Sunday 8/3/14 Show: John Henrik Clarke Tribute with Greg Kimathi Carr

The next show will air on Sunday, August 3, 2014 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This installment of the program will feature excerpts from a tribute to the late Pan African scholar and activist, Dr. John Henrik Clarke presented by Howard University Professor Dr. Greg Kimathi Carr.



John Henrik Clarke (1915-1998), who was widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of Africana Studies. Dr. Clarke played an important role in the early history of Cornell University’s Africana Studies & Research Center. He was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of African History at the Center in the 1970s. He also made an invaluable contribution to the establishment of its curricula.

Dr. Clarke is the author of numerous articles that have appeared in leading scholarly journals. He also served as the author, contributor, or editor of 24 books. In 1968 along with the Black Caucus of the African Studies Association, Dr. Clarke founded the African Heritage Studies Association. In 1969 he was appointed as the founding chairman of the Black and Puerto Rican Studies Department at Hunter College in New York City.

Dr. Clarke was most known and highly regarded for his lifelong devotion to studying and documenting the histories and contributions of African peoples in Africa and the diaspora.

Dr. Clarke is often quoted as stating that “History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are, but more importantly, what they must be.” – (Eric Kofi Acree, Cornell University)

Greg E. Carr, Ph.D., JD is Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Chair of Afro-American Studies at Howard University and Adjunct Faculty at the Howard School of Law. He holds a Ph.D. in African American Studies from Temple University and a JD from the Ohio State University College of Law. The School District of Philadelphia’s First Resident Scholar on Race and Culture (1999-2000), Dr. Carr led a team of academics and educators in the design of the curriculum framework for Philadelphia’s mandatory high school African American History course. These materials are the first to approach African American History using Africana Studies methodology. He is a co-founder of the Philadelphia Freedom Schools Movement, a community-based academic initiative that has involved over 13,000 elementary, high school and college students. Dr. Carr has presented his curriculum work for the Board of Public Education in Salvador, Bahia, and has lectured across the U.S. and in Ghana, Egypt, South Africa, Brazil, France, and England, among other places. His publications have appeared in, among other places, The African American Studies Reader, Socialism and Democracy, Africana Studies, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, The National Urban League’s 2012 State of Black America and Malcolm X: A Historical Reader.

Dr. Carr is the first Vice President of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC) and a former member of the board of the National Council for Black Studies.

Musically, we’ll be hearing mostly from Randy Weston and the late Yusef Lateef. Randy Weston would often meet with Dr. Clarke and Dr. Ben Jochannan. The music of Yusuf Lateef was used to score the documentary about Dr. Clarke titled A Great and Mighty Walk.

The excerpts of this keynote address by Dr. Carr was presented by Eastern Region of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC) on July 19, 2014 at the Countee Cullen Library in Harlem, NY. For your generous financial support to WBAI-FM, you will be able to get a copy of this address. You can also support WBAI (and the show) by donating as little as $5 during the fund drive.

Show engineered, produced, hosted, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

Web Extras:

Watch an excerpt of Dr. Carr’s presentation at Temple University.



Watch Dr. Carr perform a libation ceremony at the African Burial Ground in Manhattan.