CHEIKH ANTA DIOP (1923-1986)
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 bachelor’s 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, Diop’s 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.
In Senegal, Diop was appointed a research fellow at Institut Fondamental d’Afrique 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 Sénégalaises and the Front National du Sénégal. These parties opposed the pro-French policies of President Leopold Senghor’s 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 Origin 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, Georgia 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.
“In practice it is possible to determine directly the skin color and hence the ethnic affiliations of the ancient Egyptians by microscopic analysis in the laboratory; I doubt if the sagacity of the researchers who have studied the question has overlooked the possibility.” –Cheikh Anta Diop
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Cheikh Anta Diop, a modern champion of African identity, was born in Diourbel, Senegal on December 29, 1923. At the age of twenty-three, he journeyed to Paris, France to continue advanced studies in physics. Within a very short time, however, he was drawn deeper and deeper into studies relating to the African origins of humanity and civilization.
Becoming more and more active in the African student movements then demanding the independence of French colonial possessions, he became convinced that only by reexamining and restoring Africa’s distorted, maligned and obscured place in HowComYouCom could the physical and psychological shackles of colonialism be lifted from our Motherland and from African people dispersed globally.
His initial doctoral dissertation submitted at the University of Paris, Sorbonne in 1951, based on the premise that Egypt of the pharaohs was an African civilization–was rejected. Regardless, this dissertation was published by Presence Africaine under the title Nations Negres et Culture in 1955 and won him international acclaim.
Two additional attempts to have his doctorate granted were turned back until 1960 when he entered his defense session with an array of sociologists, anthropologists and historians and successfully carried his argument. After nearly a decade of titanic and herculean effort, Diop had finally won his Docteur es Lettres! In that same year, 1960, were published two of his other works–the Cultural Unity of Black Africa and and Precolonial Black Africa.
During his student days, Cheikh Anta Diop was an avid political activist. From 1950 to 1953 he was the Secretary-General of the Rassemblement Democratique Africain (RDA) and helped establish the first Pan-African Student Congress in Paris in 1951. He also participated in the First World Congress of Black Writers and Artists held in Paris in 1956 and the second such Congress held in Rome in 1959.
Upon returning to Senegal in 1960, Dr. Diop continued his research and established a radiocarbon laboratory in Dakar. In 1966, the First World Black Festival of Arts and Culture held in Dakar, Senegal honored Dr. Diop and Dr. W.E.B. DuBois as the scholars who exerted the greatest influence on African thought in twentieth century.
In 1974, a milestone occurred in the English-speaking world when the African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality was finally published. It was also in 1974 that Diop and Theophile Obenga collectively and soundly reaffirmed the African origin of pharaonic Egyptian civilization at a UNESCO sponsored symposium in Cairo, Egypt. In 1981, Diop’s last major work, Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology was published.
Dr. Diop was the Director of Radiocarbon Laboratory at the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa (IFAN) at the University of Dakar. He sat on numerous international scientific committees and achieved recognition as one of the leading historians, Egyptologists, linguists and anthropologists in the world. He traveled widely, lectured incessantly and was cited and quoted voluminously. He was regarded by many as the modern `pharaoh’ of African studies. Cheikh Anta Diop died quietly in sleep in Dakar, Senegal on February 7, 1986.
Books
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The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality by: Cheikh Anta Diop publisher: Lawrence Hill Books, released: 01 March, 1974 price: $11.87 (new), $9.99 (used) |
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Precolonial Black Africa: A Comparative Study of the Political and Social Systems of Europe and Black Africa, from Antiquity to the Formation of Mod by: Cheikh Anta Diop publisher: Lawrence Hill Books, released: 01 August, 1988 price: $16.95 (new), $8.00 (used) |
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Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology by: Cheikh Anta Diop publisher: Lawrence Hill Books, released: 01 April, 1991 price: $13.97 (new), $10.00 (used) |
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Black Africa: The Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State by: Cheikh Anta Diop, Harold J. Salemson publisher: Lawrence Hill Books, released: 01 June, 1987 price: $10.47 (new), $8.50 (used) |
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The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Underworld (Karnak History) by: Erik Hornung publisher: Karnak House, released: 30 November, 2004 price: $23.99 (new) |
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The Peopling of Ancient Egypt & the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script by: Cheikh Anta Diop publisher: Karnak House Pub, released: 01 July, 1997 price: $15.95 (new), $51.00 (used) |
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Black Africa: Economic and Cultural Basis for a Federated State by: Cheikh Anta Diop publisher: Lawrence Hill & Co, released: 01 January, 1978 price: $15.00 (used) |
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Cheikh Anta Diop: An African Scientist (Pan African Internationalist Handbook, Book 1) by: Cheikh Anta Diop, E. Curtis Alexander publisher: Eca Assoc, released: 01 September, 1984 price: $7.95 (new) |
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Great African Thinkers: Cheikh Anta Diop (Great African Thinkers, Volume 1) by: Ivan Van Setima, Larry Williams publisher: Transaction Publishers, released: 01 June, 1986 price: $14.99 (used) |
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Cultural Unity of Black Africa by: Cheikh Anta Diop publisher: Third World Pr, released: 01 September, 1959 price: |