I was a consultant on a project in Egypt in the 1990s. As I walked around Cairo, I was struck that Egyptians look like “high yellow” Africans. I later read that when Frederick Douglass visited Egypt in 1887, he observed, “The great mass of the people I have yet seen would in America be classified as mulattoes and negroes.”
In a speech delivered on July 12, 1854, “The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered,” Douglass said:
Here I leave our learned authorities, as to the resemblance of the Egyptians to negroes.
It is not in my power, in a discourse of this sort, to adduce more than a very small part of the testimony in support of a near relationship between the present enslaved and degraded negroes, and the ancient highly civilized and wonderfully endowed Egyptians. Sufficient has already been adduced, to show a marked similarity in regard to features, hair, color, and I doubt not that the philologist can find equal similarity in the structures of their languages. In view of the foregoing, while it may not be claimed that the ancient Egyptians were negroes,—viz:—answering, in all respects, to the nations and tribes ranged under the general appellation, negro; still, it may safely be affirmed, that a strong affinity and a direct relationship may be claimed by the negro race, to THAT GRANDEST OF ALL THE NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY, THE BUILDERS OF THE PYRAMIDS.
From activists to artists, ancient Egypt has fueled African Americans’ imagination.
I recently checked out a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now,” a multimedia exploration of how Black artists have drawn inspiration from Egypt.
The exhibition features 200 works of art, including the Sun Ra documentary, “Space is the Place,” John W. Mosely photographs taken at the Philadelphia Pyramid Club, and Henry O. Tanner’s “Flight into Egypt.”
On the day of my visit, there was a creative convening of some of the artists included in the exhibition.
The program closed with a live performance of “Egypt, Egypt” by rapper and DJ The Egyptian Lover.
“Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now” is on view through February 17, 2025.