By Globe Staff

Oakland native Aliona Gibson served in the Peace Corps from 1999 to 2001. Now, she has created a Great Black South Africans poster inspired by a deck of African American knowledge cards she packed for her journey.
   “While the Peace Corps has been in 138 countries worldwide since 1961, the historic organization expanded to South Africa in 1997, just three years after the first democratic election,” said Gibson, who served in the third group of volunteers to be placed in South Africa as school and community resource volunteers.

    She was moved to start the poster project by the overwhelming lack of images in South Africa that represent the contributions of blacks to the country.
   “It took being in South Africa only a few months (and I was there for a total of twentyeight) for me to get sick and tired of seeing the many monuments, statues, street and city names, parks and bridges named in honor of the South Africans who made significant contributions to the history of that country, all of whom were white. I only saw one – the Hector Peterson memorial in Soweto – dedicated to the first child killed in the historic 1976 Soweto Uprising.
   “Maybe there are more and I missed them, but I will tell you this, in a vast majority black country, they might as well be invisible. With all due respect, it’s as if Nelson Mandela is the only black person who has contributed greatly to South Africa. Someone from home asked me to send him stamps with black people on them. I wished I could have, but while I was there I only came across one – Sol Plaatje – and he had to share the stamp. When I saw the pre-1994 money, I nearly passed out. It has Jan Van Riebeeck on it – the first white man to land on the shores of South Africa in 1652.
   “I want to do this project so that the children I grew to know and love, as well as my host family, friends, neighbors and colleagues will know about the contributions of black people to South Africa. As it stands now, they will believe that only whites have contributed greatly to their country.”
    She plans to sell the poster storyto raise money to get back to the Timbavati village where she worked with four primary schools and lived with a host family for two years. She hopes to secure corporate sponsorship and make the poster available throughout South Africa.
    Part of Gibson’s experience has been included in I’ve Known Rivers: The Museum of the African Diaspora Story Project (www.iveknownrivers. com). Her piece, “Bittersweet,” is part of a travelogue she is currently working on about her service in South Africa.
    To order copies of the poster visit www.alionagibson.com.