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Kemetic Institute, ASCAC, Temple of African Community of Chicago
Spouse
Ifé Carruthers
Mzee Jedi Shemsu Jehewty, also known as Jacob Hudson Carruthers, Jr. (February 15, 1930, in Dallas, Texas—January 4, 2004, in Chicago) was an African-centered historian and educator.
Moving to Chicago and the Center for Inner City Studies
After two years of teaching political science at Kansas State College (1966–1968), Carruthers moved to Chicago, where he would live and work for the rest of his life. In 1968, Carruthers joined the Center for Inner City Studies of Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU). For the next thirty-two years, Carruthers taught history and education at the Center for Inner City Studies, playing a role in the development of graduate and undergraduate degrees in the Department of Inner City Studies Education (ICSE).
Visiting Cheikh Anta Diop
In 1975, one year after Cheikh Anta Diop, an African academic and scientist, and his protégé and colleague Théophile Obenga successfully defended the African origin of ancient Kemet at the UNESCO symposium in Cairo, Jacob Carruthers visited Diop in Senegal. At this visit, Ifé Carruthers writes:
Diop impressed upon Dr. Carruthers the importance of the study of ancient Egypt and more importantly the need to center that study around the command of the Egyptian languages, commonly called hieroglyphics.[1]
Returning from this meeting, Carruthers established the organisational base to centralize Kush and Kemet as the classical African civilizations upon which liberated African institutions would be built. Carruthers began to learn the ancient language of Kemet, to have direct access to the ancient sources, while urging others to do likewise as a matter of urgency.
The Kemetic Institute and ASCAC
Carruthers created an African-centered context for the systematic studying of African history to raise African institutions from the rescued knowledge.
In 1978 Carruthers and the African-centered research team composed of A. Josef Ben Levi, Anderson Thompson and Conrad Worrill founded the Kemetic Institute. This organization addressed the need for serious restoration-driven search by Africans on the Classical African civilizations of Kush and Kemet. Carruthers, as the founding director of the institute, clarified that the institution was to serve as the springboard for African-centered institution building by proving the knowledge-base from which other institutions could be nourished.
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