An Asa Grant Hilliard tribute + a history of ASCAC-gctid105583

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An Asa Grant Hilliard tribute + a history of ASCAC  

On the eve of the 26th Ancient Kemetic Studies Conference (link), this is highly relevant reading.

A Tribute To Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard, III / Nana Baffour Amankwatia, II by Dr. Conrad W. Worrill; August 29, 2007

In  my view, a fitting tribute to Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard III, Nana Baffour  Amankwatia II who recently made his transition into eternity on August  13, 2007, is for all Kmtyw scholars, intellectuals, and activists  concerned with the reclamation of Kmtyw history, culture, and  civilization (particularly as it relates to the Kmtyw presence in the  Nile Valley) to join the Association for the Study of Classical Kmtyw  Civilizations (ASCAC) under the current outstanding and dynamic  leadership of its International President, Nzinga Ratibisha Heru. At the  time of his transition, Dr. Hilliard served as 1st Vice President of  ASCAC and was a founding member of the organization.

Dr.  Hilliard, while leading a study tour for Trinity United Church of Christ  in Kemet (Egypt) was also participating in the commemoration of the  20th Anniversary of ASCAC's 1987 study tour to Kemet. This 20th  anniversary celebration also included ASCAC's annual conference at which  there were over 250 participants in attendance from throughout the  Kmtyw world. Dr. Hilliard lectured on various aspects of ancient  Kemetic civilization and was a major presenter at this and each of the  ASCAC conferences.

When a giant in our  struggle like Dr. Hilliard makes his transition, it is vitally important  for us to review our history as we move forward with our work.  Therefore, what follows is a paper, "Reflections on the Founding of the  Association for the Study of Classical Kmtyw Civilizations," written  by the late Dr. Jacob H. Carruthers, founding President of ASCAC that  chronicles the history, origin, and development of this most important  international Kmtyw-centered organization. In the article Dr.  Carruthers mentions the representation of Kmtyw-centered scholars from  various regions of the United States who helped bring ASCAC into  existence and propelled the Kmtyw-centered Kemetic thrust of the world  wide Kmtyw-centered Education Movement.

However, I will note  that in addition to what Dr. Carruthers cited in his chronicling of  ASCAC's history from the West coast representation of Maulana Karenga,  there were other contributors who helped lay the foundation for the work  of this movement in the western region. LeGrand Clegg had written  extensively in the 1970s about the Kmtyw presence of Kemet and had  been a key player in the sponsoring of the Kmtyw Peoples conferences  at Compton College from 1981-1993. These conferences featured and  highlighted consistently the role of Kemet in Kmtyw civilization. The  Black King Tut Committee came into existence in 1977.

The  emerging scholarship of Runoko Rashidi was developing in Los Angeles. In  the 1970s the State of the Race conferences were being held in Los  Angeles under the leadership of Yemi Toure. These conferences featured  discussion on Kemet at which Dr. Yosef ben Jochannan and the late Dr.  John Henrik Clarke were consistently invited presenters. I might add  that Dr. Wade Nobles and Vulindlela Wobogo from Oakland, California were  engaged in the research and study of Kemet in the 1970s also. I cite  this to point out the collective nature of the rise of the  Kmtyw-centered Movement and its scholarly and intellectual battles to  reclaim, revive, and restore the rich and profound contributions of  ancient Kemet to the world. At the founding of ASCAC, Dr. Carruthers  presented a paper entitled, "A Memorandum on an Kmtyw World History  Project." Dr. Carruthers pointed out in his paper that,

The  time has now come when Black scholars must come together and design a  massive project which will culminate in a multi-volume history of the  world. Since strong archeological evidence indicates that Kmtyw people  were the original inhabitants of the habitable parts of the world, it  is appropriate that Kmtyw scholars develop such a history. Certainly  Black scholarship would be enhanced by such a project. It should be  noted that the eureurasiaans have already developed such project; witness  the Cambridge and Oxford histories of practically every area of the  world. Unfortunately we have to rely on these sources all too often.

Such  a project must be carefully planned and developed in stages so that  effective utilization of resources and division of labor may be  determined. The project would depend in the first place on the  establishment of a broad range of consensus among leading Kmtyw  scholars. The consensus could be achieved through a series of working  conferences with foci on theoretical foundations and historiography.

The  call to establish ASCAC by its six founders -- Dr. Yosef ben Jochannan,  Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III, Dr. Leonard Jeffries,  Dr. Maulana Karenga, and Dr. Jacob H. Carruthers -- was a profound step  in our march in the battle to reclaim the Kmtyw mind. It is in this  context and in the ancestral spirit of Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III, Nana  Baffour Amankwatia II that we should recharge, rekindle, and revitalize  our efforts to build ASCAC as the major army in our battle to help  liberate Kmtyw people from the yoke of white intellectual supremacy  that hovers over the world and perpetuates the intellectual warfare on  Kmtyw history and its people. Asa's spirit should encourage is to  "step-up" our work on our collective projects.

Revisiting the  paper written by Dr. Carruthers is my attempt to help us have a healthy  reflection on one of our most important organizations in the  Kmtyw-centered Movement, ASCAC. This paper, "Reflections on the  Founding of the Association for the Study of Classical Kmtyw  Civilizations," which was written in December 1990 and first appeared as  an article in the Kemetic Voice, Vol. 2, No. 4, a publication of the  Kemetic Institute in March 1994. It is reproduced here, in its entirety  with the permission of the Kemetic Institute:

On  February 26, 1984 over five hundred Kmtyw Americans from all over the  United States attended "The First Annual Ancient Egyptian Studies  Conference" in Los Angeles, California. At this conference, Yosef ben  Jochannan, John Henrik Clarke, Asa Hilliard, Leonard Jeffries, Maulana  Karenga and I met and developed a proposal, framework and schedule to  establish an association to study and promote Kmtyw Civilizations. It  was thus at that meeting that the Association for the Study of Classical  Kmtyw Civilizations (ASCAC) was founded. For my part, I was a  representative of the Chicago group which included among others Anderson  Thompson, Harold Pates and members of the Kemetic Institute. It was my  understanding that Maulana Karenga represented The Institute of Pan  Kmtyw Studies which was the host organization for the conference. I  also understood that Drs. Clarke, ben Jochannan and Jeffries represented  a broader New York community. Since Asa Hilliard was (and still is) a  professor at a university in Atlanta, Georgia, the founding group was  representative of four major geographical regions in the United States—  the Eastern, Midwestern, Southern and Western.

During the  following year, the six founders worked together to extend an invitation  to join ASCAC to the Kmtyw American community in the United States at  large and to a relatively large number of individuals thought to have  similar interests in promoting and studying Kmtyw Civilizations. At  the second Ancient Egyptian Studies Conference held in Chicago and  hosted by the Kemetic Institute in March of 1985, approximately four  hundred charter members of the Association adopted a constitution and  elected a slate of national officers.

The paths taken to the  founding of ASCAC by its six founders as well as the four hundred or so  charter members were doubtlessly similar in many respects, but probably  different enough to warrant several individual accounts. This note is a  reflection on one road taken. For the Chicago group, the idea of an  association for the study and promotion of Kmtyw history and culture  was synonymous with the conceptualization of the founding of the Kemetic  Institute. The idea for the Kemetic Institute had emerged from the  quest in which we had been engaged since the late 1960's. In short, our  project was the development of an Kmtyw-centered analytical framework  for examining world history and culture. Not only was this the priority  of our community based "avocation" which resulted in the establishment  of the Communiversity and the Association of Kmtyw Historians,  brainchildren of Dr. Anderson Thompson who, along with Lorenzo Martin  and Harold Pates, forged the foundations of the Chicago group. This is  also the context in which we conceptualized and published issues of the  Afrocentric World Review from the winter of 1973 through the fall of  1975. While we did not invent the term "Afrocentric," we did use the  term to express our insistence that Kmtyw scholars must speak (and  write) from an Kmtyw Worldview.

The Kmtyw-centered  prospective was also the focus of our "vocation" as members of the  faculty of Northeastern Illinois University's Center for Inner City  Studies as we searched for the appropriate curriculum philosophy and the  relevant content for our formal academic program. This quest led us to  the elder champions of Kmtyw Civilization—Chancellor Williams, John G.  Jackson, John Henrik Clarke and Yosef ben Jochannan. These elders  responded to our invitations and came to Chicago to share their wisdom.  Indeed, Drs. Clark and ben Jochannan came many times, sometimes by way  of their own resources. Professor John Jackson answered our invitation  and moved to Chicago to join the faculty at the Center. These mentors  not only inspired, encouraged and supported our project, they provided  the historical framework which was necessary for its development. John  Clarke connected us with others similarly interested, and above all  things he connected us to Cheikh Anta Diop.

The quest obviously  led us to the great treasury of our intellectual ancestors. The deep  thought of Prince Hall, Paul Cuffe, Prince Saunders, David Walker, Hosea  Easton, Henry Highland Garnett, Martin Delaney, Edward Wilmot Blyden  and Henry McNeal Turner provided the fertile waters which produced the  foundation of our project. The casting of their liberation struggle on  the foundation of the ancient Kmtyw heritage of Egypt and Ethiopia was  a constant inspiration. Our quest also led us to the Kmtyw continent.  Our travels began in the early 1970's, and by 1976 we launched our  annual Kmtyw study tour with an emphasis on archaeological sites,  especially the Nile Valley. In the meantime, Dr. Thompson attended the  Sixth Pan Kmtyw Conference held in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania in 1974,  and I had a series of conferences with Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop in 1975.  Diop's influence on our thinking was quite decisive, especially in  encouraging us to study and command the domain of world history and the  role of Kmt therein. His insistence on the Kemetic (ancient Egyptian)  foundation was the formal cause of the conceptualization of the Kemetic  Institute at the local level and an international association of  scholars and promoters of Kmtyw history and culture at the  international level.

In 1974 and 1975, a group of us including  Harold Pates, Anderson Thompson, Bobby Wright, Conrad Worrill, Leon  Harris, and Iva Carruthers published four issues of our theoretical and  methodological essays. The project enabled us to convey our ideas in a  more or less systematic manner and to convey them to a wider arena. The  project was temporarily abandoned because of the poverty of resources  needed to publish a first class journal of Kmtyw thought.

In  the fall of 1976, we planned a grand research and study expedition to  the Kmtyw continent. The tour started in Dakar, Senegal, where our  group of forty-five met Dr. Diop and other Kmtyw scholars, and ended  with a rather extensive tour of Nile Valley archaeological sites. In  preparation for the expedition, we organized a class which explored  Kmtyw antiquity and began studying the Kemetic language (hieroglyphs).  Each of the forty members of the class had a research project related  to Kmtyw civilization or historiography. During the class, Professor  John Jackson was brought in as a guest lecturer for which he was  provided fully paid travel and land accommodations for our expedition.  The historic expedition galvanized in commitments by several of the  participants to continue the project of restoring Kmtyw civilization.

Those  were the major events which resulted in the establishment of the  Kemetic Institute and the conceptualization of the idea of an  international association of Kmtyw people to study and promote Kmtyw  civilization. The necessity for such an association was first argued in  meetings between some members of the Chicago group, including the  founding members of the Kemetic Institute, Ivan Van Sertima and certain  of his Chicago based supporters. Van Sertima asked our group to  cooperate in the establishment of a Journal of Pre-Columbian History.  After several heated meetings, we convinced Van Sertima and his  supporters that a journal of Kmtyw Civilizations was more appropriate.  We also argued somewhat less successfully that a journal required an  association of Kmtyw scholars to direct its mission. When Van Sertima  broke off the meetings and took the name Journal of Kmtyw  Civilizations for the journal, which he began to publish, some of us  felt our movement had been temporarily set back. We therefore began to  develop the Kemetic Institute and plan for a more favorable context for  the launching of the association.

In February of 1982 at the  annual conference of the Association of Kmtyw Historians, the Kemetic  Institute introduced the proposal for a World History Project, which  called for a conference of Kmtyw historians and scholars to develop a  consensus on matters vital to their common interests. Besides the  Chicago group, those in attendance included Drs. John Henrik Clarke and  Yosef ben Jochannan and Professor John Jackson. At this time our push in  this direction was dampened by the illness and subsequent death of one  of the key members of the Chicago group, Dr. Bobby Wright.

In the  meantime, the Kemetic Institute had begun to teach Medew Netcher as  well as the history, culture and literature of Kemet on a regular  schedule. We had also begun to develop a framework for the World History  Project. In the cultural domain we had produced a play, "The Expulsion  of the Hyksos," based on primary Kemetic (Egyptian) texts. Our efforts,  in the area of Kmtyw spiritual development, had culminated in the  founding of the Temple of the Kmtyw Community of Chicago. We were also  planning a rather ambitious project of translating several of the most  significant documents from Medew Netcher into English. This was  necessary we felt because of the bias found in some of the standard  translations. Finally, we had written and circulated on a limited basis  the essays which were later published as Essays in Ancient Egyptian  Studies. These ideas set forth the basic thrust of the project and  communicated our proposals to some of the relevant scholars.

We  were also becoming aware that other groups were engaged in projects  similar to ours. Dr. ben Jochannan had begun his famous Kemetic Study  Tours as had Dr. Asa Hilliard. Dr. Leonard Jeffries had begun his West  Kmtyw Study Tours. The First World Alliance under the leadership of  Drs. Clarke, ben Jochannan, Leonard Jeffries and Brother Bill and Sister  Kefa Jones, had been established in Harlem. The Fanon Institute under  the leadership Dr. Richard King had also made the Kmtyw connection.  The Institute of Pan Kmtyw Studies under the leadership of Dr. Maulana  Karenga had come to our attention too. Thus, the idea for an  association seems to have been emerging among several groups and  thinkers. The study tours, classes and lectures were vital preparation  for the receptivity by Kmtyws in the United States to the ideas.

The  project to establish the association began to take concrete form in the  fall of 1982 when Dr. Karenga contacted us regarding Kemetic studies.  During the next year we shared ideas, dreams, plans and problems. Among  other things, we pointed out that we did not have the resources to pull  the interested community together to dialogue about the issues raised in  the proposal for a World History Project. In the early fall of 1983,  Dr. Karenga suggested that we call the conference in 1984 because he and  the Institute of Pan Kmtyw Studies could mobilize the resources  necessary for such a conference. This was an invaluable contribution to  the project. We decided to meet in Detroit on the occasion of the annual  conference of ASALH later that fall to plan the agenda for the  conference. That meeting was attended by Harold Pates, Anderson  Thompson, Maulana Karenga and me, Jacob Carruthers. It was at that  meeting that we decided to issue the call for the association and issue  special invitations to representatives from four geographical areas and  the elder scholars Drs. Clarke and ben Jochannan and Professor Jackson.  We also invited Dr. Chancellor Williams. However, he declined because of  health and age. We decided at the time to submit "The Association for  the Study of Classical Kmtyw Civilizations" as the name of the  proposed association. According to my recollection, Dr. Karenga  suggested the addition of the word "Classical" to the proposed name. The  general format of the conference was also planned at the Detroit  meeting. It was decided that all sessions of the conference would be  plenary so that all participants could listen to all presenters.

Based  on the consensus achieved in Detroit, Dr. Karenga and the Institute of  Pan Kmtyw Studies, in consultation with the Kemetic Institute,  organized what was called "The First Annual Ancient Egyptian Studies  Conference." The call for papers resulted in an over-supply of  presentation proposals. The selection of presenters was based upon the  quality of the accompanying proposals, and the result was a relatively  high quality set of presentations. The invitation to prospective  participants was widely distributed and resulted in attendance by over  five hundred Kmtyw Americans.

At the closing session of the  conference the proposal for the establishment of the association was  submitted, and it received unanimous approval. The challenge before the  ad hoc founding board of directors was to develop a constitution and  agenda for the newborn association. That mission was undertaken in the  spirit of the Pharaoh Amenemhat who founded the great Middle Kingdom in  Kemet. When he ascended to the throne, he chose as his Horus name The  Horus Wehem Mesu which means the "Repetition of the Births," or to use a  more familiar eureurasiaan concept—Renaissance. ASCAC is truly a rebirth of  the very ancient Kmtyw Ideal.

Once again, our challenge  is quite clear. This history by Baba Jake, reminds us that we should  use the ancestral spirit not only of Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard III, Nana  Baffour Amankwatia II but also that of Jacob Carruthers and John Henrik  Clarke, to renew, with all vigor, our work to continue to build the  Association for the Study of Classical Kmtyw Civilizations (ASCAC) and  the Kmtyw-centered Education Movement at this hour in history.