the world’s most popular political prisoner who was jailed for twenty-seven years by the then apartheid regime that oppressed millions of Black South Africans. After the fall of apartheid, Mandela went on to become South Africa’s first elected Black President in 1994.

If there is a continent whose rich history and great achievements has been ignored, it is Africa. Black History celebration is not only about Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela or Marcus Garvey. Black History Month, cannot be celebrated without Africa, without which there would not be Black History. Through my comic drawings Our Roots, I have been able to educate and highlight the achievements, politically, socially and economically about the richness of Africa, an ignored continent that has contributed to history and will continue to contribute to the future. Only few know of our great African kings and queens, political leaders, scientists, writers, inventors, thinkers, and artists.  It was President Barack Obama, the first Black president of the U.S., who said, that there are many unsung heroes who are more worthy of receiving the Nobel Peace prize than him. Our Roots aims to do just that by featuring the unsung Black heroes and heroines worthy of mention and the known, on continuous basis.

In an increasingly violent world of ours, it has been an uplifting experience for me to be able to inspire positive aspirations in the young ones who through my images I have helped in directing their mind towards achievement. In furtherance of this, I have used the Our Roots comic strip to educate and provide source of hope for Black people and many others. Our Roots continues to highlight blacks in the diaspora whose forefathers were taken away as slaves from Africa.

Black people have helped shaped the destiny of the whole human race and have a history it can be proud of. These contributions will continue to play an important role in the way the history of the world is shaped.

Lest I forget, the only A+ mark I got while at Art school was for the  African Sketchbook project. It was something refreshing.

The original format of African Sketchbook from the Joe Kubert School before it became Our Roots. First published in a Nigerian magazine. (click to enlarge)