White-Washed: The Missing Black Populations of North Africa
A Genocide Forgotten
There are uncanny parallels between North Africa’s racial history and the story of Native Americans in North America. In the United States, European settlers wiped out nearly 98% of the native population—an estimated 12 million in 1500 fell to just over 237,000 by 1900. Historian David E. Stannard described it as “the most sustained genocide on record.”
But what happened in North Africa is rarely talked about, though it follows a similar pattern: invasion, erasure, and displacement.
The Arab Invasion of North Africa
It began in 642 AD when Arab armies swept into North Africa, occupying present-day Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, and Morocco. The native Black Berber populations were either slaughtered or forced to flee. Some escaped into the Sahara, others into the southern reaches of the continent.
In the 11th century, a fresh wave of Arab nomads pushed even deeper, displacing the few remaining Berber groups. These were not just population shifts; they were cultural and racial erasures.
Ancient Egypt Was Black
Modern textbooks and museums may present Ancient Egypt as Middle Eastern, but history tells a different story.
Ancient Egyptians were Black. Egypt, referred to as the “Land of Ham” in the Bible, connects directly to Cush, the father of Ethiopia. Pan-African historian Runoko Rashidi, in his writings about “The Global African Presence,” cited Lady Lugard, who described the ancient Ethiopians as “the most just of men,” referencing her remarks from her historical writings.
Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop fought against the false classification of Egypt as Mediterranean. He rooted Egyptian history firmly in its African context, presenting overwhelming cultural, linguistic, and anthropological evidence. From matriarchal family systems to African-style farming economies, Diop connected Ancient Egypt to broader African traditions. He further supported his claims in his seminal work The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, which continues to be a foundational text in Afrocentric historical scholarship.
He even identified linguistic links between ancient Egyptian and Chadic/Cushitic languages of Africa, demonstrating a common thread between the Nile Valley and the rest of the continent. Further evidence from rock art and mummy studies also points to indigenous African origins.
A Campaign of Cultural Erasure
Egypt’s current Arab rulers have gone to great lengths to erase this history. Former President Gamal Abdel Nasser declared Egypt an Arab Republic, severing ties with its African heritage.
When American filmmakers tried to produce a movie about Anwar Sadat, Egyptian authorities banned them because they had cast a Black actor. That one decision speaks volumes.
Religion as a Weapon of Power
Like the British used Christianity to colonize Africa, Arab leaders have used Islam to assert control over Black African populations.
From Libya’s interference in Ethiopia to pan-Arab political alliances, religion became a tool, not of faith, but of domination.
Second-Class in Their Own Lands
Across North African countries—Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan, Somalia, Mauritania—Blacks are often treated as second-class citizens.
In Mauritania, slavery has been abolished multiple times, yet it still quietly exists. Black Mauritanians were fired en masse from the civil service. Protests to the African Union were ignored.
Mauritania even left ECOWAS to join the Arab Maghreb Union, declaring its alignment with Arab nations over African ones.
Racism in Plain Sight
In Algeria, public racism is so normalized that Black people are stoned in open markets. In Mecca, Black Muslim pilgrims are routinely mistreated. After spending their life savings to visit the holy city, many return home maimed or broken.
It begs the question: If Mecca treats Black Muslims this way, should pilgrimage to it still be a pillar of faith for us?
The Sudan Crisis: Race War Disguised as Civil War
Arab expansion didn’t stop at the Sahara. Arab settlers have pushed deeper into Sudan, displacing the Nilotic Shilluk, Dinka, and Fur people—indigenous Black populations of Bilad as-Sudan (Land of the Blacks).
The war in Sudan is not merely a political conflict—it is a racial one. The Janjaweed militia, backed by Arab regimes, is engaged in ethnic cleansing.
Anthropological Evidence: Strong Afrocentric Arguments
Cheikh Anta Diop’s Anthropological Studies
Diop conducted melanin dosage tests on Egyptian mummies and argued from cultural, linguistic, and artistic perspectives that ancient Egyptians were Black Africans. He pointed to:
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Cranial morphology studies that link ancient Egyptians to other Nile Valley populations.
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Skin tone depictions in wall art (e.g., dark brown hues).
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Cultural parallels with other African societies, like matriarchy and totemism.
Diop’s core texts:
Rock Art and Visual Depictions
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Ancient Nubian art and Egyptian tomb paintings from earlier dynasties (e.g., Tomb of Ramses III, Tomb of Seti I) show Egyptians with broad features and deep skin tones.
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The “Four Races of Man” fresco at the tomb of Seti I depicts Egyptians as darker than Libyans, Asians, and Nubians, often in reddish-brown, suggesting indigenous African phenotypes.
Genetic Evidence: Mixed but Often Misinterpreted
Ancient DNA Studies (2017 and beyond)
The most cited 2017 study from Abusir el-Meleq (central Egypt, Roman period) found that these late-period mummies shared more ancestry with Levantine and Anatolian populations than Sub-Saharan Africans.
But here’s the nuance:
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These mummies were from the Greco-Roman period, long after foreign invasions and Arabization.
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Modern Nubians and Upper Egyptians retain more Sub-Saharan DNA, suggesting ancient southern Egyptians were more closely related to Black African populations.
Geographical Clues: Egypt Is in Africa
Egypt is geographically African. Its Nile Valley civilization developed alongside Nubia, Ethiopia, and Kush, all indisputably Black African civilizations. The ancient kingdom of Ta-Seti (Nubia) even predated Egypt.
The southern origin of Egyptian civilization, “Egypt is the gift of the Nile,” as Herodotus wrote, supports the idea of cultural and biological flow from the heart of Africa.
Suppression and Identity Erasure
Arabized governments in North Africa have historically downplayed Black African contributions, from banning Black actors from playing leaders like Sadat to rewriting textbooks.
Many anthropological and Afrocentric studies confirm that ancient Egyptians of earlier dynasties were Black Africans. While some modern DNA studies add complexity, they often reflect the racial mixing that came later due to conquest, migration, and colonization.
Ancient Egyptian art found in the Tomb of Seti I (KV17), one of the most elaborate and well-preserved royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, offers important clues about the racial identity of the ancient Egyptians, especially when interpreted in context with other anthropological, historical, and visual evidence.
Here’s what it tells us:
The Four Races of Man in Egyptian Iconography
In the Book of Gates—a funerary text painted on the tomb walls—the Egyptians depict four groups of people whom they believed populated the world:
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Reth (Egyptians) – Shown with reddish-brown skin.
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Aamu (Asiatics) – Lighter skin, pointed beards.
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Nehesu (Nubians) – Dark brown to black skin.
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Themehu (Libyans) – Often shown with light skin and feathered hair.
The Egyptians depict themselves (Reth) as distinct from both Nubians and Asiatics, but notably closer in skin tone and facial features to other Africans than to Europeans or Levantines. The visual evidence undermines any modern claims that the ancient Egyptians saw themselves as “white” in the modern racial sense.
Skin Tone as a Symbol
Egyptian art used symbolic color conventions, but also reflected real phenotypic observations. Men were usually painted with reddish-brown skin (symbolizing outdoor labor), and women with lighter tones (suggesting indoor life)—not because of race, but due to gendered cultural norms.
In Seti I’s tomb, these consistent depictions reflect Afrocentric physiognomy and complexion, further supporting the view that ancient Egyptians were a northeast African people with close cultural and biological ties to the Nubians to the south.
Nubian and Egyptian Interactions
The Egyptians often hired them as elite soldiers and intermarried with Nubian royalty during various dynasties. If Egyptians saw themselves as fundamentally different from other Black Africans, this would be unlikely.
Moreover, DNA analysis from mummies of earlier dynasties (e.g., from pre-Third Intermediate Period) shows sub-Saharan African affinity more strongly than later periods, which reflects increasing admixture due to Greco-Roman and Arab conquests long after Seti I.
Archaeological and Cranial Evidence
Anthropologists such as Cheikh Anta Diop and Shomarka Keita have examined the skeletal remains and concluded that the majority of pre-Ptolemaic Egyptians had tropical African cranial features consistent with populations in the Horn of Africa and the Nile Valley, not with Mediterranean Europeans or Arabs.
Eurocentric Revisionism
From Napoleon’s 19th-century campaign onward, Western scholars began aggressively whitewashing Egyptian history. The discovery of Seti I’s tomb in 1817 by Giovanni Belzoni occurred at the height of this colonial rewriting of African history.
Today, art from Seti I’s tomb, such as the “Four Races” friezes, remains one of the most debated artifacts because it visually contradicts the narrative of Egypt as a non-African civilization.
Africans Depicting Africans
The artwork in the Tomb of Seti I tells us that the ancient Egyptians saw themselves as a distinct African people, with cultural pride and physical features rooted in the continent’s northeast corridor. They recognized the difference, yes, but not supremacy. Race, as we know it, did not define their worldview.
In short, the pharaohs were not foreigners. They were African. And their walls told the story boldly in pigment, line, and spirit.
Wake Up, Africa
This is North Africa’s version of apartheid. Yet, much of Africa remains asleep.
Arab descendants continue to dominate leadership in countries that were once African strongholds. But winds of change are blowing across the region.
Will they be strong enough to reclaim history? To restore Black North Africans to their rightful place in the story of this continent?
Until then, justice is paused. And peace remains elusive.
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