(1930 - 2004)
Professor Jacob Carruthers was born on February 15, 1930 in Dallas, Texas. He
is a firm believer that a large part of liberating African American people comes
from understanding and connecting history, culture and heritage. He received a
B.A. from Samuel Huston College in Austin, Texas in 1950; an M.A. from Texas
Southern University in 1958; and a Ph.D. in Political Studies from the
University of Colorado in 1966. From 1966 to 1968, Carruthers worked as an
assistant professor at Kansas State College before joining the staff of
Northeastern Illinois University's Center for Inner City Studies (CICS).
Carruthers, along with Dr. Anderson Thompson, Robert Starks, Dr. Conrad Worrill
and others shaped the CICS program into one that emphasizes self-determination,
activism and study of the global black community.
In this context, Carruthers has earned respect as one of the world's leading
experts in classical African civilizations. His interests have carried him
throughout the continent of Africa, conducting study tours to Egypt,
Ethiopia, the Nile
Valley, Zimbabwe, Senegal, the Ivory Coast, and other parts of West Africa.
Carruthers has written or edited hundreds of essays and papers on his findings
and his major works include: The
Irritated Genie: An Essay on the Haitian Revolution, Essays
in Ancient Egyptian Studies, Intellectual
Warfare, MDW NTR: Divine
Speech and Science and Oppression. He has lectured at various educational
institutions; served on evaluation teams for many area high schools; and worked
as a consultant to both the Dayton and Chicago public school systems. Carruthers
served as founding president of the Association for the Study of Classical
African Civilizations for five years. In that capacity, he led a group of 1,000
black teachers, students, artists and scholars from the United States to the
Nubian Cultural Center in Aswan, Egypt for a two week conference and tour of
Nubia and Egypt.
He is a founding member and priest of the Temple of African Community of Chicago
and founding member and director of the Kemetic (Egyptian) Institute, which
sponsors the annual Teaching About Africa program for schoolteachers and
administrators. He married his wife, Ifé, in 1986 and has four children.