Ifagbemi Sangodare, Nana Kwaku Berko I, Bejana, Onebune
Sakhu Shetist, Scholar, Author, Lecturer
Biography
Dr. Wade W. Nobles
Ifagbemi Sangodare, Nana Kwaku Berko I, Bejana, Onebune
Dr. Wade Nobles is the son of Annie Mae Cotton (1914b) and John Nobles (1900b) and the grandson of Mims Nobles who was born into the barbarism of American slavery in 1863 and the great grandson of Wade Nobles who was born into slavery in 1836. Wade Nobles was the oldest son of Candace/Agnes (Cilla) who was also born into captivity in Edgefield, South Carolina in 1810. Dr. Nobles is the namesake of Agnes' oldest son. Agnes was sold by the Mildred Cook Nobles Estate with her three children to the Sam Sheppard Plantation for $2,500.00. Dr. Nobles’ mother and father named him Wade which means one who is able to tred through difficult matter like mud, snow or ignorance. Along with his wife, Dr. Vera Lynn Winmilawe Nokwanda DeMoultrie, whose Mitochondrial DNA identifies her ancestry from the Jola people of Senegal, they have five children (Michael Chikuya, Omar Jahmal, Zetha Awura, Ayanna Yasmeen and Halima Bisa) and eleven grand children (Talia, Mikal, Kristofer, Donovan, Deborah, Maasai, Afolarin, Moremi, Folasade, Yasmeen, and Oni Chinyere).
Dr. Nobles is Professor Emeritus of Africana Studies and Black Psychology at San Francisco State University; a co-founder (and Past President) of the Association of Black Psychologists; and the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family, Life and Culture, Inc. He is the author of over one hundred (100) articles, chapters, research reports and books, including African Psychology: Toward its Reclamation, Reascension and Revitalization, Seeking the Sakhu: Foundational Writings in African Psychology, The Island of Memes: Haiti’s Unfinished Revolution. Since 1996, he has co-led “The Enyimnyam Project”, a unique and special study-development project designed to connect Africans from the Diaspora with Africans from the continent.
Dr. Nobles was initiated into the Ifa spiritual system in 1992 by Babalawo Ifayemi Elebuibon, the Awise of Osogbo, Nigeria. Ifa named him Ifagbemi (Ifa blesses me) Sangodare (Sango protects me). In receiving the high honor of being enstooled as the Nkwasohene (Development Chief) of Akwasiho-Kwahu Region of Ghana West Africa in 1996, Dr. Nobles has been reintegrated back into the ancient clan system of the royal chieftancy of the Akan civilization. His stool name is Nana Kwaku Berko I. During his enstoolment ritual, the traditional priest of Akwasiho devined and informed the village elders that the ancestors revealed to them that Dr. Nobles was the reincarnated spirit of “Wadee”, the co-founder, along with Berko, of Akwasiho. In 2005, Dr. Nobles and his wife, Vera studied with Baba Credo Mutwa, the High Sanusi of South Africa. Baba Credo said Dr. Nobles was a two headed lion with one head in Africa and one head in America. He said that his spirit was in concordance with the spirit of the rhino and named him Bejana, the Zulu word for Rhinocerous. Through Mitochondrial DNA testing Dr. Nobles learned that he is a Temne. His genetic code (blueprint) on his mother’s side matches that of the Temne people of Sierra Lione, West Africa. It is said that the Temne were spirit workers and hard to keep enslaved because of their knowledge of magic (the powers of the spirit).
For over 40 years, Dr. Nobles has studied classical African philosophy (Kemet, Twa & Nubian) and traditional African wisdom traditions (Akan, Yoruba, Bantu, Wolof, Dogon, Fon, Lebou, etc) as the grounding for the development of an authentic Black psychology. His professional career and life’s work has been no less than a formal engagement in the on-going theoretical development and programmatic application of African (Black) psychology, African centered thought, and cultural grounding to address the liberation and restoration of the African mind and world-wide development of African people. He has conducted eighty nationally funded community based research, training and development projects. He states, “while I think I have spent my entire life seeking an understanding of African and African American history, culture, philosophy and spirituality, in actuality, I have been pulled and directed by a constant and immediate rapport with the invisible realm and the dwellers in heaven. I am a seeker of the Sakhu (illumination) because the African spirit is constantly with me and continually directs my path and purpose. “