Chancellor Williams

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Chancellor James Williams (1898-1992), writer, university professor, and historian, was the author of The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race Between 4500 B.C. and 2000 A.D., a book which has become a cornerstone of the highly-controversial field of academics known as Afrocentricity.

Williams was born on December 22, 1898, in Bennettsville, South Carolina, as the last of five children; his father was a former slave, while his mother was a cook, nurse, and evangelist. His innate curiosity concerning the realities of racial inequality and cultural struggles, particularly those which involved African-Americans like himself, began as early as his fifth-grade year. Years afterward, he was quoted in an early interview as saying: "I was very sensitive about the position of Black people in the town.... I wanted to know how you explain this great difference. How is it that we were in such tow circumstances as compared to the whites? And when they answered slavery' as the explanation, then I wanted to know where we came from."

It was this particular curiosity which helped drive him to, ultimately, receive his undergraduate degree in Education and Master of Arts degree in History from Howard University. He then studied abroad, serving as a visiting professor to the Universities of Oxford and London in England, UK.

In 1956, Williams began field research in African History at University College in Ghana. At that time, his main focus was on African achievements and self-ruling civilizations which existed in sub-Saharan Africa (aka Black Africa) long before the coming of the Europeans. His last study, completed in 1964, covered 26 countries and more than 100 language groupings.

Finally, in 1971, Williams sent his magnum opus, The Destruction of Black Civilization, to Kendall Hunt, a white-owned publishing company, for publishing and distribution. The following year, the book received an award from the Black Academy of Letters and Arts. Encouraged by the award, he expanded and revised the book to its present-day copy, and then, feeling more comfortable with a Black-owned firm as his publisher, sent the 2nd version to Chicago's noted Third World Press. Almost immediately, the book received a much wider wave of critical acclaim, including from such people as now-former New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka and noted Afrocentric professor John Henrik Clarke. Furthermore, Williams became the first-ever recipient of the Clarence L. Holte International Biennial Prize by the 21st Century Foundation.

Williams, in the preparation for the release of his most famous book, didn't wait for grants or fellowships to financially jumpstart its publishing. On his apparent hastiness, Williams commented: "I was out of step with tradition," William says. "I rebelled against overspecialization. Even when I had the required courses for my majors, I would take other subjects in which I was equally interested. I was interested in pure science, for example, even though I was majoring in history. I was also interested in psychology. My transcripts from Howard, where I did most of my formal study, won't give you any idea of what my major really was."

[edit] Books Authored

• The Raven: A Novel of Edgar Allan Poe (1943)
• The Rebirth of African Civilization (1961) ISBN 0-88378-129-8
• The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race Between 4500 B.C. and 2000 A.D. (1971) ISBN 0-88378-030-5