What you say is pretty much true of sub-Sahara Africa. You should distinguish between Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. The Egyptians(they also lived on the African Continent) developed writing, literary tradition, great stone architecture along time before the Europeans.
I considered that.
Egyptian civilization were gone before printing was invented, but their written language limited them to a small literate class. They did seem to have overcome tribalism.
But then they got run over by the Moslems.