Marvin Gaye’s motown question of almost 40 years ago is relevant now. And it all has to do with Africa. Everywhere you look nowadays, it’s Africa.

Jeffery Sachs is hanging out with Bono all over the place talking about ending poverty in Africa (see Mother Jones article).

Three point two million year-old Lucy comes to Houston and 150,000 folks go through the exhibit (see our Curriculum Guide, p. 19 - 32).

Local business man, Mark Bent, invents a solar-powered flash light to help African villiagers and he gets praise from the New York Times, Newsweek and so forth (see our Curriculum Guide, p. 170 - 181).

Houston’s own Marathon Oil sponsors the iFest Business Conference on Africa in order to tell their story about mosquito eradication in Equitorial Guinea .

Twelve hundred pleople flood the Houston Hilton ballroom to hear Dr. Cornel West deliver a rousing and brilliant speech about the enslavement and the forced-migration of Africans to the Americas and the culture they brought with them - and who shows up but Snoop Dogg?

I think it’s gotta be the Obama phenomenon. That’s what’s goin’ on.

Photo posted on Flickr by: sai0ne