ASCAC Midwest Region 2024 Conference

“It is the cultivation of our own natures that is aimed at and not the imitation of the nature of another. The powers of our own mind are to be drawn out…Let us remember that we are making our own history. That we are character builders, building for all eternity.”
-Hallie Quinn Brown (1850-1949)

The African world faces a myriad of crises—resource wars in the Congo, destabilization in Haiti and the Sudan, the climate crisis in the US South and the Caribbean, disunity and division, and cultural misorientation globally. The adversaries of African people have created a world where the attainment of “the good life” for them requires African suffering. It is into this milieu that African people have been thrust, one where the ideation of many African intellectuals has proven inadequate to face problems before us. However, our ancestor Baba Jedi Shemsu Jehewty (Jacob H. Carruthers) stated that “Restoration of the heritage must be the pillar for progress.” He reminds us that our ancestral heritage is the most appropriate basis upon which to build our future. He contended that the knowledge and worldview of our ancestors is a “deep well” which has the capacity to illuminate a path to new possibilities.

We invite you to join us for the 2024 conference of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations Midwest Region, as we examine the various ways that the wisdom of our ancestors is capable of informing our efforts to forge the future for ourselves.

This year’s conference will be in a hybrid format. In-person attendees will convene in Chicago at the Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies. Others can participate remotely via Zoom.

Host or Publisher The Midwest Region of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization