Author Talk: Molefe Kete Asante

Wednesday, May 1, 2024 – 2:00 PM 
Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection  
1330 Polett Walk, Sullivan Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19122 

AFRICA'S GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 

Molefi Kete Asante is a truth seeker and a warrior for humanity. His view of mankind is that there is only one “race”, that of Homo-sapiens. To this end, Asante has steadfastly argued for the liberation of the most oppressed of this species. As an Afrocentrist, he believes that everything needed to advance humanity can be found in the wisdom of ancient African teachings. Africa’s Gifts or the Spirit, clarifies and illuminates the power of “Nyanga” which is in itself a gift from Mother Africa, one that has been transmitted across generations throughout space and time. 

Molefi Kete Asante is Professor, Department of Africology at Temple University in Philadelphia.  He is the President of the Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies.  Asante is Professor Extraordinarius at the University of South Africa. He was the Founding Editor, Journal of Black Studies, serving for 53 years.  Selected as the first director of UCLA’s Center for Afro-American Studies, he established the interdisciplinary MA program, and set up the UCLA Center’s African American Library.  Asante, often called the most prolific African American scholar, has published over 100 books, among the most recent are AFRICA'S GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT; The Perilous Center, or When Will the African Center Hold;  Radical Insurgencies; The History of Africa, 3rd Edition; An Afrocentric Pan Africanist Vision; The African American People: A Global History;  Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation; Revolutionary Pedagogy; African American History: A Journey of Liberation; African Pyramids of Knowledge; Maulana Karenga: An Intellectual Portrait;  Facing South to Africa, and, the memoir, As I Run Toward Africa. Asante has published more than 500 articles and is considered one of the most quoted living African authors as well as one of the most distinguished thinkers in the African world. He has been recognized as one of the 10 most widely cited African scholars. Asante has been recognized as one of the most influential leaders in education. He has been named a History Maker with an interview in the Library of Congress. In 2019 the National Communication Association named him an NCA Distinguished Scholar, its highest honor, saying that his writings were “spectacular and profound”.  He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, at the age of 26, and was appointed a full professor at the age of 30 at the State University of New York at Buffalo. At Temple University he created the first Ph.D. Program in African American Studies in 1988. In 2021 he initiated and conceptualized Temple’s Center for Antiracism Research. He has directed more than 140 Ph.D. dissertations making him the top producer of doctorates among African American scholars. He is the founder of the theory of Afrocentricity, The Cheikh Anta Diop Conference, and the think-tank, The Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies in Philadelphia. Asante wrote the mandatory African American History course for Philadelphia School District. 

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