RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Compiled and designed by RBG Street Scholar

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Dr. Cheik Anta Diop on Origin of Man Video Playlist

Kemet - Black Civilization

Text modified from: http://stewartsynopsis.com/black_egyptians_are_the_original.htm

Why did the people in the Sahara migrate and where did they go? Where did the people come from that populated the Egypt of the pharaohs and how many thousands of year did this Egypt exist? How did the Greeks describe the Egyptians and where they came from? Why did the Kush Nation decline according to Davidson and where did many of its population migrate to? How does Davidson summarize the relationship between the interior people of Africa and the great civilization of ancient Egypt? Basil Davidson is an acclaimed British writer and historian of Africa. His works are required reading in many British universities. He is globally recognized as an expert on African History.

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

The Black Egyptians--Original Settlers of Kemet The Black Egyptians are the original settlers of KMT. "The native Sudanese are one of the original pigmented Arabs in that region. They are members of the same ethnic family with the ancient Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Southern Arabians, and the primitive inhabitants of Babylon. All founders and sustainers of the mighty Nilotic civilization we still admire today. They are very great nation of Blacks, who did rule almost over all Africa and Asia in a very remote era, in fact beyond the reach of history of any of our records.

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Egypt is a Greek word meaning Black.

> The Egyptians of the Bible were Negroid. > The Bible says both Egyptians and Ethiopians are descendants of Ham. > Arabs invaded Egypt in the 7th Century AD; Remember, Egypt wasn't invaded by Rome until 300 BC. The Bible dates 4000 BC. > Therefore, Arabs have no more connection to Ancient Egypt than Europeans have to Ancient America. > Egyptian is an Afro-Asiatic language. (AFRO, AFRO) >The national language of modern day Egypt is Egyptian Arabic, which gradually replaced Coptic. (Coptic--Ethiopia) >Black Egyptians were eventually mixed with invading Libyans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Arabs and Western Europeans. That is where the mixed people of the modern-day Arabs come from.

The following is supporting evidence from the African Origin of Civilization

1.Evidence from Physical Anthropology The skeletons and skulls of the Ancient Egyptians clearly reflect they were Negroid people with features very similar to those of modern Black Nubians and other people of the Upper Nile and of East Africa. 2. Melanin Dosage Test Egyptologist Cheikh Anta Diop invented a method for determining the level of melanin in the skin of human beings. When conducted on Egyptian mummies in the Museum of Man in Paris, this test indicated these remains were of Black people. 3. Osteological Evidence "Lepsius canon," which distinguishes the bodily proportions of various racial groups categories the "ideal Egyptian" as "short-armed and of Negroid or Negrito physical type."

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

4. Evidence From Blood Types Diop notes that even after hundreds of years of inter-mixture with foreign invaders, the blood type of modern Egyptians is the "same group B as the populations of western Africa on the Atlantic seaboard and not the A2 Group characteristic of the white race prior to any crossbreeding." 5. The Egyptians as They Saw Themselves "The Egyptians had only one term to designate themselves =kmt= the Negroes (literally). This is the strongest term existing in the Pharaonic tongue to indicate blackness; it is accordingly written with a hieroglyph representing a length of wood charred at the end and not crocodile scales," singular. Kmt from the adjective =kmt= black; it therefore means strictly Negroes or at the very least black men. The term is a collective noun which thus described the whole people of Pharaonic Egypt as a black people."

6. Divine Epithets Diop demonstrates that "black or Negro" is the divine epithet invariably used for the chief beneficent Gods of Egypt, while the evil spirits were depicted as red. 7.Evidence From the Bible The Bible states"[t]he sons of Ham [were] Cush and Mizraim [i.e. Egypt], and Phut, and Canaan. And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah and Sabtechah." According to Biblical tradition, Ham, of course, was the father of the Black race. "Generally speaking all Semitic tradition (Jewish and Arab) class ancient Egypt with the countries of the Black." 8. Cultural unity of Egypt With The Rest of Africa Through a study of circumcision and totemism. Diop gives detailed data showing cultural unity between Egypt and the rest of Africa. 9. Linguistic Unity With Southern and Western Africa In a detailed study of languages, Diop clearly demonstrates that Ancient Egyptian, modern Coptic of Egypt and Walaf of West Africa are related, with the latter two having their origin in the former. 10. Testimony of Classical Greek and Roman Authors Virtually all of the early Latin eyewitnesses described the Ancient Egyptians as Black skinned with wooly hair. After the conquest of Egypt by Alexander, under the Ptolemies, crossbreeding between white Greeks and black Egyptians flourished. "Nowhere was Dionysus more favored, nowhere was he worshiped more adoringly and more elaborately than by the Ptolemies, who recognized his cult as an especially effective means of promoting the assimilation of the conquering Greeks and their fusion with the native Egyptians." {Endnote 15: J. J. Bachofen, Pages choisies par Adrien Turel, "Du Regne de la mere au patriarcat." Paris: F. Alcan, 1938, p. 89.}

These facts prove that if the Egyptian people had originally been white, it might well have remained so. If Herodotus found it still black after so much crossbreeding, it must have been basic black at the start.
5

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Before examining the contradictions circulating in the modern era and resulting from attempts to prove at any price that the Egyptians were Whites, let us note the comments of Count Constantin de Volney (1757-1820). After being imbued with all the prejudices we have just mentioned with regard to the Negro, Volney had gone to Egypt between 1783 and 1785, he reported the Egyptian Race is the very race that had produced the Pharaohs: the Copts (p. 27). All have a bloated face, puffed up eyes, flat nose, and thick lips; in a word, the true face of the mulatto. I was tempted to attribute it to the climate, but when I visited the Sphinx; its appearance gave me the key to the riddle. On seeing that head, typically Negro in all its features, I remembered the remarkable passage where Herodotus says: "As for me, I judge the Colchians to be a colony of the Egyptians because, like them, they are black with woolly hair. ..." We can see how their blood, mixed for several centuries with that of the Romans and Greeks, must have lost the intensity of its original color, while retaining nonetheless the imprint of its original mold. We can even state as a general principle that the face is a kind of monument able, in many cases, to attest or shed light on historical evidence on the origins of peoples. {End quote} When Egypt was invaded by Arabs - Egypt suffered turbulent times when, in 609 AD, the country had sided with Nicetas, a lieutenant of Heraclius, in the rebellion against the emperor Phocas. Only shortly after Heraclius overthrew Phocas, the Byzantines were attacked by the Persians. The armies of the Sasanid King Khosrau II invaded Egypt, inflicting cruel suffering upon its some of its inhabitants. This Persian occupation lasted six years.

African Antiquity In the Beginning...

Narmer (Menes) The 1st Pharaoh of Egypt King Aha-Mena-Narmer is known by millions of people by the Greek-distorted "version" of his name: King Menes. Notice the African features from his high chick bones, flat nose and thick lips. The Kufi/Crown upon his head is a sign of royal authority.

King Aha-Mena-Narmer is the founding King of the first Ancient Egyptian dynasty. He also become the first Emperor of Kemet by unifying Upper and Lower Egypt into one imperial federation, along the Nile Valley. From its Central-Eastern Kilimanjaro Mountains sources to the Mediterranean Sea Delta, the Ancient Egyptian Empire gave birth to the world's first civilization. Since then, the imperial heritage has been carried on, from dynasty to dynasty and from generation to generation. Extensive territory is nothing new to African Kings and Emperors: it is simply a matter of historical, cultural and imperial continuity. African history and culture trace their roots back to that pharaonic period, the ultimate source of African humanities. The same way the European/Western world traces its history and culture back to Greece and Rome. African human sciences, finally reconciled with its Ancient Egyptian sources, can retrace the entire history of the Nation, step-by-step.

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

On this immemorial timeline, the enslavement and colonial periods suffered by African people can be considered as little parenthesis. Yet, the terrible impact of colonial bound mis-education and cultural conditioning affects many people, Blacks and Whites alike. Consequently, innocent victims of "schooling" who have lost their historical memories, now find it hard to believe that, Black people actually played the earliest civilizing role in the world. That misleading education has damaged the minds, self-esteem and behavior of many people across racial lines: "The History of humanity will remain confused as long as as we fail to distinguish between the two early cradles in which nature fashioned the instincts, temperament, habits and ethical concepts of the two subdivisions before they met each other after a long separation, dating back to prehistoric times..."Cheikh Anta Diop Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, in his LAntiquit Africaine Par LImage (Notes Africaines No Special 145) drew two important conclusions: 1.Humanity born at the latitude of the African Great Lakes, near the Ecuador is by necessity pigmented (black) and African. This is substantiated by Glogers Law which states that warm blooded beings are pigmented in hot and humid climates. 2.All races are issued from the African race by direct relationships and, the other continents were peopled from Africa at the Homo erectus stage, as well as the Homo sapiens stage, which appeared about 150,000 years ago. It has been finally proven that, for a time period beginning 5 million years ago up until the glacial thaw (10,000 years ago), Africa almost unilaterally peopled and influenced the rest of the world. Dr. Leakey, one of the world's most reputable paleo-anthropologist, in his serious work Progress and Evolution of Man in Africa, reminds us that: The critics of Africa forget that men of science are today satisfied that, Africa was the birthplace of man himself. Human beings are Africas first contribution to humanity. Advanced research and several studies in prehistory and paleo-anthropology have confirmed the similarities between the original founders of the pharaonic civilization (ancient Nubians, Ethiopians and Egyptians) and the modern day Africans. Rawlinson concludes in Origins Of Nations that: The authors of Genesis unites together as members of the same ethnic family the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Southern Arabians, and the primitive inhabitants of Babylon. According to many ancient testimonies, the inhabitants of Sudan, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, Western Asia and India were Ethiopians, therefore Africans. Back in that era, there were two lands called Ethiopia. Sir Godfrey Higgins (Anacalypsis, vol.1) declared: One on the east of the Red Sea, and the other on the west of it; and a very great nation of Blacks, from India, did rule almost over all Asia in a very remote era, in fact beyond the reach of history of any of our records. Herodotus who was initiated within the Ancient Egyptian mystery system declared that: The uniform voice of primitive antiquity spoke of the Ethiopians as one single race, dwelling along the shores of the southern ocean, from India to the pillars of Hercules. (Herodotus, vol.1 book I)
7

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Greece: An Average Student of Ancient Egypt Dr. Theophile Obenga, in this magisterial book "African Philosophy in World History" (Obenga,1998), successfully challenges and neutralizes the Hegelian philosophy of history, continuing in the footsteps of Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, his mentor. Hegel alienated the Caucasian mind by stating with ignorance that "Africa has no history". That mis-education of the Caucasians led to arrogance with an unfounded racial superiority belief system.

The seven liberal arts and sciences, which are grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy, come out of Africa. Therefore, to the Ancient Egyptians, and neither to the Greeks, nor to the Romans, are we indebted for the present body of human knowledge. Greece and Rome were average students in Ancient Egypt. Considered foreigners and childish, Greek students were unable to access a complete initiation and induction within the Ancient Egyptian Mystery System. Aristotle of Stagira, Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras of Samos, Diodorus of Sicily, Plato and Strabo were all initiated in Ancient Egypt, from a very young age until adulthood. Their eyewitness accounts reflect the fact that they were taught and instructed by dark skinned teachers born and raised in Africa. Greed, prestige and reputation made most of them ungrateful, when they claimed all the theories and theorems, formulas and axioms they learned in Ancient Egypt for themselves. Most Greek and Roman students of Africa committed plagiarism by signing their names on their African teachers writings, inventions, creations and productions. Thus, we now have: "Theorem of Pythagoras", "Thales'Axiom" among many illegal appropriations of the African sciences of geometry, mathematics, architecture, rhetoric and philosophy. Those operative sciences have been invented and implemented in the heart of Africa, thousands of years before the Greeks and Romans came into existence as a distinct race! That saga continues today with the renaming of African scientific papyri such as the "Rhind Papyri" and the "Moscow mathematical Papyri". Those Papyri and their scientific content were produced and elaborated thousands of years before Rhind's people were born. Eastern Europe was still under the ice-age with barbaric people. Moscow, nor any of its founders, were even in existence at the time. Since mankind originated first in Africa, it was necessarily black before becoming white through mutation and adaptation, at the end of the last ice-age in Europe. Scholars both ancient and modern have finally come to the conclusion that, the African people created the world first civilization. Our ancestors did rule the world from its seats of power, enthroned from the valley of the Granges, the Tigris and Euphrates, to the Nile and Niger Rivers.

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Egypt (Kemet) - The Habit of Civilization A great documentary about Ancient Egypt that confirms that it was the birthplace of modern civilization, more than 5000 years ago. This documentary supports many of Dr. Walter Williams claims in regard to Egypts influence in the founding of Christianity and Islam. Further Study: RBG Ancient Kemetic Studies Link Roll

From Sutenet Tiye Het-Heru: Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop's "Two Cradle Theory"
Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) clearly lays out the difference between Afrikans and Europeans in his "Two Cradle Theory", on which he elaborated in "Towards the African Renaissance: Essays in Culture and Development, 1946-1960," and "The Cultural Unity of Black Africa: The Domains of Patriarchy and of Matriarchy in Classical Antiquity." Dr. CHEIKH ANTA DIOP'S "TWO CRADLE THEORY" Southern [Afrikan] Cradle-Egyptian Model: Abundance of vital resources. Sedentary-agricultural. Gentle, idealistic, peaceful nature with a spirit of justice. Matriarchal family. Emancipation of women in domestic life. Territorial state. Xenophilia. Cosmopolitanism. Social collectivism. Material solidarity - alleviating moral or material misery Idea of peace, justice, goodness and optimism. Literature emphasizes novel tales, fables and comedy. Northern [European] Cradle-Greek Model: Bareness of resources. Nomadic-hunting (piracy) Ferocious, warlike nature with spirit of survival. Patriarchal family. Debasement/enslavement of women. City state (fort) Xenophobia. Parochialism. Individualism. Moral solitude. Disgust for existence, pessimism. Literature favors tragedy.

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

In addition, Professor Jacob Carruthers of Northeastern University wrote a review for the Spring 1977 edition of Black Books Bulletin that gave the following summary of Dr. Diop's thesis: "The theory in brief is that the severe climate and environment of Europe and Asia caused biological and cultural changes in the original human type resulting in the loss of pigmentation biologically and the development of an individualistic, xenophobic, aggressive, nomadic culture among the white isolates, in contrast to the cooperative, xenophillic, peaceful, sedentary culture among the blacks who still inhabited the more benign climatic and environmental zones. Not only did nature fashion the instincts, habits and ethical concepts of the two subdivisions before they met after a long separation, Dr Diops Theory also claims that these early molds had permanent effects on the two civilizations which have endured until the present time." (Black Books Bulletin - Spring 1977 edition, page 43) Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop was a physicist, historian, scholar, anthropologist and first-rate "Egyptologist", whose works cannot be refuted. His works include: - The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality - Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology - Precolonial Black Africa - Black Africa: The Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State - The Cultural Unity of Black Africa: The Domains of Patriarchy and of Matriarchy in Classical Antiquity - Towards the African Renaissance: Essays in African Culture and Development, 1946-1960 - The Peopling of Ancient Egypt & the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script Praise be to the Ancestors for bringing forth Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop!!

10

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Form RBG Worldwide 1 Nation CEMOTAP Classroom

Editors Note: Upon clicking on a panel or an individual person within a panel, you will be taken to the source document. Once you land, you may click the person or hot-linked title of their presentation for immediate streaming. For best playback results you can download the video to your hard drive. I have embedded the Welcome streams / download here for click and play as to demonstrate. WMP set as your default media player is recommended, as the file types are wmv.

Concept, Praxis, and Legacy: Cheikh Anta Diop, Molefi Kete Asante and the Afrocentric Project October 17 -18, 2008
OCTOBER 17, 2008 PANELS & PRESENTATIONS

11

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

WELCOME

The following three assets are click and play

Ana Yenenga Asante, Diop Conference Coordinator

12

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Dr. Adisa Alkebulan, Conference Convener, San Diego State University

Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, Diop Conference Founder, Temple University The Cheikh Anta Diop Phenomenon: Reflections

13

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Return to 20th Anniversary Digital index Opening Ceremony and Presentation of Program - Welcome Opening Ceremony and Presentation of Program - Joyce King Day 1: Panel 1: Implications of Cheikh Anta Diop on Pedagogy and Research Day 1: Panel 2: Confronting Challenges to Afrocentricity Day 1: Panel 3: Diop, Afrocentricity and Kemetic Thought in the 21st Century Day 1: Panel 4: Afrocentric and Pan-African Affirmations Day 1: Panel 5: Afrocentric Language and Culture Day 1: Panel 6: Afrocentric Assessments and Perspectives Day 1: Vision Presentations Day 2: Panel 1: Currents of African Scholarship Day 2: Film Screening - The Black Candle Day 2: Luncheon Presentation: Dr. Maulana Karenga Day 2: Special Presentations - Conversation about Afrocentric Education Day 2: Panel 2: Molefi Asantes Contributions to Africana Studies Scholarship in the Light of Contemporary Issues Day 2: Panel 3: Ancient Africa: Records, Analysis, and Implications Day 2: Closing Plenary Session: Asserting Agency and Contextualizing African Ideas

14

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Opening Ceremony and Presentation of Program

Panel 1: Implications of Cheikh Anta Diop on Pedagogy and Research

Panel 2: Confronting Challenges to Afrocentricity

Panel 3: Diop, Afrocentricity and Kemetic Thought in the 21st Century

Panel 4: Afrocentric and Pan-African Affirmations

Panel 5: Afrocentric Language and Culture

15

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Panel 6: Afrocentric Assessments and Perspectives

Vision Presentations

OCTOBER 18, 2008 PANELS & PRESENTATIONS

Panel 1: Currents of African Scholarship

Film Screening

Luncheon Presentation

16

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Special Presentations: Conversation about Afrocentric Education

Panel 2: Molefi Asantes Contributions to Africana Studies Scholarship in the Light of Contemporary Issues

Panel 3: Ancient Africa: Records, Analysis, and Implications

Digitized by D. Zizwe Poe for DISA

Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop

(1923 -1986)

http://africawithin.com/diop/diop.htm 17

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

From: MAS GIB

Great African Thinkers: Cheikh Anta Diop (Great African Thinkers, Volume 1 ~ Ivan Van Sertima (Editor), Larry Williams (Editor)

18

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

19

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

Distinguished historian and Pan-Africanist political leader, Cheikh Anta Diop was born in Diourbel, Senegal on December 23, 1933 to a Muslim Wolof family. Part of the peasant class, his family belonged to the African Mouride Islamic sect. Diop grew up in both Koranic and French colonial schools. Upon completing his bachelors degree in Senegal, Diop moved to Paris, where he began his graduate studies at the Sorbonne in 1946 in physics. Once at the Sorbonne, however, Diop became involved in the African students anticolonial movement, where young intellectuals worked for African independence. He helped organize the first Pan-African Student Congress in Paris in 1951 and in 1956 participated in the First World Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris. These movements laid the groundwork for a growing African liberation sentiment, supported by the ideological arguments of Negritude, Marxism, and Pan-Africanism. Committed to the richness of African history, Diops 1951 Ph.D. dissertation looked into ancient Egyptian history and the influence it had on European culture. At a time when European cultural superiority was the accepted notion, Diop proclaimed that African civilizations were the inspiration and origin of European accomplishments. The Sorbonne rejected his dissertation, yet his work nevertheless received worldwide attention. In 1955 his work was published as Nations negres et culture (Negro Nations and Culture), a publication that would make him one of the most widely known and controversial historians of his era. Partly due to the response to the book, in 1960 Diop was awarded his doctorate by the Sorbonne. That same year, Senegal gained its independence and Diop returned to his home country.

20

RBG Blakademics

April, 2010

In Senegal, Diop was appointed a research fellow at Institut Fondamental dAfrique Noire (IFAN) at Dakar University, where he set up a radiocarbon dating laboratory. In 1961 and 1963, he created political opposition parties: Bloc des Masses Sngalaises and the Front National du Sngal. These parties opposed the pro-French policies of President Leopold Senghors government. The Bloc des Masses was banned in 1963. In response to the dissolution of these parties, Diop founded the Rassemblement National Democratique (RND) in 1976. The RND published the Wolof-language journal, Siggi, of which Diop was the editor.

As a renowned scholar and political activist, Diop was appointed professor of ancient history at Dakar University in 1980. Over his career Diop published a number of books including seven which were translated into English. His most famous works were The African Origins of Civilization: Myth or Reality (1974); The Cultural Unity of Black Africa (1978), and Towards the African Renaissance: Essays in African Culture and Development, 1946-1960 (1978). Diop received the highest award for scientific research from the Institut Cultural Africain in 1982. As a testament to his global effect, Diop was invited to Atlanta in 1985, where Mayor Andrew Young proclaimed April 4th Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop Day. The many books Diop published in French were all dedicated to African self-empowerment and the reconstruction of a colonially fragmented identity. Diop had two sons with his wife, Louise Marie Diop Maes. On February 1, 1986, Cheikh Anta Diop died in Dakar at the age of 63

Document compiled and designed by RBG Street Scholar (Marc Imhotep Cray, M.D.)

21