Clarence Earl Walker (1941-2024) was an American historian and Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees from

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

and a doctorate from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. Walker works on Black American studies. In 2001, his book ''We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument About Afrocentrism'' was selected as an International Book of the Year by ''

The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

''. In 2015, he was awarded the US$45000 ''UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement''. He planned to retire in June 2015. His publications include: * ''Mongrel Nation: The America Begotten by Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings'',

University of Virginia Press The University of Virginia Press (or UVaP) is a university press A university press is an academic publishing house specializing in monographs and scholarly journals. They are often an integral component of a large research university. They pu ...

, 2009 * ''We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument About Afrocentrism'',

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2001 * ''Deromanticizing Black History: Critical Essays and Reappraisals'',

University of Tennessee Press The University of Tennessee Press is a university press associated with the University of Tennessee. UT Press was established in 1940 by the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees. The University of Tennessee Press issues about 35 books each ...

, 1991

Critique of Afrocentrism

Clarence E. Walker in 2001, referred to

Afrocentrism Afrocentrism is a worldview that is centered on the history of people of African descent or a view that favors it over non-African civilizations. It is in some respects a response to Eurocentric attitudes about African people and their hist ...

as being “therapeutic mythology." He also noted: "In 1976, a group of French scientists working with the permission of the Egyptian government examined the mummy of

Ramses II Ramesses II (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses) (; , , ; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Pharaoh, Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of th ...

and concluded that the dead king was a 'leucoderm,' that is, a fair-skinned man, like prehistoric or ancient Mediterraneans, or, perhaps, the

Berbers Berbers, or the Berber peoples, also known as Amazigh or Imazighen, are a diverse grouping of distinct ethnic groups indigenous to North Africa who predate the arrival of Arab migrations to the Maghreb, Arabs in the Maghreb. Their main connec ...

of Africa. The only Egyptian dynasty that could be called black without qualification, in the modern sense of the word, is the 25th Dynasty, 747-656 BCE."

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers University of California, Davis faculty San Francisco State University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni American male non-fiction writers {{US-historian-stub