THE GREAT AFRICAN SCHOLARS DR. YOSEF BEN JOCHANNAN (“DR. BEN”), SISTER KHEPRA, DR. LEONARD JEFFRIES, DR. RANDY WESTON URGE GLOBAL FAMILIES OF COLOR TO RECONNECT WITH OUR PAST IN ORDER TO “RESURRECT OUR PEOPLE”
World-Class Scholars Gathered to Remember the Life and Legacy of “Pharoah” Cheikh Anta Diop at Le Grand Dakar Restaurant in Brooklyn on 24th Anniversary of His Transition
On Sunday, February 7, 2010, history was made at Pierre Thiam’s Le Grand Dakar Restaurant in Brooklyn. At a gathering of The Wise, hosted by Dr. and Mrs. Randy Weston, and attended by special guests Dr.Yosef Ben-Jochannan (“Dr. Ben”); Sister Khepra, co-founder of New York City’s first CommUniversity (The First World Alliance) in Harlem; Professor Leonard Jeffries, Yaa-Lengi Meema Ngemi, Mamadou Ndiang and others, Black History Month was210 never mentioned. The perspective was much different. Longer, sharper and through a many-thousand-year-old prism.
The scholars drew together to celebrate the life of one of the greatest thought-leaders of all time — Cheikh Anta Diop who passed at 63 in 1986. Usually, there is a pilgrimage to Senegal for this occasion, but this year, a small cafe-restaurant was the site.
And it felt good being there, being in the valley and the heavens of knowledge, where even the Kora music asked the question: So what are you doing with this history, how are you making it your own? — Far away from the banality of black-history-month trivialities of self-congratulations for corporate “diversity” and discount sales. Bernice Elizabeth Green
See Notes From Dakar