I'm currently reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X and he is talking about how his conversion to the Nation of Islam and how through his readings he was not only convinced that history has been "bleached" to fit the white man's perspective removing the black man's achievements but, closer to my question, that black civilizations were far more advanced before white civilizations.
Is that accurate? It seems like an easy historical premise that could be fact checked but I'm not quite sure where to even begin on that.
By the way, the quote in the title I got from page 184 in his Autobiography.
I think one thing that needs to be understood is that at its core, The Autobiography of Malcolm X is a biased work. Exhorting X's lifelong Black Nationalism, Black Pride, Pan-Africanism and first NOI then mainstream Islamic Faith. Much of the Nation of Islam's theology is based on Pro-black and anti-white rhetoric, including a polemic of white civilizations as you've asked about. This is what Macolm is parroting in his autobiography, that the white man's civilization (whatever that means) is both inferior to and has whitewashed the black mans civilization (whatever that means)
I'm wrote out a big long reply, an now I'm umming and ahhing over whether this contributes to your question of not. It largely depends on what you consider to be a "great, fine, sensitive civilization", as well as what you consider a 'white' person, which is something that is socially constructed in itself. The earliest indicators we have of culture of some sort are from 'black' cultures, Africans and Australian Aboriginals, the earliest civilisations in terms of urban development, class systems and agriculture are from Mesopotamia, India, Egypt and China, with Ancient Greece being what I would think of as the earliest 'great' and 'white' culture. Although that isn't my area so perhaps someone else can correct me on that.
What I can answer is some of the prehistory implications of your question, specifically in relation to Aboriginal Australians. My comment is intended to demonstrate both how much and how little we know about human prehistory, which obviously problematises your question somewhat (or does civilisation necessitate writing? This is where things become problematic). Perhaps my comment can be added to other knowledge of other early civilisations to give a more complete picture of human social and cultural development.
Relevant to this discussion is the fact that Aboriginal Australians appear to have had very advanced technology much earlier than we supposed people had such technology. From them we see examples of the earliest known sea voyages, cremations and other burial rituals.
These are not evidence of "great, fine, sensitive civilizations". The evidence we have from that point in prehistory is incredibly limited, and something such as that can't be constructed from it. But it is certainly evidence of community, social and cultural practices practices and customs occurring much earlier than we previously imagined, and discoveries around Aboriginal Australians have frequently pushed back the known dates for various things that are thought to mark human development occurring. Are these things civilised or part of a civilisation? It depends on what you see as being a civilisation.
I'll also note that the 'uncivilised' nature of Aboriginal people resulted in several attempted genocides of them as a culture and ethnicity by European settlers, one of which, known as the Stolen Generations, only ended in the 1970s in some Australian states, which is after Malcom X was writing and lived, so it is reasonable to say the the idea of black people such as Aboriginal Australians being at any point the most advanced culture on earth would have been very challenging to the dominant cultural narrative of his time.
Regarding the specific details, the oldest known Aboriginal remains we have are at least 50 000 years old, although some will argue those same remains are misdated and closer to 60 – 80 000 years. I should at this point note that the dating around a lot of these sites and findings is highly contested, and I've largely erred on the side of the more conservative estimates of dates.
These remains demonstrate cultural burial practices, as the body was laid out and sprinkled with ochre. From the same site at Lake Mungo we also have the oldest known cremation burial of human remains, which have been dated to 25 000 years ago, although some argue they are as old as the older remains, and more appropriately dated at ~50 000 years of age.
From these finds we can extrapolate a minimal arrival date in Australia by Aboriginal people of greater than 55 000 years ago. They almost certainly arrived in the north of the country and then spread out around the coasts and then inland, which is supported with a number of sites found in northern Australia, the anticipated arrival point, all dating to ~55 - 60 000 years old. During the possible time period in which Aboriginal people did arrive there were land bridges throughout most of the route between Africa and Asia and Australia. They were not entirely complete however, and the smallest distance of sea travel required to get from anywhere to Australia even allowing for land bridges was about 90km by sea.
This means that Aboriginal people somehow managed to make a 90km sea voyage in large enough numbers to start a significant cultural group about 55 000 to 60 000 years ago. To place this into context our next known earliest sea voyages occurred about 6 000 years ago. Polynesians out of Taiwan, and ancient India both used seagoing vessels at that time. Yet Aboriginal people apparently had sufficient technology to bring a large group of people across much earlier, and we really have no idea of what else they had or were doing at that time which we currently believe dates to much more recently.
There are some very large gaps in our knowledge of human social and cultural development, and as such a precise answer to your question can't really be given. It also lends itself heavily to a discussion of what is 'white' or 'white civilisation'. As I mentioned above I believe the first definite civilisation that would probably tick everyone's boxes may be the ancient Greeks, but they themselves didn't consider themselves 'white', which is a construct that has far more to do with current identity than it does to do with human development.
My sources are;
My apologies on any misspeak, I'm in my phone and the Reddit app doesn't let me edit what I wrote.