That was how I got my African name—“Ta-Nehisi,” a designation in Ancient Egyptian for the kingdom of Nubia, sometimes translated as “Land of the Blacks.” I was born into what the historian St. Clair Drake calls the “vindicationist tradition,” that is, to Black people who sought to reclaim the very history weaponized against them and turn it back against their tormentors. If a “Black Egypt” was what the Niggerologists feared, then we would insist on its truth and take it to its logical conclusion: We were born not to be slaves but to be royalty. That explains our veneration of Black pharaohs
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One of the overarching themes of this book is found here.
