ATLANTA, May 31, 2009, 1 a.m. - THE GUYANA CULTURAL ASSOCIATION NEW YORK Inc./Guyana Folk Festival share with you the passing of Dr. Ivan Van Sertima a former professor of the University of Rutgers and an important son of the soil of Guyana.

Ivan van Sertima (26 January 1935 - ) is a Guyanese-British historian, linguist and anthropologist . He is a noted for his Afrocentric theory of pre-Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas.

Early life and education

Van Sertima was born in Kitty Village, Guyana, on 26 January 1935, when it was still a British colony. He has remained a British citizen. Van Sertima's father Frank Obermuller was a trade union leader. Van Sertima completed primary and secondary school in Guyana, and started writing poetry.

He went to London in 1959 for university. In addition to producing an array of creative writing, Van Sertima completed undergraduate studies in African languages and literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London in 1969, where he graduated with honors. During his studies he became fluent in Swahili and Hungarian languages.

He worked for several years in Great Britain as a journalist, doing weekly broadcasts to the Caribbean and Africa. In doing field work in Africa, he compiled a dictionary of Swahili legal terms.

In 1970 Van Sertima immigrated to the United States, where he entered Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey for graduate work.

Career

Van Sertima began his more than 30-year teaching career at Rutgers as an instructor in 1972. In 1977 he completed his master's degree. He is Associate Professor of African Studies in the Department of Africana Studies. As editor of the Journal of African Civilization and author of numerous books, he has addressed topics in literature, linguistics, anthropology and history. Van Sertima has written a number of books in which he argues that the Ancient Egyptians were black.