trust all is well. the last few days have been busy ones but i have wanted to share a bit on black folks and science and mathematics in the spirit of black history month. this got me to thinking about the role and function of history in the culture. the answers are many but at minimum, it seems to me, history is a mirror, a mirror in which is reflected, who we are, where we come from, and where we might be going thus the absence of history is a deep rift which has left many of us cut off from those sources of wisdom that can sustain us. on a personal note it always seems a painful to me when making family trees that so many branches end abruptly. no more questions to be asked or answered, nothing more to be said. how much science and mathematics lost never to be recovered? what the mathematicians who perished in the middle passage? who holds their banner aloft? on a more cynical note i wondered about black history month in europe, in south america, the caribbean and in africa itself. how early did africans come to london or mexico.. see the website on mathematics and the african diaspora it is perhaps the best attempt to deal with black folk and their involvement with mathematics throughout the ages. be well.