Rediscovering A Lost Continent

The Atlanta students are being taught these things because the content of their school curriculum has undergone what educators call an "Afrocentric infusion,'' a systematic effort to rectify past textbook distortions and omissions about black contributions to history, and to situate Africans "irrevocably on the stage of humanity.''

The Atlanta Public Schools' program, piloted in 18 elementary and secondary schools this year, is designed to instill pride in black children and to spark their interest in school by showing how their black ancestors influenced the various disciplines they are studying. The effort extends far beyond the typical observances of Black History Month and Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, delving into the history of African dynasties and the contributions of Africans to almost every school subject.

Atlanta's attempt to tell the African story, and the overwhelming success of a recent conference on the topic in that city, may signal the dawn of an "African renaissance'' in U.S. schools. It comes after centuries in which the contributions of Africa were overlooked in favor of the so-called "classical'' civilizations of Greece and Rome. But the subtle interweaving of African threads into the multicolored fabric of the public school curriculum is not simply a tit-for-tat question of equity. At heart, it's...