To be or not to be may not be the most important question, but more so, “Who shall we be?” The holocaust of enslavement and its subsequent manifestations in the United States has rendered catastrophic disharmonies within the African-American personality. With the loss of ancestral family names, cultures and social systems, the formerly enslaved Africans have been like a ship adrift in a hostile sea; moving in whatever direction the tide of identity takes them.

Black people in America have had to ask some very fundamental questions about their identity, such as: What is the historic nature of names? How did we acquire our names? What is the importance of a proper name? What do our current names mean? Do our current names accurately reflect our collective history, gifts, vision and purpose?

The BAKALA of North America: The Living Suns of Vitality asserts that the historical names given to the formerly enslaved Africans in the United States (Black, Colored, Negro, African, African-American) do not adequately reflect the spirit of the people. Asar Imhotep offers for consideration a name that is rich in meaning and wide in its application which accurately reflects the history, gifts, vision and purpose of African-American people.

The BAKALA of North America takes us on a philosophical and linguistic journey that begins on the banks of the river Nile, to the forests of the Kongo; from the slave ports in Ghana, to the river of the mighty Mississippi. Asar Imhotep’s research, scholarship, synthesis and creative application of various disciplines convincingly supports the notion that the name BAKALA (the charcoal, enlightened, vitalistic, people of the sun) best reflects the personality of the African-American. The more fascinating aspect of this work is the notion that we've always been BAKALA, we just never realized it.