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Anthony T. Browder

 

Orange Branch of the NAACP hosted an online event Representation and Identity of Black Families – Let The Truth Be Told to celebrate Black History Month and kick off a yearlong membership drive.

Tiffany Hinson recited a poem Call to Action.

“It is not the MLK you are expecting,” Hinson said. “It is written by my black hand.”

Among the many points made throughout the moving reading was the point of ‘Trying to remember who we are…’

Jackie Mayfield introduced the keynote speaker, Anthony T. Browder.

Browder, who spoke from his home in Washington, D.C. during the Zoom meeting, said, “We can restore family by restoring African History.”

Without learning history prior to the years of slavery, we are missing hundreds of pages of world history.

“It was not shared with us in school,” Browder said. “It is restoring what was once illegal in the United States.”

He quoted Henry Berry Esquire as saying, “We have, as far as possible, closed every avenue by which the light may enter the slave’s mind. If we could extinguish the capacity to see the light, our work will be complete. They would then be on the level of the beast of the fields and we then should be safe.”

Berry made these remarks during an 1832 speech before the Virginia House of Delegates on the abolition of slavery ( bit.ly/3dUnjW4 ).

“We are obligated to read and write to tell their story,” Browder said. “History must replace what slavery took from us.”

He added that when Negro History Week was established in 1925, it was not meant to be one week a year the history was taught to the children but a week for the children to demonstrates what they had learned about black history over the course of a year.

“We must read, study and share what we have learned.

Browder is an author, publisher, cultural historian, artist, and an educational consultant. He is a graduate of Howard University’s College of Fine Arts and has lectured extensively throughout the United States, Africa, Caribbean, Mexico, Japan and Europe, on issues related to African and African American History and Culture.

Browder is the founder and director of IKG Cultural Resources and has devoted 30 years researching ancient Egyptian history, science, philosophy and culture.

He has traveled to Egypt 54 times since 1980 and is currently director of the ASA Restoration Project, which is funding the excavation and restoration of the 25^th dynasty tomb of Karakhamun in Luxor, Egypt.

Browder is the first African American to fund and coordinate an archeological dig in Egypt and has conducted 23 archeological missions to Egypt since 2009.

He and his daughter are the only father/ daughter African American archeological team.

“I grew up believing ancient Egyptians were white,” Browder said. “They were black. There is evidence Africans came to America before Columbus.”

He said there are very few who can start the African American’s history without starting at slavery.

“We have incorrect memory of our loss of land in Africa and in America,” Browder said. “We became consumers instead of producers. We lost the things that allows us to unite. We have to understand how we lost it so we can reclaim it.”

It is what motivated him to have dedicated 44 years to documenting and correcting the history.

“I had to reeducate myself,” Browder said. “Because of it, I have been self-employed for 42 years.”

He has made over 70 trips to Africa and 60 specifically to Egypt.

“The most important trip was one in 1987 when I took my then seven-year-old daughter,” Browder said. “I took it upon myself top educate my daughter and not leave it up to a school system to teach her.”

He added there are many signs and symbols in America which originated from Africa.

“They are using our history and creations,” Browder said.

The list of examples are too numerous to list here but included the Lincoln Memorial, the symbol of the Oscar, symbols on our paper currency and more.

“The birth of a nation begins in the homes,” Browder said. “With a consciousness. There are 10 crucial books which should be read by everyone in the household. We need to again become a nation of readers. Three thousand years cannot be taught in a month.”