By Oscar H. Blayton
The year 2022 will be remembered as the year when European museums started returning stolen and looted artefacts to the African cultures to which they belonged. While some physical items are making their way back home, African people’s stolen histories and legacies remain imprisoned in the dungeons of white supremacy.
The centuries-old practice of European appropriation of African culture and achievement has, predictably, created a high level of suspicion among the African diaspora regarding European claims of racial classifications of historical figures. The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in November 1922 triggered a frenzy of news reports from Egypt, as archaeologists catalogued and removed items from the burial chamber where the African ruler had lain for thousands of years. The press then went silent in January 1923. There was an unexplained silence after the London Times printed 28 articles and the New York Times printed 43 over a two-month period.
The Negro World, a newspaper published by Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, took note of this silence. An editorial in the Negro World in the summer of 1923 expressed the suspicion that the news had dried up because archaeologists had discovered Tutankhamun was Black and wanted that fact to be hidden. “White Americans call nothing creditable Negroid if they can possibly find another name for it,” according to the editorial. While many white historians and academics gave the ancient Egyptians’ Africans a lot of credence, the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 sparked debate about the ancient Egyptians’ presumed race.
In 1978, just before the arrival of the “King Tut” exhibit in Los Angeles, California, Tom Bradley, the city’s first African American mayor, signed a resolution passed by City Council declaring Sunday, February 12, 1978, “King Tut Day.” This resolution was associated with Black History Month and declared Tut to be an exemplary Black man. It also declared King Tut Day to be a day of celebration for Black culture.
In part, the resolution stated: “Whereas each of the rulers of the eighteenth dynasty … was either black, ‘negroid,’ or of black ancestry, and all would be classified as black if they were citizens of the United States today; and … “Whereas it is particularly important to focus on positive black male images during Black History Month in order to instill self-esteem in and encourage self-discipline among young black males, who are often deprived of positive black images. Be it resolved, therefore, that the Los Angeles City Council (designates King Tut Day)… in recognition of the increased cultural and historical heritage that has brought much awareness and enrichment to our community.”
This resolution, which had the official backing of the City of Los Angeles, declared Tutankhamun to be Black, and thus to represent a proud heritage for African Americans. This was due to the fact that if Tutankhamun was identified as Black, ancient Egypt could be reclaimed as a Black civilization. Furthermore, the foundations of “Western Civilization” could be identified as Black culture. However, praise for Blackness is always met with opposition. The King Tut exhibit was relocated to New York City’s Museum of Metropolitan Art a few months after the Los Angeles resolution was passed. The museum published a small booklet titled “Tutankhamun and the African Heritage” in advance of the exhibit’s arrival.
The stated goal of the booklet was to address concerns about the racial composition of Ancient Egypt’s population in a balanced manner. However, it is reported that, in the end, the booklet declared, without empirical evidence, that ancient Egypt’s population was more “Caucasoid” than “negroid.” Because of white America’s efforts to distance Egypt from Africa, the Black community has consistently complained about what they see as a whitening of Tut and Egypt. The cover story of Sepia magazine’s November 1977 issue was titled “The Big Tut Rip-off! (National Insult to Blacks).” The debate over Tutankhamun’s blackness was seen as yet another attempt to deprive Black people of their rightful place in history.
The International Scientific Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) held a symposium on “The Peopling of Ancient Egypt” in 1974, and its report was published in 1981. Professor Cheikh Anta Diop, a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician, presented empirical evidence that Negroid peoples inhabited the entire Nile River basin from the Upper Paleolithic era to Egypt’s dynastic epoch.
Diop established a factual record of the African roots of the Ancient Nile Valley civilization and the origins of Ancient Egypt through a very long and methodical process that has not been successfully refuted to this day, using linguistics, physical anthropology, possible ancient migration patterns out of central Africa into Egypt, visual authentication of the representations of ancient Egyptians on their monuments, and other methods.
Diop’s scholarship helped to establish the credibility of another Black scholar, George G.M. James. “Stolen Legacy,” James’ then-controversial book, was published in 1954. James argued in “Stolen Legacy” that Greek philosophy was stolen Egyptian philosophy and that the Egyptians educated the Greeks.
After making his case forcefully in his book, James concludes: “Now that it has been established that philosophy, the arts, and sciences were left to civilization by the people of North Africa and not by the people of Greece; the pendulum of praise and honour is due to shift from the people of Greece to the people of the African continent who are the rightful heirs of such praise and honour.
For all people and races who accept the new philosophy of African redemption, i.e. the truth that the people of North Africa were the authors of Greek philosophy, they would change their opinion from one of disrespect to one of respect for the Black people throughout the world and treat them accordingly.
Unfortunately, George G.M. James was mistaken in believing that truth and knowledge would triumph over the desire to preserve white supremacy. A Richard Pryor skit in which he portrays an archaeologist who, along with three white archaeologists, unseals and enters an Egyptian tomb and discovers documented evidence that Africans had accomplished great achievements throughout the ages dramatizes the persistent and pernicious efforts to deny and hide the human accomplishments that have come out of Africa.
While Pryor is focused on the newly discovered documentation, the three white archaeologists quietly sneak out of the tomb, reseal it with Pryor inside, and demand that it be bulldozed because there is “nothing to learn” there.
If the truth threatens white supremacy, white supremacists will never yield. And it is up to everyone with a good conscience to work to bring all truths to light.
Oscar H. Blayton is a human rights activist and former Marine Corps combat pilot who now practices law in Virginia. His previous commentary is available at https://oblayton1.medium.com/