The Dream of an African Renaissance: Cheikh Anta Diop's Grand Design

In this class exploring the life, and research of the great Senegalese scientist, philosopher and statesman Cheikh Anta Diop and his life, Nicholas Jones (President of Artists’ Alliance for Africa) introduces a picture of Africa and her deep history that is quite different from what we might expect. A precolonial glory connected with Egypt’s ancient past that Cheikh Anta Diop managed, through his rigorous research to uncover.Nicholas takes us through the major empires that spanned Africa during the pre-colonial period and uses his study of Mr Diop’s revolutionary work to reveal a part of how society, as a whole with all its colorful parts, functioned during that period. We discover that West Africa was a place of unrivalled beauty during this period and it’s this history that Mr Cheikh Anta Diop wishes to be used culturally to create a New African Renaissance and so we put to question exactly that, when will that become so and what will this Renaissance look like?