The Legend of the Black Samurais

About the Book

About the Author

About the Author Grand Master Sayyed A. H. Abdul-Rashid was born on April 25, 1948, in the Bronx, New York. Sayyed started studying the martial arts in 1966. His first introduction to martial arts was when he was passing by and watching students practice martial arts at schools that were established on Jamaica Avenue, Queens, New York. During his pastime, he would often watch Bruce Lee as he played kato in a martial arts production called The Green Hornet, a television show aired weekly throughout America. His brother-in-law Gerald Washington Jr. had just came home from Vietnam. He was a marine who had seen war in that troubled part of the world. Jerry as he was called by both members of his family and close friends. Sensei Washington spent some time in Okinawa, Japan. He started training Sayyed and his younger brother Hassan. Grand Master Washington’s teacher was Sensei Toehei Maigora, who was a student himself of the great martial arts master Shimabokuru, the Okinawan grand master. In September 1981, he received his ninth degree black belt along with his brother Hassan. Grand Master Sayyed A. H. Abdul-Rashid has taught a great number of students especially in the New York Brooklyn and Queens area. He was inspired to write this book in both recognition and honor of the many African American martial arts masters, students, and practitioners, regardless of what style of martial arts that they practiced. I hope that everyone who reads this book enjoys it and can appreciate all the unmentioned accomplishments of the Africans and African Americans in the field of martial arts.