Situation Analysis

Black people are most predominant in Africa (Sub-Saharan Africa, indigenous black populations of North Africa and Afro-Arabs) while their numbers are considerably high in the Americas. There are also the indigenous black peoples of India, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Pacific islands and small populations in China, Sri-Lanka, Russia, Indonesia and Melanesia.

CBCIU regionalizes black culture based on the different and widely spread geographical habitations of black peoples. This is in a bid to stimulate researches into those black cultural traits that predominate in such regions for easier understanding, appreciation, linkages and application.

Sub-Saharan Africa

CBCIU has begun aggressive and enduring thrusts into the heartland of black culture and starting with the more proximal Yoruba nationalities spanning about four countries in West Africa, with great ambitions to extend to several other racial, tribal or ethnic nationalities in Sub-Saharan Africa and tap into the soul of their cultural traits for exposé. CBCIU’s current works/acquisitions include:

• The archive of Ulli Beier, who lived and worked in Osogbo and its environ from 1952 to 1974. This archive includes his works, personal books and the journals that he edited, and over 700 slides and negatives of pictures (see Appendix 1a, b, c for an inventory);

• The Mbari Mbayo building complex, which served as Duro Ladiipo’s theatre and studio for the earliest workshops of the Osogbo Art Movement;

• The costumes and stage props used by Duro Ladiipo in his most famous plays (Oba Koso, Moremi and Eda);

• Audio-visual archival materials from the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, as well as other literary documents (the Institute has been in existence since the early 1960s).