Influential Africans or did you mean influential Americans?

Good day people.... I know it’s been quite a while since a fresh post appeared on this blog and you will be forgiven for thinking I have gone AWOL....I do apologise but as is so often the case, life happens and you find that you have to re-charge your batteries to prevent a total breakdown of the machinery that your body is. My humblest apologies; now I’m back to stir up your thoughts and opinions again.
With the title of today’s post you’re probably wondering whether you’ve stumbled onto the wrong blog or whether I’ve totally lost the plot. Neither is the case I promise you. A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about the issue of African role models who have made impact on the global stage and this got me thinking about influential Africans. I figured what better place to start than my favourite search engine: Google. Imagine my surprise when this message came on my screen: “did you mean influential Americans?” I thought I must have imagined it so I waited a few days and I got the same message again. As I am typing these words, the message has not changed.........I feel insulted, annoyed, irritated; the list can go on.
But then there’s no point in my ranting or raving if I don’t do something about it. Every society needs living inspirations and Africa is no different. I do know for a fact that as a people we have so many unsung heroes whose achievements and contributions to humanity will blow our minds but then why do they rarely get a mention in the media? Could it be that it is more believable that less than stellar conduct or impoverishment is what being African has come to be denoted? I’ll let you decide whether I’m just plain cynical or being realistic... I do know that it is up to us as Africans to accord honour to our fellow Africans whose achievements make the world a better place. Undoubtedly we have people like Nelson Mandela, Miriam Makeba, Wole Soyinka, Nkrumah, Awolowo, Nyerere just to name a few so we’re doing enough, aren’t we? My issue as you’ve probably guessed is this: a lot of these people are either very old or they‘re dead. Now please, do not misunderstand me, I’m in no way ageist - we could save ourselves a lot of heartache by learning from our elders or forbears. What about the younger generation? I mean those in the 18 to 60 age bracket?
Herein lies the challenge for every single one of us; let’s start documenting the achievements of our unsung heroes. No time like the present and I dare say that the internet age makes it easier all round. Imagine a wikipedia page of influential Africans backed up by verifiable evidence...Then and only then can we effectively quash the kind of nonsense that is on Google.....
Ok folks, what are we waiting for?
Until the next time......take care...
Bams