My name is Daud Malik Watts. I am a writer, researcher, lecturer, media specialist and photographer. The five years I traveled in Africa changed my life, in part because it changed the way in which I understood who Black people (Africans) really are, and in part because I was able to deconstruct many of the confusing cultural currents that make up the African American. Those experiences in Sierra Leone, Ghana, Cote D'Ivoire, Mali, Togo, Senegal and the Gambia helped make me a thinker, and it opened up directions for my life to go in constructive and creative ways. In 1984, through the grace of  God, I founded Afro-Vision.  

      Afro-Vision was initially based on developing ways to utilize the over 4,000 dramatic primary source historical graphics that my research had already unearthed. These illustrations are from books and other forms of literature produced (primarily) in the 18th,19th, and early 20th centuries.  It also includes many of my own original photographs. You may well be amazed at the number and beauty of images that historical records hold; and the one's we've collected represent only the tip of the iceberg. New /old images and data comes into the collection every day. For the past 26 years, I have been an activist in the field of African and African American education, developing original materials and publications, making numerous presentations at scholarly and community forums ( including the Smithsonian Institution, universities, and the African Studies Association), and contributing through media, consultancies, and productions to raising consciousness of African Americans' heritage.

When I see the spark of positive recognition in the eyes of children, college students, and even seniors, I realize that the need that African descendants ( and the larger communities as well) have to overturn the many disabling self images we inherit is as great in this generation as it was in earlier versions of oppression–slavery and Jim Crow.

New connections emerge from interacting and networking with scholars, graphic artists, and people from all walks of life. The internet has opened up this process even more. Because the internet has created a entirely new way to engage information from and about Africa, I have also included in this site a very useful, comprehensive and up to date Resource Guide on Africa which I developed in 2000.

     I believe that Afro-Vision.com can contribute to several areas of connectivity, research and scholarship and hope you will thoroughly explore and enjoy this site, visit it often, share it, and interact directly with me.