During Women’s History Month, I would like to big up Sheila S. Walker, a cultural anthropologist, documentary filmmaker, and Executive Director of Global African Diaspora. For decades she has traveled and documented the African Diaspora globally, filling in the profound lacunas in our knowledge of the history and culture of our people.
In books and articles, lectures and documentaries, Dr. Walker has challenged the long-standing myth that African-descended people lost our cultures through displacement. Her work reveals how African knowledge of technologies, spiritual traditions, and other cultural practices helped create and develop the modern world.
Dr. Walker’s scholarship reminds us that history is not only something we study, but that it is also an active practice. Her work focuses on continuity and supports connections. Understanding that we come from generations who carried knowledge, faith, and resilience across continents and oceans challenges narratives of loss. In reclaiming our ancestral connection, we rediscover parts of ourselves that were never truly lost.
