Yosef Alfredo Antonio ben-Jochannan

Alfredo Antonio ben-Jochannan’s works were among the early systematic analyses to challenge the Eurocentric postulate that “African political life before the advent of the white man was virtually a miserable affair of tribal chieftains, primevally vicious, locked in primitive power struggles over deadly forest and savannah lands and sluggish streams that constituted their only sources of existence.” He began leading educational tours to Egypt as early as 1947, and these tours would span decades. His teachings and writings about Black Jews and ancient Africans, and how Europeans, notably White Jews, appropriated their culture and legacy provoked spirited attacks by Eurocentric scholars. And the audience attending the observance of the Holy Day of Atonement in celebration of the seventh anniversary of the Million Man March at the Salem United Methodist Church in Harlem, New York, on October 16, 2002, was “stunned” when ben-Jochannan announced that he was donating his private library of more than 35,000 books to the Nation of Islam. But as he asserted, it is with the Nation of Islam that this knowledge can be preserved for our Black people. His critical examination of “Western religions” reveals the African thought processes and practices embedded in them. Accordingly, Race and History (Dr. Yosef Alfredo Antonio ben-Jochannan. Accessed 18 October 2017. http://www.raceandhistory.com/Historians/ben_jochannan.htm , 2000) characterized him and his work as follows: “For more than five decades, Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan, a master teacher, researcher, author, lecturer, has led what has now become a mass effort to emphasize African contributions to the world. African Origins of the Major ‘Western Religions,’ first published in 1970, continues to be one of Dr. Ben’s most thought-provoking works. By highlighting the African influences and roots of these religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), Dr. Ben reveals an untold history that many would prefer to forget.” This chapter therefore utilizes the explanatory case study methodology to elucidate ben-Jochannan’s conceptualization of Africa and how it can contribute towards the construction of a new Africa.