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Leonard Jeffries

Leonard Jeffries Jr. (born 1937) is an African-American professor of Black Studies at the City College of New York, part of the City University of New York. Dr. Leonard Jeffries is a political scientist, historian, educator, master-teacher/administrator and Pan-Africanist. He was born and raised in Newark, NJ where as a young man, he first developed his leadership skills and Pan-African consciousness. He has recently been appointed the International Executive Director of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (O.A.A.U.), founded in 1964 by El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X). He is also a founding director and a former Vice-President and President of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC).He is known for his Pan-African Afrocentrist views and that the role of African people in history and the accomplishments of African Americans is far more important than commonly held. He accused the public school syllabi for Eurocentrism and demanded revisions.He achieved national prominence in the early 1990s when he claimed that Jews financed the slave trade, used the movie industry to hurt black people, and that whites are "ice people" while Africans are "sun people". Jeffries was discharged from his position as chairman of the black studies department at CUNY, leading to a lengthy legal battle. Dr. Jeffries was reinstated. In November 1994 the Supreme Court told the appeals court to reconsider after a related Supreme Court decision.