Tagged: Encyclopedia Britannica

“In 1910, the Encyclopedia Britannica had an article in it about Negros. This would be one of many examples of how African and other people get information about themselves…[I]n the second underlined paragraph on that article, it says, ‘Mentally, the negro is inferior to the white,’ then it goes on in that article to talk about the fact that as children, our children were okay, they were bright, smart, well-developed, but that as black children and white children grow older, black children become dumb and white children become smart… This is in the most respected Encyclopedia Britannica, so the most authoritative thought then would have sanctioned this view in 1910 and that was not unlike what was said in theological schools, which were teaching that Africans did not have souls…that would be taught in certain biology classes teaching that Africans were not even part of the same branch of humanity…that would’ve been taught in history classes, which taught that Africans had no history and so forth, and so on. In other words, that whole body of thought that emerged during the past couple hundreds years, to create the orientation among Europeans that would allow them to oppress African people without feeling bad about it.” — Dr. Asa Hilliard, III

Dr. Hilliard is the author of Free Your Mind, Return to the Source: The African Origin of Civilization.