Whether because of their demographic significance or the role they have played in various spheres of economic, social and cultural life, Africans and Afrodescendants have been essential to global civilization. The concern with building a counter-hegemonic narrative was first prompted by black social movements and intellectuals. The first writings were produced by Africans in exile, outside and inside the continent of Africa. Victims of forced migration and enslavement, these individuals denounced their ordeals and established their humanity through writing.  
There are early examples of Africans and Afrodescendants who wrote about their experience as captives. That is the case of Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti (15561627), a scholar in Timbuktu captured by the Moroccan army and forcibly resettled in Marrakesh, capital of the Saadam caliphate. In 1594, Ahmad Baba continued his work in the largest mosque and university of the Marrakech court. After 13 years of detention, he returned to Timbuktu. During his time in exile, Ahmad Baba wrote Mi'raj al-Su'ud (1616), which deals with religion, conversion, freedom and the legality of enslavement (Mota, 2018, pp. 270-271).  
Across the Atlantic, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Afrodescendants also wrote about their experiences. For example, Olaudah Equiano (who came from West Africa to Barbados, then went to the United States of America and later moved on to England) and Mahommah Gardo