Explore the dynamics of African Nile Valley Spiritual Systems and their influence on modern pop culture through the Matrix Trilogy. We take a look at how it serves as a model for the reintroduction of African cultural concepts and how the embracement of technology, popular culture, and African philosophy, can be a liberating force for African/African-American people in the 21st century.

Journey with us as we trace the origins of ancient Egyptian civilization through the Ba’Ntu speaking people of central and east Africa. Through a thorough examination of the archaeological, geological, ideographic, oral and linguistic records, we will connect the cultural elements that were amalgamated in ancient times to form the political state of Ta-Merri (Egypt).

We will take this discussion a step further by exploring new methods to make this information more accessible to the non-specialist and more practical in the lives of African-Americans. We will also use this lecture as a spring board to create local research teams to continue and advance the work.

With an ever widening gap in educational opportunities among ethnic groups, an increasing high school dropout rate, and the overall degradation in the quality of education in the United States, new methods are being sought to better reach the minds of young people in hopes of increasing retention levels, interest, and overall academic success. Scholars such as Hilliard, Nobles, Asante, Karenga, Akoto and others have argued that the best way to reach African-American youth is to create a curriculum that is culturally relevant to them: a prospectus that reaffirms who they are and their value as human beings, and illuminates their individual gifts to be shared with the community.

This lecture posits that a “ReAfriantation” towards these varying perspectives, coupled with the creation of environments for the materialization of the possibilities hidden in these waves and radiations (ideas) [through art, film, drama, poetry, etc.], can help African-American youth better relate to world phenomena and will inspire them to use their creativity in ways not imaginable before. We cannot develop human beings if we do not cultivate that which makes us human: the limitless nature of our imaginations and our ability to transform our ideas into things.