ADVICE TO AFRICA: KEEP YOUR WHITES

Dear Friend of America's Survival,

With the advent of The 1619 Project, The New York Times intends to re-examine the legacy of slavery in the United States. 

In this context, my late friend and mentor, Reed Irvine, published a July 1997 AIM Report, titled, "ADVICE TO AFRICA: KEEP YOUR WHITES," about the book, Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa, by Washington Post foreign correspondent Keith B. Richburg.

Reed's report notes: Richburg wrote in his book that he was lucky that his ancestors came to America, even though they came as slaves. He wrote: “Would I be better off if this great tragedy, this crime of slavery, had not occurred? What would my life be like now?” His answer, as he viewed the corpses of the victims of one of Africa's many massacres, was, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

To repeat: Richburg thanks God he was not born in Africa.

The description of his book, Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa, says: “Nothing in Keith Richburg’s long and respected journalistic career at The Washington Post prepared him for what he would encounter as the paper’s correspondent in Africa. He found a continent where brutal murder had become routine, where dictators and warlords silenced dissent with machine guns and machetes, and where starvation had become depressingly common.”  

For America's Survival,
Cliff Kincaid