Khallid Abdul Muhammad spoke Monday night to a nearly full capacity crowd in Montezuma Hall.
The event was sponsored by the Afrikan student unions of San Diego State University and San Diego City College, the Black Student Union at the University of San Diego and the Naked Truth newspaper.
Muhammad’s speech was titled “Not Out of Europe; Too Black, Too Proud” and was, in large part, a response to a lecture given earlier on campus by Mary Lefkowitz on the origins of Greek civilization.
The possibility of a protest was anticipated, but none occurred.
The presentation opened with a libation to honor the Creator. This was followed by a film collage, put together by SDSU’s Afrikan Student Union, chronicling the recent history of black leaders and protests.
After giving thanks to Allah, Muhammad began his oration.
The bulk of his lecture focused on the origins of civilization in Egypt and the alleged warping of history by Europeans. Muhammad said the Greeks and Europeans stole the history that was Egypt’s and made it their own. Using the research of both black and white scholars to support his thesis, he said the Egyptians were leading civilized lives before Caucasian people even existed.
“The white man only recently admitted that Egypt was even in Africa,” Muhammad said. “They said it was in the Middle East. There is no Middle East. It is northeast Africa separated by a man-made ditch called the Suez Canal.”
Much of Muhammad’s lecture contradicted and challenged what has traditionally been taught in European-based education. He claimed the Greeks also incorporated much of Egypt’s mythology as their own.
Both Muhammad and event organizers agreed that African-Americans need to educate themselves and others about their true history, saying with this knowledge the present and the future can be improved.
One of the themes of the evening was the recognition of the continued oppression of African-Americans. Attendees were encouraged to take responsibility for arming themselves with knowledge and awareness against this oppression.
Muhammad’s r?sum? of experience is extensive. It includes, but is not limited to, service as associate director of the Urban Crisis Center, teaching in the Pan-African studies department of California State Universities Los Angeles and Long Beach, and acting as scholar in residence at Morehead State University. He also received the Ford Foundation Fellowship to do extensive studies at Harvard, Yale and Columbia universities. He has been to Mecca and has traveled extensively throughout Egypt and Jerusalem. He has also worked with Louis Farrakhan and rap artists Public Enemy, Ice Cube and the late Tupac Shakur.
On Nov. 29, 1993, after a controversial lecture at Kean College in New Jersey, he was officially condemned by Congress, the vice president and the president of the United States.
