Boas affirmed that the idea that Black people are naturally inferior, or even that they’ve been made inferior from slavery, was false, and all one needed to do to prove this was dig through the history of Black people before they got to America. Black people had a history. And that history—an African history—wasn’t one of inferiority. Instead, it was one full of glorious empires, like those of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay, full of intellects and innovators.
