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9:36 AM / Friday March 29, 2024

25 Jun 2012

The life and legacy of Philadelphia’s greatest educator and school district specialist–Dr. Edward Robinson (1918- 2012)

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June 25, 2012 Category: Local Posted by:

By Michael Coard, Esq.

 

The birth of Dr. Edward Wesley Robinson Jr. on April 24, 1918 in Philadelphia laid the foundation for the birth of African consciousness- hence the academic excellence of black students- in Philadelphia’s school district, a district that was established exactly 100 years earlier in 1818. While his own birth was healthy and welcomed, the other birth was premature and unwelcomed.

 

But Dr. Robinson cradled it, fed it, encouraged it, and strengthened it. And now, despite his untimely passing at age 94 on June 13, the product of that birth of African consciousness is not only finally ready to crawl and walk but also to run and soar. Before stating exactly what I mean by this, I must state exactly who he was because the who explains the what.

 

Dr. Robinson was a historian, educator, professor, author, documentarian, filmmaker, and curriculum specialist who attended Central High School, Virginia State College for Negroes (now Virginia State University), Temple University School of Law, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has said that “Never during all my years in America’s best elementary schools, middle schools, junior high schools, high schools, colleges, and post-graduate schools was I ever taught anything about the huge body of information concerning the beauty, grandeur, and sophistication of Kemet (i.e.., ancient Egypt) or the Songhai Empire. I was mis-educated.

 

Fortunately, though, I was later rescued from cultural and intellectual oblivion by the intervention of my ancestors.” That rescue is quite obvious as clearly shown in his books, Journey of the Songhai People, Twas the Night Before Kwanzaa, and No Man Can A-Hinder Me, his CD, Black Rhapsody, and his DVDs, “The Songhai Princess” and his soon-to-be-released “Whispers of the Medallion.”

 

Thanks to his prolific synthesized research, many people of African descent in this city now know about Africa’s essential contributions to the world. Because of him, we now know that the Father of Medicine is Imhotep, an Egyptian, from circa 2650 BC and not Hippocrates, a Greek who wasn’t born until 2200 years later. We now know that calculus, algebra, and geometry were invented in Egypt pre-1820 BC by Tishome, prior to 1650 BC by Ahmes, and circa 1500 BC by Tacokoma respectively.

 

We now know that Herodotus, the Greek so-called Father of History, was wrong when he claimed that the Babylonians in 430 BC were the first to divide the day into 24 temporal hours. Instead, it was the Egyptians who did it about 3000 years earlier with their sundial and later their shadow clock. We now know that monotheism, despite being based on the Greek words “single’ and “god” was actually created by Akenaten, an Egyptian from circa 1379 BC. And despite the western world’s use of BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, meaning “In the year of the Lord”) as the yardstick by which years are measured, that yardstick wasn’t created until 46 BC by Julius Caesar and was later reformed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 AD.

 

But all of that is quite strange since the word “Christ” is actually from the Egyptian phrase “kher sesheta” which means “he who watches over the mysteries” and which was used approximately 3,000 years before Julius and the Pope. In fact, it wasn’t until 300 AD that the man who had been known as Jesus was for the first time being referred to as “Christ.” And we now know that the first human beings on the planet were from the Nile Valley region of East Africa 200,000 years ago. Also, we now know that even more recently during the pre-colonial era, Africa excelled beginning in the ninth century but primarily from the 15th century through the 16th century.

 

This occurred in West Africa, particularly in the Songhai Empire- the largest empire in African history. As Dr. Robinson always proudly pointed out, it was filled with magnificent homes that housed scholars, physicians, judges, craftsmen, farmers, miners, and soldiers. It was a vital international commercial hub where gold, salt, textiles, beans, rice, and fish were traded. But most important, Timbuktu was its great intellectual center of the world that served as the repository for massively voluminous libraries. In addition, Timbuktu housed over 150 schools and a major university at Sankore with more than 25,000 students who were expertly taught science, math, grammar, logic, law, and theology.

 

And throughout the empire, books were such a valuable commodity that they were traded for gold. How did all of this enlightening African history get lost? Racist European arrogance is the answer. But thanks to Dr. Robinson, we now know the truth. And very soon, our Philadelphia public school children will know it, too.

 

At the beginning of this article, I briefly mentioned that Dr. Robinson had laid the foundation for the birth of African consciousness- hence the academic excellence of black students- in Philadelphia’s school district. Here’s what I meant. An impressively well-researched book entitled The World of Africans and Afro-Americans was written in 1971 by the “Ad Hoc Administrative Committee for the Infusion of African and Afro-American History into the Curricula.”

 

This blue-ribbon committee included 24 prominent principals and teachers headed by Dr. Robinson and another preeminent scholar, namely Dr. John Henrik Clarke. Immediately after this book was officially approved, 13,000 copies were published by the district. But, inexplicably, not one single copy was ever distributed to any student. And to make matters worse, it was later discovered that the educationally essential information contained in that book was never infused into the general K-8 grade science, math, history, and social studies textbooks used by all the city’s school children.

 

The easy solution now, therefore, is to simply infuse that same, similar, and updated information in connection with the previously approved 1971 book, as well as the aforementioned Journey of the Songhai People, into the new textbooks. As Dr. Robinson has repeatedly made clear, effective infusion must include “continual updates by the textbook authors, relevant teacher and community training, and uniform implementation not only for grades K-8 but also as a requirement for high school graduation.”

 

Many people would be surprised to discover that Dr. Robinson’s infusion courses are already complete and were already officially approved. They were requested by the school superintendent most recently in 2004 but were never effectively implemented upon that superintendent’s departure. And four decades ago, Dr. Robinson headed the district’s faculty team that taught these kinds of courses to hundreds of teachers in ten-week sessions. Also, those courses had a proven track record of quantifiable and qualitative educational success as determined by the district’s Department of Assessment and Accessibility.

 

Black students have been and are at the bottom of every academic category. Is it because they’re stupid as a result of a genetic defect? Obviously not when you consider their impressive African roots as revealed by Dr. Robinson. So it must be something else. It must be the result of America’s plan that kept black children (and adults) in the dark about education in general and African history in particular. This began when reading and writing were outlawed during slavery.

 

In response to this resulting “psychic trauma” as Dr. Robinson described it and in the spirit of Sankofa, he has proclaimed that his life’s goal is “to effect a positive change of attitude toward the ancestral value of people of African descent by… society through dramatically exposing the beauty, grandeur, and sophistication of ancient Egypt and the Songhai Empire.”

 

Support his goal and his legacy by demanding the immediate effective infusion of his courses of study into the official school district curriculum. For more information, call ATAC at 215-552-8751.

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