DIOP, CHEIKH ANTA

Cheikh Anta Diop was born in Diourbel, Senegal on December 23, 1933 to a Muslim Wolof family. Part of the peasant class, his family belonged to the African Mouride Islamic sect.

At age 12, he was reported to be developing a universal ‘African’ alphabet. He was educated in a traditional Islamic school, gained his bachelor’s degree in Senegal and continued his education in France. Upon completing his bachelor’s degree in Senegal, Diop moved to Paris, where he began his graduate studies at the Sorbonne in 1946 in physics. He went on to study philosophy then chemistry, physics, history, linguistics and anthropology in Paris in 1947.

PHOTO CAPTION: Cheikh Anta Diop.  SOURCE: EA Library.

Once at the Sorbonne, however, Diop became involved in the African students’ anticolonial movement, where young intellectuals worked for African independence. He helped organise the first Pan-African Student Congress in Paris in 1951 and in 1956 participated in the First World Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris. These movements laid the groundwork for a growing African liberation sentiment, supported by the ideological arguments of Negritude, Marxism, and Pan-Africanism.

Committed to the richness of African history, Diop’s 1951 Ph.D. dissertation looked into ancient Egyptian history and the influence it had on European culture. At a time when European cultural superiority was the accepted notion, Diop proclaimed that African civilizations were the inspiration and origin of European accomplishments. The Sorbonne rejected his dissertation, yet his work nevertheless received worldwide attention.

In 1955 his work was published as Nations negres et culture (Negro Nations and Culture), a publication that would make him one of the most widely known and controversial historians of his era. Partly due to the response to the book, in 1960 Diop was awarded his doctorate by the Sorbonne. That same year, Senegal gained its independence and Diop returned to his home country.

In adulthood, he was described as a ‘warrior of the mind’ and ‘Pharaoh of knowledge’ who believed that language (your own – not that of your coloniser) was the key to a country’s development. During his time in Paris, he reinforced this by giving a lecture in maths in Wolof – a language spoken in Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania, primarily.

After obtaining his doctorate in France, Diop returned to Senegal shortly after the country gained independence in 1960. But he faced fierce opposition. He not only clashed with Senegal’s first president Leopold Sedar Sénghor but was imprisoned for a month in 1962 because of his political activism. He was also banned from teaching at Dakar University because of his views.

Diop famously said when fending off opposition from fellow Senegalese and Western academics, that unfortunately, for something to be considered objective, it had to come from the white man.

Undeterred, he committed much of his life to establishing Senegal’s first carbon dating laboratory with IFAN (Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire – the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa). According to the Radio Carbon Laboratory (IFAN), the laboratory was the second of its kind in Africa next to one in modern-day Zimbabwe. His written work was prolific as were his lectures, which attracted wide audiences and included invitations to the US up until his death.

As a renowned scholar and political activist, Diop was appointed professor of ancient history at Dakar University in 1980. Over his career Diop published a number of books including seven which were translated into English. His most famous works were The African Origin of Civilisation: Myth or Reality (1974); The Cultural Unity of Black Africa (1978), and Towards the African Renaissance: Essays in African Culture and Development, 1946-1960 (1978). Diop received the highest award for scientific research from the Institut Cultural Africain in 1982.

As a testament to his global effect, Diop was invited to Atlanta, Georgia in 1985, where Mayor Andrew Young proclaimed April 4th “Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop Day.” The many books Diop published in French were all dedicated to African self-empowerment and the reconstruction of a colonially fragmented identity.

On February 1, 1986, Cheikh Anta Diop died in Dakar at the age of 63.

EA