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Molefi Kete Asante
Molefi Kete Asante is Professor, Department of Africology at Temple University in Philadelphia. He is the President of the Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies. Asante is Professor Extraordinarius at the University of South Africa. He is the Founding Editor, Journal of Black Studies and first director of UCLA’s Center for Afro-American Studies. Asante, often called the most prolific African American scholar, has published more than 100 books, among the most recent are Being Human Being: Transforming the Race Discourse (with Nah Dove); The Perilous Center, or When Will the African Center Hold; Radical Insurgencies; The History of Africa, 3rd Edition; An Afrocentric Pan Africanist Vision; The African American People: A Global History; Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation; Revolutionary Pedagogy 2nd Edition; African American History: A Journey of Liberation; African Pyramids of Knowledge; Maulana Karenga: An Intellectual Portrait; Facing South to Africa, and, the memoir, As I Run Toward Africa. Asante has published more than 500 articles and is considered one of the most quoted living African authors as well as one of the most distinguished thinkers in the African world. He has been recognized as one of the 10 most widely cited African scholars. Asante has been recognized as one of the most influential leaders in education. He has been named a HistoryMaker with an interview in the Library of Congress. In 2019 the National Communication Association named him an NCA Distinguished Scholar, its highest honor, saying that his writings were "spectacular and profound". He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, at the age of 26, and was appointed a full professor at the age of 30 at the State University of New York at Buffalo. At Temple University he created the first Ph.D. Program in African American Studies in 1988. In 2021 he initiated and conceptualized Temple's Center for Antiracism Research. He has directed more than 140 Ph.D. dissertations making him the top producer of doctorates among African American scholars. He is the founder of the theory of Afrocentricity, The Cheikh Anta Diop Conference, and the think-tank, The Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies in Philadelphia. Asante wrote the mandatory African American History course for Philadelphia School District at the request of Superintendent Paul Vallas.
Asante was born in Valdosta, Georgia, of Sudanese (Mehasi Nubian) and Nigerian (Yoruba) DNA heritage. He is one of sixteen children. He is married to Ana Yenenga, an African Costa Rican, with Akan ancestry via Jamaica. He has three children, Mario, Eka, and MK, Jr., the latter was born in Zimbabwe. He has six grandchildren, Jamar Ramses, Ayaana, Aion, Nova, Akira, and Akila. He is a poet, novelist, dramatist, and a painter. His works on African language, African history, multiculturalism, and human communication and philosophy have been cited and reviewed by journals such as the Africalogical Perspectives, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Journal of Black Studies, Black Scholar, Journal of Communication, International Journal of African Renaissance, American Scholar, Daedalus, Western Journal of Black Studies, and International Journal of Pan African Thought. The Utne Reader called him one of the “100 Leading Thinkers” in America. Asante has appeared on numerous television and social media programs in Africa, Asia, North and South America, and Europe. He has received many awards and honors for scholarship and political and community activism. He regularly consults with heads of state in Africa and has become one of the most popular lecturers on issues related to the United States of Africa. He served on the Thabo Mbeki African School of Leadership at UNISA. Asante was invited in February 2020 by the Russian Academy of Sciences and RUDN to co-chair a seminar on African Affairs with Professor Alexei Vasiliev. In 2022 he was invited to give the bicentennial address at the University of Liberia and asked to serve on the board of Africa’s first Center for Migration and Diaspora Studies. Dr. Asante’s writings are in English, French, Russian, Spanish, Kiswahili, Portuguese, Hungarian, and Japanese. He was the President of the Civil Rights organization, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s UCLA in the 1960’s. In 1995 he was made a traditional king, Nana Okru Asante Peasah, Kyidomhene of Tafo, Akyem, Ghana. He was appointed a Wanadu of the Court of Hassimi Maiga, the Amiru of Gao, Songhay, Mali in 2009. Asante trained journalists in Zimbabwe immediately after the 2nd Chimurenga and was a mentor to the first group of liberated journalists from Zimbabwe Institute of Mass Communication. Asante has received hundreds of awards and recent honorary doctorates from several institutions, including Pepperdine University, Sojourner-Douglass College, University of South Africa (2020), University of Witwatersrand (2022), and University of New Haven. Asante is the past Series Editor for Routledge, African Studies: History, Economic, Society and Series Editor for Anthem Press for Africology, especially in areas of ethics, theory, practice, and history.