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| To view the entire transcript & video from this speech: www.emeagwali.com |
| Philip Emeagwali |
Excerpted from a speech delivered by Philip Emeagwali at
Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia at the commemoration of
the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.
"Walk with me down memory lane. The time: 1968. In 30 months,
one million dead. The setting: a dusty camp in Biafra where
survivors waited and hoped for peace. The survivors: Refugees
fleeing from the “Dance of Death.” My mentor: One of the refugee
camp directors, whom I called “Teacher” out of respect.
“Martin Luther King has been killed,” Teacher said, with a pained
voice and vacant eyes. I looked towards Teacher, wondering: “Who
is Martin Luther King?” I was a 13-year-old refugee in the west
African nation of Nigeria, a land then called Biafra. Martin Luther
King. What did that name mean?
Eight out of ten Biafrans were refugees exiled from their own
country. Two years earlier, Christian army officers had staged a
bloody coup killing Muslim leaders. The Muslims felt the coup was a
tribal mutiny of Christian Igbos against their beloved leaders. The
aggrieved Muslims went on a killing rampage, chanting: “Igbo,
Igbo, Igbo, you are no longer part of Nigeria!” In the days that
followed, 50,000 Igbos were killed in street uprisings.
Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia at the commemoration of
the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.
"Walk with me down memory lane. The time: 1968. In 30 months,
one million dead. The setting: a dusty camp in Biafra where
survivors waited and hoped for peace. The survivors: Refugees
fleeing from the “Dance of Death.” My mentor: One of the refugee
camp directors, whom I called “Teacher” out of respect.
“Martin Luther King has been killed,” Teacher said, with a pained
voice and vacant eyes. I looked towards Teacher, wondering: “Who
is Martin Luther King?” I was a 13-year-old refugee in the west
African nation of Nigeria, a land then called Biafra. Martin Luther
King. What did that name mean?
Eight out of ten Biafrans were refugees exiled from their own
country. Two years earlier, Christian army officers had staged a
bloody coup killing Muslim leaders. The Muslims felt the coup was a
tribal mutiny of Christian Igbos against their beloved leaders. The
aggrieved Muslims went on a killing rampage, chanting: “Igbo,
Igbo, Igbo, you are no longer part of Nigeria!” In the days that
followed, 50,000 Igbos were killed in street uprisings.
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| Copyright © 2007-2008 AfricanConsciousness.com |
| "The Graves Are Not Yet Full" by Philip Emeagwali |
Killing was not new to us in Biafra. I was 13, but I knew much of killing. Widows and orphans were most of the
refugees in our camp. They had survived the Igbo “Dance of Death” – a euphemism for the mass executions.
One thousand men at gunpoint forced to dance a public dance. Seven hundred were then shot and buried en
masse in shallow graves. When told to hurry up and return to his regular duty, one of the murderers said:
“The graves are not yet full.”
A few days later, with only the clothes on our backs, we fled from this “Dance of Death.” That was six months
before Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Teacher and I were eventually conscripted into the Biafran
army and sent to the front, two years after our escape.
After the war, Teacher – who had taught me the name of Martin Luther King – was among the one million
who had died. I – a child soldier – was one of the fifteen million who survived.
Africa is committing suicide: a two-decade war in Sudan, genocidal killings in Rwanda, scorched-earth conflicts
in Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, and Liberia. The wars in modern Africa are the largest global-scale loss of life
since the establishment of the Atlantic Slave trade, which uprooted and scattered Africa’s sons and daughters
across the United States, Jamaica, and Brazil.
Africa’s wars are steering the continent toward a sea of self-destruction so deep that even the greatest horror
writers are unable to fathom its depths. So, given our circumstances, Martin Luther King was a name
unknown, a dead man among millions, with a message that never reached the shores of Biafra.
Neither did his message reach the ears of “The Black Scorpion,” Benjamin Adekunle, a tough Nigerian army
commander, whose credo of ethnic cleansing knew nothing of Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement: “We shoot
at everything that moves, and when our forces move into Igbo territory, we even shoot things that do not
move.”
As we heed Martin Luther King Jr.’s call, and march together across the world stage, let us never forget that
we who have witnessed and survived the injustice of such nonsensical wars are the torchbearers of his legacy
of peace for our world, our nation, and our children.
Philip Emeagwali has been called “a father of the Internet” by CNN and TIME, and extolled as
“one of the great minds of the Information Age” by former U.S. president Bill Clinton.
refugees in our camp. They had survived the Igbo “Dance of Death” – a euphemism for the mass executions.
One thousand men at gunpoint forced to dance a public dance. Seven hundred were then shot and buried en
masse in shallow graves. When told to hurry up and return to his regular duty, one of the murderers said:
“The graves are not yet full.”
A few days later, with only the clothes on our backs, we fled from this “Dance of Death.” That was six months
before Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Teacher and I were eventually conscripted into the Biafran
army and sent to the front, two years after our escape.
After the war, Teacher – who had taught me the name of Martin Luther King – was among the one million
who had died. I – a child soldier – was one of the fifteen million who survived.
Africa is committing suicide: a two-decade war in Sudan, genocidal killings in Rwanda, scorched-earth conflicts
in Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, and Liberia. The wars in modern Africa are the largest global-scale loss of life
since the establishment of the Atlantic Slave trade, which uprooted and scattered Africa’s sons and daughters
across the United States, Jamaica, and Brazil.
Africa’s wars are steering the continent toward a sea of self-destruction so deep that even the greatest horror
writers are unable to fathom its depths. So, given our circumstances, Martin Luther King was a name
unknown, a dead man among millions, with a message that never reached the shores of Biafra.
Neither did his message reach the ears of “The Black Scorpion,” Benjamin Adekunle, a tough Nigerian army
commander, whose credo of ethnic cleansing knew nothing of Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement: “We shoot
at everything that moves, and when our forces move into Igbo territory, we even shoot things that do not
move.”
As we heed Martin Luther King Jr.’s call, and march together across the world stage, let us never forget that
we who have witnessed and survived the injustice of such nonsensical wars are the torchbearers of his legacy
of peace for our world, our nation, and our children.
Philip Emeagwali has been called “a father of the Internet” by CNN and TIME, and extolled as
“one of the great minds of the Information Age” by former U.S. president Bill Clinton.