That's really ok. I've had a few survey courses in African history and its hardly enough. (I did my research mostly on Ethiopia) Africa is HUGE and there is a tendency to lump all Africans like they're one people. Definitely not true. In addition, African history is much harder to understand because it is less of a written history and more to do with anthropology. There was a joke in our class that the answer is always "pottery." That's because they could track movements of different people by finding pottery. Its a very different study of history. There is nothing written, but there is a history of people and civilizations being there, but not anymore. (Climate changes in the Sahara?)


I had a chart (and this was a few years ago) that identified different main black African groups and tribes physical characteristics (much like we identify different Europeans) and they usually can identify each other because they live there. They don't really identify as being black as much as from their originating group.