Chancellor Williams (December 22, 1893 – December 7, 1992) was an American sociologist, historian and writer. He is known for his work on African civilizations prior to encounters with Europeans; his most notable work is The Destruction of Black Civilization (1971/1974), which is popular in Afrocentric circles.

Early life, migration, and education Williams was born on December 22, 1893, in Bennettsville, South Carolina, United States, as the last of five children. His father had been born into slavery and had grown up to gain freedom and voting rights after the American Civil War. His mother, Dorothy Ann Williams, worked as a cook, nurse, and evangelist. The family suffered after Democrats regained power in the state legislature in the late 19th century and passed bills disfranchising black citizens, as well as imposing racial segregation and white supremacy under Jim Crow. Williams' curiosity about racial inequality and cultural struggles, particularly those of African Americans, began as early as his fifth-grade year. Encouraged by a sixth-grade teacher, he sold The Crisis, published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); and The Norfolk Journal and Guide, as well as reading them and using their recommended books to direct his studies.Williams, Chancellor James (1987), The Destruction of Black Civilization, Chicago: Third World Press, p. 14.

Years later, he was quoted in an 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 low circumstances as compared to the whites? And when they answered 'slavery' as the explanation, then I wanted to know where we came from.

As part of the Great Migration out of the rural South, the Williams family moved to Washington, DC, in 1910. His father hoped for more opportunity there, especially in education, and Williams graduated from Armstrong Technical High School."Chancellor Williams, 98, Dies; Professor of African History", The Washington Post, December 12, 1992, p. B04. Williams' mother died in 1925, leaving his father a widower. All their children were grown by then.

After working for a while, Williams entered college at Howard University, a historically black college. He earned an undergraduate degree in education in 1930, followed by a master's degree in history in 1935. After completing a doctoral dissertation on the socioeconomic significance of the storefront church movement in the United States since 1920, he was awarded a Ph.D. in sociology by American University in 1949.

Career In 1935, Williams started as Administrative Principal for the Cheltenham School for Boys in Maryland. Four years later, he became a teacher in the Washington, DC, public schools. With World War II imminent, he entered the civil service system in the Federal government in 1941, serving as section chief of the Census Bureau, a statistician for War Relocation Board, and an economist in Office of Price Administration.

The Destruction of Black Civilization In 1971/1974, Williams published his major work, The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race Between 4500 B.C. and 2000 A.D.. The following year, the book received an award from the Black Academy of Arts and Letters (BAAL), founded in New York in 1969. Williams asserted the validity of the Black Egyptian hypothesis and that Ancient Egypt was predominantly a black civilization. Williams' central thesis is that Egypt, particularly Upper Egypt constituted the Northern boundary of a larger Ethiopian empire rooted in Napata and Kerma. Further, Williams asserts the king Narmer unifies Upper and Lower Egypt by compelling political unity among 'Asiatics' then resident in the Nile Delta. He further asserts in Chapter III, Egypt: The Rise and Fall of Black Civilization, that the name "Egyptian" becomes a referent to the children of Africans and Asians who reside throughout the country, rather than to either Africans or Asiatics residing at the respective ends of the Nile Valley and beyond (p. 103). At the UNESCO "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script" in Cairo in 1974: P. 43 - "Professor Diop's theory was rejected in its entirety by one participant" p. 46 - "The conclusion of the experts who did not accept the theory, put forward by Professors Cheikh Anta Diop and Obenga, that the Nile Valley population had been homogenous from the earliest times until the Persian invasion, was that the basic population of Egypt settled there in Neolithic times, that it originated largely in the Sahara and that it comprised people from the north and from the south of the Sahara who were differentiated by their colour".At the UNESCO "Symposium on the Peopling of Ancient Egypt and the Deciphering of the Meroitic Script" in Cairo in 1974, "Two categories of objection were made to the ideas propounded by Professor Diop. These objections revealed the extent of a disagreement which remained profound even though it was not voiced explicitly. Most of the objections raised were of a methodological nature. Although he hoped that the notion of race would be abandoned and that reference would be made rather to the 'people' of ancient Egypt, Professor Vercoutter agreed that no attempt should be made to estimate percentages, which meant nothing, as it was impossible to establish them without reliable statistical data. He hoped that, before final conclusions were drawn, a series of research projects would be carried out to study the human remains in museums throughout the world and those found in recent excavations."

Death Williams died of respiratory failure on December 7, 1992, aged 98, at Providence Hospital in Washington, DC. He had been a resident of the Washington Center for Aging Services for several years. He was survived by his wife of 65 years, Mattie Williams of Washington, and 14 children; 36 grandchildren; 38 great-grandchildren; and 10 great-great-grandchildren.

Books The Raven: A Novel of Edgar Allan Poe (1943) And If I Were White, Shaw Publications (1946) Have You Been to the River?, Exposition Press (1952) Problems in African History, Pencraft Books (1964) The Rebirth of African Civilization (1961); revised edition, introduction by Baba Zulu, United Brothers and Sisters Communications Systems (reprint 1993), The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race Between 4500 B.C. and 2000 A.D. (1971/1974/1987), , scanned version online The Second Agreement with Hell Carlton Press (1979)

Legacy and honors 1972: award from Black Academy of Arts and Letters

See also Ancient Egyptian race controversy

References

Further reading Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2007. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2007.

External links