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2. MONTHLY PROFILE: Isis: Black Mother Goddess
3. REVELATION: Hawaii: Black Royalty In The Pacific
4. SPECIAL UPDATE: They're At It Again: The Latest Attack Against Africentricity
5. FEATURE STORY: Vanishing Evidence of Classical African Civilizations: The Museums (Part III)

In addition to the periodicals, a number of books have been published that are at least partly devoted to criticisms of Africentrism. Among these are The Disuniting of America, by Arthur Schlesinger; Not Out Of Africa, by Mary Lefkowitz, Black Athena Revisited, edited by Mary Lefkowitz and Guy Rogers; and The Race Card, edited by David Horowitz and Peter Collier.

One of the most balanced articles to ever appear in print regarding Africentrism is "The Last Black Classicist," by Burkhard Bilger. (The Sciences), March/April 1997).

This piece focuses on the career and opinions of Dr. Frank M. Snowden Jr. Snowden remains the only Black person to graduate from Harvard University with a Ph.D in Classics (Class of 1944). For decades he taught at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and is the author of "Blacks In Antiquity" and "Before Color Prejudice."

For several years now, Snowden has been trotted out by the establishment as a hit man against Africentrism. The scenario is generally as follows: A white scholar presents a distorted view of Africentrism, discredits the entire field and then cites Snowden as a rational, African American who agrees with him. Of course, Afrocentrists themselves are never invited to defend their points of view in any of these discussions.

Bilger's article is a pleasant surprise. As a matter of fact, as far as such articles go, its fairness places it in a class of its own. Bilger does indeed focus on Snowden's view that the Ancient Egyptians were not Black people and that it is "nonsense" for African Americans to claim Egypt as part of their heritage. But as a true journalist, Bilger also provides Molefe Asante of Temple University with the opportunity to present a contrary viewpoint: "Egypt was the true wellspring of Western civilization; Egyptians were culturally as well as geographically African, and Herodotus himself, after his travels in Egypt, . . . described them as black."

In spite of his overall fairness, even Bilger slips at times into the racism of his colleagues. Describing the distinguished Black authors of the African-American Baseline Essays, he refers to them as "a motley group of scholars and laypeople."

Secondly, after presenting diverse views on the race of the Ancient Egyptians, he introduces the opinion of anthropologist C. Loring Brace as, in essence, the final scientific word on the subject: "[T]he Egyptians are sui generis, but if one had to cluster their skulls with those of any other population, it would be with neolithic Europeans."² In other words, Brace is suggesting, like countless Western scientists before him, that the Ancient Egyptians of Africa were White Europeans.

This leads us to the two main issues raised in the article. Were the Ancient Egyptians Black people? Do African Americans have the right to claim Ancient Egypt as part of our family tree?

In the February issue of MAAT, we presented the Africentric answer to the first question by republishing Egyptologist Cheikh Anta Diop's essay "Origin of The Ancient Egyptians." Included in this is Diop's eleven scientific categories that clearly establish that the Ancient Egyptians were Black Africans. This lengthy document may still be retrieved from our internet site. Furthermore, we would highly recommend that our readers obtain Diop's The African Origin of Civilization: Myth of Reality? (Lawrence Hills Books, an imprint of Chicago Review Press, Inc.) Presently, we shall briefly respond to Snowden and Brace's contention that the Ancient Egyptians were not Blacks.

Asante quotes Greek historian and eyewitness Herodotus as stating that the Ancient Egyptians were Black-skinned (melanchroes) and woolly haired (oulotriches). Melanchroes is the word the Greeks used to provide the darkest description of anything or person within their sight. Nevertheless, in dishonest and convoluted arguments, Snowden vainly attempts to convince his readers (in Black Athena Revisited)³ and Bilger (in the present piece) that Herodotus did not mean black, although that is most certainly what the Greek historian wrote.

We must point out, and we certainly wish Asante had, that Herodotus is not the only contemporary eyewitness to describe the Ancient Egyptians as Black-skinned. Below are other examples of this:

1. The Ancient Egyptians referred to their nation as Kemit, which means "The Black Land."
2. The Biblical word "Ham" (Cham) is also an ethnic term:

"In Hebrew,

Kham: son of Noah
Khum: chestnut
Khom: heat
Khama:heat, the sun


"In Ancient Egyptian, Khem: black, burned -- Ham: hot, black.
In Wolof, Khem: black, burned."⁴

3. The following classical eyewitnesses also described the Ancient Egyptians as Black-skinned. Their full statements appeared in the February issue of MAAT:

(a) Aristotle, - 389 B.C. - 332 B.C. Greek scientists philosopher and tutor of Alexander the Great.

(b) Lucian, Greek writer.

(c) Appollodorus, 1st century B.C., Greek philosopher.

(d) Aeschylus, 525 B.C. (?) to 456 B.C., poet and creator of Greek tragedy.

(e) Achilles Tatuis of Alexandria.

(f) Strabo, 58 B.C. to about 25 A.D.

(g) Diodorus of Sicily 63 B.C. to 14 A.D.

(h) Diogenes Laetrius

(i) Ammianus Marcellinus, about 33 A.D. to 100 A.D. Latin historian and friend of the Emperor Julian.

Snowden also asserts that the Ancient classical writers drew a racial distinction between the Ancient Nubians and Ancient Egyptians. But this is tortuous nitpicking designed to attribute to classical writers ideas they did not express. Certainly some Greeks and Romans noticed that the Ancient Egyptians were, in some cases, lighter than their Nubian kinsmen. Just as we, today, see shades of color disparity between Somalis and Kenyans or Nigerians and the Sudanese. Yet, the Greeks were rational enough to realize, as they made crystal clear, that what they observed were merely physical nuances between various African groups within the same ethnic universe.

Finally, Brace's astonishing conclusion that the exhumed skulls of the Ancient Egyptians suggest that these people were akin to Neolithic Europeans certainly calls into question the subjective criteria used for defining the skulls, and is of no practical or scientific value. Despite their proclaimed objectivity, Western scientists, who monopolize the study of Antiquity, see all evidence through a Eurocentric lense. Hence, they will adopt any theory, no matter how bizarre or implausible, if it denies Black people a place at the forefront of civilization, even on the Continent of Africa. The following is a more logical conclusion regarding the race of the ancient Egyptian people:

The gist of the above quote is that, when you take into consideration the hair type, pigmentation and blood group of the Ancient Egyptians and compare them to all other populations in the world, these traits are more closely related to "other Nile Valley and tropical African populations. . . than to any population outside of Africa." Although this should be viewed as a very logical conclusion to reach regarding the race of the Ancient Egyptian people, it is becoming increasingly clear that the entire western academic establishment is in such denial that, to many scientists, no evidence is compelling enough to support the idea of a Black Egypt.

The second question in the article is, Do African Americans have the right to claim Ancient Egypt as part of our family tree?

Asante's short answer to this question is: "...Egypt is to African-American culture as Greece is to white culture."⁶ Snowden stated that "...99 percent of the blacks who came to the U.S. as slaves were from West Africa, not East Africa."⁷ Therefore, according to his reasoning, since Ancient Egypt was in northeast Africa, Black Americans should not search for their roots there.

Unquestionably, the overwhelming majority of African slaves brought to the Americas came from West Africa. Therefore the immediate African ancestors of Black Americans are West Africans. However, nearly all West African people trace their ancestry to the east, and ultimately to the Nile Valley. This has been verified by a number of scholars.⁹ Hence, the ancient Egyptians are indeed the remote ancestors of African Americans and their culture served as the roots of our family tree.

FOOTNOTES

1. Burkhard Bilger, "The Last Black Classicist," The Sciences, March/April, 1997, p. 17
2. Ibid., p. 18
3. Frank M. Snowden Jr., "Bernal's 'Blacks and the Afrocentrists," in Black Athena Revisited, edited by Mary R. Lefkowitz and Guy McLean Rogers, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London, 1996, pp 118.
4. Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization:: Myth or Reality? Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill Co., 1974, p. 247.
5. Keith W. Crawford, "The Racial Identity of Ancient Egyptian Populations Based on The Analysis of Physical Remains," in Egypt: Child of Africa, edited by Ivan Van Sertima, p. 68
6. Bilger, "The Last Black Classiocist," p. 18
7. Ibid., p. 17
8. Diop, The African Origin of Civilization, p. 179. W.E.B. DuBois, The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the part which Africa has played in world history, New York International Publisher, 1955 - 61. Chancellor Williams, The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race From 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D.,Chicago, Third World Press, 1974.