Bringing The Light Into A New Day: African-centered Rites of Passage by Lathardus Goggins II, Ed.D.
Copyright 1998 1999 Ida B. Wells Black Book Award Winner ISBN: 0-9663972-0-7 (Out of Print)		Copyright 2012 ISBN: 978-0-9663972-1-5 (e-book) ISBN: 978-0-9663972-7-7 (paperback)

This book provides a thorough discussion on the principles and components of African centered rites of passage (rites). It should be noted that this is not a "how to" book, but a book meant to help the reader to know "how to - how to." It is a guide to understanding "family-based community-linked" African-centered rites of passage. The title, "Bringing the light into a new day," is a metaphor that refers to all the familiar quotes and statements about light and the coming of the dawn, where light is a metaphor for opportunity, hope and wisdom.

Goggins suggests that we must be active participants in the creation and management of this "light," if we are to benefit from it. To bring the light is to invoke sankofa: to go back and fetch what has worked. Here the implication is to reflect, and study the past, future, and present in order to draw on and create those solutions one needs. Please be careful to note, sankofa is not just taking what is old, but an examination of the future and past. Then applying only those things from the past in the present that will help create the desired future.

Our light is our heritage! If we do not bring this light into the new day, then we doom ourselves: at worst, to die during "the night" or at best, to be cast in the faint light of someone else's interpretations, and unable to see our own potential. Let us remember the words of Marcus Garvey:

Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom.

African Americans families and communities must bring the light (opportunity, hope and wisdom) into the new day, so that the children can see their unique genius. How to the bring this light? African-centered Rites of Passage!