BLACK PEOPLE! –DR YOSEF A. A.. BEN JOCHANNAN HAS GONE HOME!
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Thu, April 16th
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A glorious celebration for the life of Dr. Ben
Herb Boyd | 4/11/2015, 3:22 p.m.
The funeral of the late Dr. Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannan Derek Muhammad
While there is no dismissing the glorious encomiums for the late Dr. Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannan—and they were as full of praise as the many dispensers—the priceless item at his more than three-hour funeral service at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem was the printed program. One thing was certain upon being lucky enough to get one was the prediction that they would not have a sufficient supply for the massive turnout.
An even safer prediction was that many of the hundreds of admirers of the great scholar would not be able to get in the church in the first place, and like the overflow crowd at the wake and viewing on Thursday, many had to settle for the celebration outside the church at the end of the services.
Document
Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan funeral program
Download .PDF
Professor James Small had the awesome responsibility of moderating the “service of commemoration and the Initiation into the Duat,” as the ceremony was called. Looking at the long list of speakers, performers and proclamations he advised the participants that “you have two minutes for your remarks,” he said, “and only Dr. Jeffries can have an extended African two minutes.” It brought the expected laughter from a packed church, especially from those familiar with Dr. Leonard Jeffries’ long, history-laden speeches. And later he and his wife, Dr. Rosalind Jeffries, would speak in tandem, both stressing an “African identity” and keeping to the limits.
“Dr. Ben is not gone, he’s right here,” said veteran activist and cultural maven Camille Yarbrough during her delivery of the libations. She asked the audience to “just breathe” deeply and reflect on Dr. Ben’s spirit.
After the collective breath was exhaled, Minister Akbar Muhammad was called to the podium and, for the most part, he read a message from Minister Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam. It was a message of unity and solidarity with understanding that Dr. Ben was a historian “from whose lessons we can learn from the past.”
Listening to someone read from the Book of Vindication must have been a first time experience for most of those in attendance. And it was during this reading that “Mut the mother of heaven” was mentioned and “heaven” would be almost a running gag for the rest of the ceremony, particularly where it was variously located by different speakers.
Professor Small, a leopard skin print draped over his shoulders, kept things moving at a good clip, and often dropping his own observations of his mentor. “Dr. Ben gave us the foundation to understand our eternity,” he remarked before asking Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts, III to read the obituary. Among the highlights of Dr. Ben’s enormously productive 96 years—he joined the ancestor on March 19—Butts recalled was that he was a versatile genius who wrote more than 40 books. “He will be remembered as a brilliant historian, committed to the uplift and enlightenment of the global African community. He will also be remembered as charismatic with an enormous sense of humor. And at the same time, as being straight, forthright, and even confrontational if he detected lies, deceit, or falsehoods.”
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Olivia Holloway ·
Gordon Phllips School of Cosmotology
Dr Ben will always be important to myself and a great many more every last one of us is grateful for opening our eyes to the glorious ness of who we really are as a people his spirit will forever be with us
Like · Reply · 4 · Apr 12, 2015 5:06pm
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Dellin J. Cooke ·
SHAW U. & NCSU,
i owe such much of my understanding to Dr.Ben was in the darkness to my existence as a black man in America thought the bible was the truth an I was the this descendant of a slave with no past just the one that the Europeans wrote for me. Dr.Ben showed me I had a history an knew GOD long before this faireytale book f lies Dr.Ben an Dr.Clarke will never be forgotten.
Like · Reply · 2 · Apr 12, 2015 5:44pm
Delinda Wills Thomas ·
Psychologıst at State of Alabama
Thanks so much for the LIVE STREAM of Dr. Ben’s celebration of his life and for allowing me to meet family members, historians, ministers, attorneys, and others who talked about the realities his life and works,..Dr. Ben taught me the truths about me, my people and opened my mind to further research, readings, teachings to carry the African Centered baton of his findings,..He will always live on through me and others,..
Like · Reply · 1 · Apr 13, 2015 5:23am
Nefertina Abrams ·
Chief Executive Officer at Pan Africans for Progressive Action Association
The Great Pharaoh is on his journey sent with great love, admiration and respect, I was blessed to attend the Wake which was phenominal… I laughed, I cheered, I cried, I sighed, but most of all I Gave Thanks for his life and his legacy…
Like · Reply · 7 hrs
Aku A King
Yes….just as there were hundreds clamoring to be a part of this moment, physically….. I, like many others, were there as we “watched”, very closely, every movement on and offstage…thanks to AMSTERDAM NEWS and LIVESTREAM…… We were THERE…..and we are STILL there….. AKOBEN!!!!
Like · Reply · 2 · Apr 13, 2015 1:28am
Posted by YEYE AKILIMALI FUNUA OLADE at 4:45 AM Comments (0)Comments (0)Comments (0)Comments (0)
Labels: AFRICA, AFRICAN AMERICANS, ANCIENT BLACK EGYPT, BLACK HISTORY, BLACK MAN, BLACK PEOPLE, BLACK WOMEN, HISTORY, YOSEF BEN-JOCHANNAN
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FROM WILKAPEDIA.COM
Yosef Ben-Jochannan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yosef Alfredo Antonio Ben-Jochannan
Ben-Jochannan lecturing in Brooklyn circa 1990s.
Born
December 31, 1918
Died
March 19, 2015 (aged 96)
Bay Park Nursing Home, Bronx, New York
Pen name
Dr. Ben
Occupation
Writer, Historian, Activist
Nationality
America
Citizenship
America, Egypt
Subject
Egyptology
Literary movement
Afrocentrism
Notable works
‘”Black Man of the Nile and His Family”
Children
Maria, Selvin, Alfredo, Ruth, Naomi, Collete, Wanda, Dawn, Kwame, Dorathia, Ozema, Eleanor (deceased), Nnandi (deceased)
Yosef Alfredo Antonio Ben-Jochannan (/ˈbɛn ˈjoʊkənən/; December 31, 1918 – March 19, 2015), also known as Dr. Ben, was an American writer and historian. He was considered to be one of the more prominent Afrocentric scholars.[1]
Contents
1 Early life and education
2 Career and later life
3 Controversy
4 Selected bibliography
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
Early life and education
Ben-Jochannan’s asserted that he was born in Ethiopia to a Puerto Rican mother and an Ethiopian Jewish father.[2][3] According to Tudor Parfitt, Ben-Jochannan was instead likely to have been only of Puerto Rican origin.[3]
According to some sources, Ben-Jochannan was educated in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Cuba, and Spain, earning degrees in engineering and anthropology.[2][unreliable source?] In 1938, he is said to have earned a BS in Civil Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico; this is disputed. He stated that in 1939 he earned a Master’s degree in Architectural Engineering from the University of Havana, Cuba.[2] and then doctoral degrees in Cultural Anthropology and Moorish History from the University of Havana and the University of Barcelona, Spain.[2]
According to his obituary, Ben-Jochannan holds honorary doctoral degrees from Sojourner-Douglas College (Baltimore), Marymount College (New York), Medgar Evers College (Brooklyn).
In a New York Times article published after Ben-Jochannan’s death it was reported that “Documents from Malcolm-King College and Cornell show Mr. Ben-Jochannan holding a doctorate from Cambridge University in England; catalogs from Malcolm-King College list him holding two master’s from Cambridge. According to Fred Lewsey, a communications officer at Cambridge, however, the school has no record of his ever attending, let alone earning any degree. Similarly, the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, where he also said he had studied, has no records of his enrollment.”[4]
Career and later life
Ben-Jochannan immigrated to the United States in the early 1940s. He worked as a draftsman and continued his studies. He stated that in 1945, he was appointed chairman of the African Studies Committee at the headquarters of the newly founded UNESCO, a position from which he reportedly stepped down in 1970. In 1950, Ben-Jochannan began teaching Egyptology at Malcolm King College, and subsequently at City College in New York City. From 1973 to 1987, he was an adjunct professor at Cornell University.[5]
Ben-Jochannan was the author of 49 books, primarily on ancient Nile Valley civilizations and their impact on Western cultures.[2][dead link]In his writings, he asserts that the original Jews were from Ethiopia and were Black Africans, while the white Jews later adopted the Jewish faith and its customs.[6]
According to his obituary he began his educational teaching in Harlem at HARYOU-ACT in 1967. Ben-Jochannan was an adjuct professor (1973-1987) at Cornell University in the Africana Studies and Research Center which at the time was under the direction of Dr. James Turner. He also taught at a number of schools including Malcom-King College and Rutgers University. In 1977 he accepted an honorary faculty position with the Israelite Rabbinical Academy at Beth Shalom Hebrew Congregation in Brooklyn.
Ben-Jochannan made a number of appearances on Gil Noble’s WABC-TV weekly public affairs series Like It Is.
In 2002, Ben-Jochannan donated his personal library of more than 35,000 volumes, manuscripts and ancient scrolls to the Nation of Islam.[7]
In the years before his death, Ben-Jochannan lived in Harlem, New York City in the Lenox Terrace Co-ops.
Ben-Jochannan died on March 19, 2015,[8] at the age of 96.[9] at theBay Park Nursing Home in the Bronx.
Controversy
Ben-Jochannan has been criticized for allegedly distorting history and promoting Black supremacy. In February 1993, Wellesley College European classics professor Mary Lefkowitz publicly confronted Ben-Jochannan about his teachings. Ben-Jochannan taught that Aristotle visited the Library of Alexandria. During the question and answer session following the lecture, Lefkowitz asked ben-Jochannan, “How would that have been possible, when the library was not built until after his death?” Lefkowitz stated that “Dr. ben-Jochannan was unable to answer the question, and said that he resented the tone of the inquiry.”[10] Lefkowitz writes that ben-Jochannan proceeded to tell those present that they “could and should believe what black instructors told” them and that “although they might think that Jews were all ‘hook-nosed and sallow faced,’ there were other Jews who looked like himself.”[11]
American professor Clarence E. Walker wrote that Ben-Jochannan not only confused Cleopatra VII with her daughter Cleopatra VIII and stated she was black, but also wrote that “Cleopatra VIII committed suicide after being discovered in a plot with Marc Antonio [Mark Anthony] to murder Julius Caesar.”[12]
Selected bibliography
African Origins of Major Western Religions, 1991. ISBN 978-0933121294
We the Black Jews, 1993, ISBN 9780933121409
Black Man of the Nile and His Family, Black Classic Press, 1989. ISBN 9780933121263
Africa: Mother of Western Civilization. ISBN 9780933121256
New Dimensions in African History ISBN 9780865432260
The Myth of Exodus and Genesis and the Exclusion of Their African Origins ISBN 9780933121768
Abu Simbel to Ghizeh: A Guide Book and Manual, 1989 ISBN 9780933121270
Cultural Genocide in the Black and African Studies Curriculum. New York, 1972. OCLC 798725
See also
Puerto Rico portal
New York City portal
African American portal
Afrocentrism
Ancient Egyptian race controversy
List of notable Puerto Ricans
Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico
Institute for the Study of Academic Racism
Pseudohistory
Marcus Garvey
John Henrik Clarke
John G. Jackson
African diaspora
Joel Augustus Rogers
Chancellor Williams
Cheikh Anta Diop
Molefi Kete Asante
References
Gabriel Haslip-Viera, Taíno revival: critical perspectives on Puerto Rican identity and cultural politics, (Markus Wiener Publishers: 2001), p.14.
“Yosef Ben-Jochannan Biography”. TheHistorymakers.com. 2008. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
Tudor Parfitt, Emanuela Semi (eds.) (2013). Judaising Movements: Studies in the Margins of Judaism in Modern Times. Routledge. p. 95. ISBN 1136860274. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
Kestenbaum, Sam (March 27, 2015). “Contested Legacy of Dr. Ben, a Father of African Studies”. New York Times. Retrieved 30 March 2015. Documents from Malcolm-King College and Cornell show Mr. Ben-Jochannan holding a doctorate from Cambridge University in England; catalogs from Malcolm-King College list him holding two master’s from Cambridge. According to Fred Lewsey, a communications officer at Cambridge, however, the school has no record of his ever attending, let alone earning any degree. Similarly, the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, where he also said he had studied, has no records of his enrollment.
“Dr. Yosef A. A. Ben-Jochannan”. raceandhistory.com. Retrieved January 5, 2012.
Ben Jochannan, Yosef (1993). We the Black Jews. Black Classics Press.
Shabazz, Saeed (October 29, 2002). “Prized library bequeathed to the Nation”. FinalCall.com. Retrieved June 30, 2011.
Martin Pratt, “Obituaries: Noted historian and scholar Dr. Yosef A.A. Ben-Jochannan has died”, Rolling Out, March 19, 2015.
“Dr. Ben joins the ancestors”. New York Amsterdam News. March 19, 2015. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
Lefkowitz, Mary (1997). Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth As History. New Republic Book (reprint). p. 2. ISBN 978-0465098385.
History Lesson, pp. 67-69.
Walker, Clarence E (2001). We Can’t Go Home Again: An Argument About Afrocentrism. Oxford University Press. p. 55. ISBN 978-0195095715.
External links
The Twin Towers of Afrikan Knowledge: Dr. Clarke and Dr. Ben Unearthed Africa’s Truths
Contested Legacy of Dr. Ben, a Father of African Studies
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