For the People
Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop Pt. 1 (1985) | For the People
Season 4 Episode 4 | 29m 48sVideo has Closed Captions
Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop presents his expertise on ancient Egypt’s roots and culture.
In this enlightening episode of "For the People", renowned scholar in anthropology and Egyptology, Cheik Anta Diop, presents his expertise on ancient Egypt’s roots and culture. This is the first of two parts following the insights of Diop. He is accompanied by a translator throughout the program.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
For the People is a local public television program presented by SCETV
Support for this program is provided by The ETV Endowment of South Carolina.
For the People
Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop Pt. 1 (1985) | For the People
Season 4 Episode 4 | 29m 48sVideo has Closed Captions
In this enlightening episode of "For the People", renowned scholar in anthropology and Egyptology, Cheik Anta Diop, presents his expertise on ancient Egypt’s roots and culture. This is the first of two parts following the insights of Diop. He is accompanied by a translator throughout the program.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipGood evening.
We are very glad to have you with us for this very special program.
This program is special because with this evening's guest, we reach a plateau in our quest to find out who we have been and who we are.
Our guest is one of the leading anthropologists and Egyptologist in the world, Doctor Cheikh Anta Diop.
Dr.
Diop was born in Senegal, and at age 23 he went to Paris, France, to continue advanced studies in physics.
In 1966, the first World Black Festival of Arts and Culture held in Dakar, Senegal, honored Dr.
Diop and Dr.
W.E.B.
Du Bois as the scholars who exerted the greatest influence on Black thought in the 20th century.
Dr.
Diop, who is also a linguist, is director of the Radiocarbon Laboratory at the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa at the University of Dakar in Senegal.
In this first segment, Dr.
Diop discusses the evolution of mankind.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Elizabeth Clements> [translation] We are able to say scientifically today to say with certainty that mankind was born in Africa on the latitude more or less, of Kenya, and that area, which comprises Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Elizabeth Clements> [translation] And going on a north south axis all the way south to South Africa.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Elizabeth Clements> [translation] So it's clear that any humanity that had its birth in that region could not have survived in an equatorial region without pigmentation.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] Nature doesn't do anything by chance.
And it's for that reason that humanity, mankind that was born in a sub equatorial region, was given melanin to protect its skin.
And it's for that reason that it is clear, it is certain that first man had to be a Black man.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] It is only after that race left Africa to people other parts of the world, that had different climatic, different climatic, phenomena that, that man changed and became, and took on different aspects, a different, had a different look, Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] Nature created six specimens of man before we got to man as we know him today.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] According to the scientific information that we have now, it appears that the first three of these species, which is not necessary to name, never acquired the potential or never arrived at the potential for exporting or leaving their own area.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] They never had the potential to expand and to leave Africa.
<Yes> Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] Three others did leave Africa.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] The fourth and the fifth of these species disappeared.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And what remains is man as we know him, that six species.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] The fifth of these species which is, you will see resembles very much man as we know him today.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] He was not yet very, but man as we know him today was not differentiated a great deal from this man Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] You will see that the difference, a major difference here is that the fifth species did not have a forehead.
You'll see that the eyes are situated very close to the top of the head.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] It's very important, this is a very important detail.
It means that the brain inside was very different from the brain inside of man as we know him today.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And studying his brain, Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] He does not have the anterior lobe of the brain.
In anatomical studies, it is been determined that he did not have this anterior lobe.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] That is the major difference, a fundamental difference between Homo sapiens sapiens, which is what we are.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] This species was never able to overcome nature to an extent, that he was able to create works of art.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And this next slide.
[clicking sound] Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And now we have the man in the middle is the man that we are.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] This was a Black man.
The skull is that of a Black man, which we call in prehistoric history, the Grimaldi man.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] You can see in looking at the skull in the middle, that the morphology of this skull is very much that of Blacks.
That is the, the skull of modern man.
To the left of it, we have the skull of modern African man.
It is one of those that is in our collection at the University of Dakar.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] 40,000 years ago, the man in the middle left Africa and went to Europe Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] That man, that is, Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] The skull at the extreme right of the screen is that of Cro-Magnon man.
It was between 40 and 20,000 years ago that the man in the middle left Africa to go into Europe at a time during what is called the final or the last glaciation.
The climate in Europe was extremely cold.
It was much colder than it is now.
And during this period of some 20,000 years, he underwent the adaptation to become what we know as White man.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] It is very clear to all of the scientists involved in this field, even if they are only able to say it in their, within themselves and unable to say it publicly, that the man that we know conventionally to be a White man evolved from a Black man over a period of some 20,000 years of adaptation to a different climate.
And if we are to say with any serenity resting totally on scientific data, that is the conclusion that we must come to.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] If the man that we see in the middle there had never left Africa to people other parts of the world, and if those people in other parts of the world in different climates had not, through the process of adaptation, become what they are in various regions of the world, all man would be homogeneous and all men would be Black.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] If that man had not left Africa, the rest of the world would have remained a desert, would never have been peopled.
<Yeah> Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And so to answer precisely your first question, which is or was, to what extent or in what way do Blacks figure in the origin of man?
The answer is the first man was Black, and it was he who gave birth to other races of the world.
Listervelt Middleton> You have knocked out my first five questions.
[laughs] Elizabeth Clements> [translation][speaking French] [speaking French] Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] You must you must still ask them even if you do it quickly because he has reserved other information in response to them.
Listervelt Middleton> Why was it not possible for mankind to have been born in many parts of the earth?
Clements> [translation] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] When human anthropology had not quite evolved to the extent that it has now, there were two theories that kept confronting one another.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] There was the theory that he has just explained that man was born in one place and became different as he peopled other parts of the world.
That theory had its defenders.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] This is called a mono genetic theory.
That is, that there was one source for mankind.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] The second theory is that of, is a poly genetic theory which believes or contends that man was born in Africa and also in Europe and also in Asia.
In other words, that there were several, locations in the world where man finds his origin.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And it is that, that explains their differences.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] That theory has certain amount of, made a certain amount of sense, not that it made good sense, but it made a certain amount of sense.
It would explain that there are different peoples in different parts of the world with different characteristics, Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] Under closer scrutiny, there were two things that made this theory fall apart, more or less.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] The first is that nature never strikes twice in its evolution.
It doesn't ever hit the same place two times.
Nature doesn't create twice the same thing.
In the animal kingdom- Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> The same being.
Elizabeth Clements> the same being.
In the animal kingdom, you can see that throughout the evolution of of animals, a being was created and it either disappeared or changed somewhat, or a new being completely was created, but never the same being twice.
And to remain strictly scientific, it doesn't make common sense to say that man was created twice.
[speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] It is in this region that is this region in Kenya where we find all of the most ancient, evolutionary information.
It's for this reason that scientists are now able to say with certainty that at least they know that this is the case, that man could only have been created one time.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] All fossils that have been found outside of Africa have been found under close and analysis to be much more recent than those found in Africa.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And no other continent in the world has the complete series of fossils indicating the six specimens that I spoke of before.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] These three specimens, which represent the very beginnings of mankind, cannot be found in Europe, they cannot be found in Asia, and of course, cannot be found in America.
They never left Africa.
The complete set remains in Africa.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] The accumulation then of the best information now makes it very clear that man had its origins in Africa.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] The only specimen, as we've seen on the slide that appears in America is that of Homo sapiens sapiens.
America was peopled through the Bering Strait at the end of the final glaciation, and it is for that reason that we find only Homo sapiens sapiens in America.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] In Asia, we have Homo erectus, Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] and the Neanderthal man and Homo sapien.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] In Europe we have the same, Homo erectus, Neanderthal and Homo sapien.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] Some of them left by the Suez Canal, or the Isthmus of Suez, to go into Asia and Eastern Europe and some went by the Straits of Gibraltar up into the north and into Europe Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] This poly centric theory is to that theory it is essential or it makes it makes the effort to establish a hierarchy of races and to indicate that some races are inferior to others.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] But if man has the same origin, then of course, there can be no intellectual hierarchy because all of the races of the world, the three races of the world, would have had the same intellectual history.
[low whisper] Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] If the three races had had different origins, then one could say that they had different intellectual capacities, having had a different intellectual history.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] The poly centric theory then is essential to defending the notion that there are inequalities between the races.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] It's for this reason they've had people, that it has been defended, so rigorously by, or vigorously by people.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] But science has without question set it aside.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] It's the mono genetic theory then that poses or will support the notion that because our origins are the same, we have the same intellectual capacities.
I am not hoping to say by saying that, however, that Blacks are superior to Whites.
That would also be false.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] No race is superior to any other.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] All races have the same intellectual capacities.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] The anterior lobe that I showed in this slide earlier is exactly the same for all the races.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] Studies of the anatomy of the brain have been numerous and very extensive here in this country, in Africa and everywhere in the world.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And in Europe.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And in no way has as a difference significant as any significant difference been found to indicate that there is some anatomical difference in the brains of the various races.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And certainly not in the, certainly not in the case of the fore part, or the forefront of the brain.
<Yeah> Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] All biologists and those scientists who are aware of this information know that there is no longer any question as to whether there is a superiority among the races.
It is, however, possible that one race or another can dominate temporarily, another race or other races.
In antiquity, it was Blacks who dominated, and that is perhaps not the case now.
[silence] Listervelt Middleton> You have spent much of your life studying the history of Egypt.
Who were the ancient Egyptians?
How did they look?
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] This is a very important reproduction, Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] This is found in the tomb of Ramses the Third, Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] the 20th dynasty.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] The person on the left Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] This is the general type represented by the Egyptian artist himself.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And the second person or personage is the general type of all the Europeans <Yes> Is represented by the artist.
Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] [speaking French] Clements> [translation] And the third personage is, the general type representing all the other groups found in the interior of the continent Dr.
Cheikh Anta Diop> [speaking French] Clements> [translation] of the continent of Africa.
♪ closing music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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For the People is a local public television program presented by SCETV
Support for this program is provided by The ETV Endowment of South Carolina.