Asa Grant Hilliard, III 1933–2007

Educator, psychologist, historian

Asa Grant Hilliard III, also known as Nana Baffour Amankwatia II, had a profound effect on the teaching of children, particularly blacks and other ethnic minorities. He believed that all children were capable of achieving excellence. The keys to achievement were high expectations, well-trained teachers, and the abandonment of standardized testing. Hilliard was a pioneer in the rediscovery of the African roots of modern civilization and a leading proponent of an Afrocentric school curriculum that emphasized the historical achievements of blacks to promote students' self-esteem. Hilliard authored more than a thousand publications on subjects including educational policy, teaching strategies, testing, child growth and development, and African history and culture. Several of his programs for teaching, assessment, and pluralistic curricula became national models. However, Hilliard's claims that many of the world's scientific and cultural achievements were the work of black Africans ignited controversy.

Raised in a Family of Teachers

Asa Grant Hilliard III was born on August 22, 1933, in Galveston, Texas, the oldest of eight children. His father and grandfather were high school principals, and his mother, aunts, an uncle, and numerous other relatives and friends were teachers. His mother eventually became a Pentecostal minister. Hilliard attended a segregated school in Galveston, and his tight-knit extended family was deeply involved in the Civil Rights movement. However, after his parents' divorce his mother depended on welfare. The family moved to Denver, Colorado, where Hilliard attended integrated schools. His childhood dream was to become an architect, but his high school teachers said that he was not smart enough to go to college and steered him into vocational training courses.

Hilliard told the Atlanta Tribune that his interest in African history and culture was sparked “when I was a little child, it was outrage at the images of African people in the United States…. The next jump-off point was when I became a professional in psychology and I found out that one of the places where the image was also distorted was the image of our intellect based on IQ testing and the idea that white people are [thought to be] superior to black people because of tests.”

Hilliard put himself through the University of Denver working for the railroad and as a cook, waiter, and bartender, graduating with a degree in educational psychology in 1955. After a stint in the U.S. Army he taught high school psychology, mathematics, and American history in Denver's public school system. Hilliard completed a master's degree in counseling and a doctorate in educational psychology with a teaching fellowship from the University of Denver College of Education and the College of Arts and Sciences Honors Program in philosophy. Professor Phillip Perdue emphasized to Hilliard that it was important to be involved in professional associations to acquire influence and effect change.

For the next eighteen years Hilliard was on the faculty of San Francisco State University, including two years as department chair and eight years as Dean of Education. His wife, Patsy Jo, was a board member of the South San Francisco Unified School District. In 1980 Hilliard was named Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Urban Education at Georgia State University in Atlanta, with joint appointments in the Departments of Educational Policy Studies and Educational Psychology/Special Education. He remained there for the rest of his life. His wife served as mayor of East Point, Georgia.

Developed Afrocentric Curricula

During the 1960s Hilliard spent six years in Liberia as a consultant to the Peace Corps, a school psychologist, and, for two years, superintendent of schools in Monrovia. Hilliard returned to Africa many times, studying the Dogon and Akan peoples of West Africa. For thirty years he conducted ancient history study tours of Egypt and Ghana. Hilliard formed Waset Education Productions to produce videos and educational materials on African history and, with his daughter, founded Makare Publishing.

Hilliard put his educational philosophy into practice as a consultant for public school systems. For a decade beginning in about 1970, he consulted on special education for the Detroit Public Schools. He cochaired the First National Conference on the Infusion of African and African-American Content in the School Curriculum. In Oregon he worked on teacher-training guides known as the African-American or Portland Baseline Essays. This controversial program presented ancient black Egypt as the birthplace of the philosophical, mathematical, and scientific theories that shaped Western civilization. Hilliard helped implement the program in the Atlanta public school system, and it was adopted in Portland, Detroit, and elsewhere. Critics maintained that the curriculum taught pseudoscience and pseudohistory. However, Hilliard told the Washington Post: “We mis-teach European history, as we mis-teach American history. Basically, what we should be teaching is the whole story, the truth.” Hilliard argued that black Americans suffer from a disrupted cultural heritage and “cultural surrender” to white society. He also agitated for the inclusion of Hispanic, Asian, and Native American history and culture in school curricula.

At a Glance …

Born August 22, 1933, in Galveston, TX; died August 13, 2007, in Cairo, Egypt; son of Asa G. Hilliard II and Dr. Lois O. Williams; married Patsy Jo Morrison; children: Asa G. Hilliard IV, Robi Hilliard Herron, Patricia E. Hilliard-Nunn, Michael Hakim Hilliard. Military service: U.S. Army, First Lieutenant, 1955-57. Education: University of Denver, BA, 1955, MA, 1961, EdD, 1963.

Career: Denver (CO) Public Schools, high school teacher, 1957-60; San Francisco State University, professor, 1963-80, Dean of Education, 1972-80; Monrovia, Liberia, Peace Corps consultant, school psychologist, Superintendent of Schools, 1964(?)-70; consultant for school districts, universities, education organizations, textbooks, educational videos, 1970-2007; Waset Education Productions and Makare Publishing, Gainesville, FL, founder; Oakland University, Stanford University, University of New Mexico, Harvard University, visiting professor; Georgia State University, Atlanta, Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Urban Education, 1980-2007.

Selected memberships: Alliance of Black School Educators, San Francisco Chapter founder; American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, board; American Psychology Association, fellow, board of ethnic and minority affairs; Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, founding member, vice president; National Black Child Development Institute, founding board member.

Selected awards: Republic of Liberia, Knight Commander of the Humane Order of African Redemption, 1972; American Association of Colleges for Teachers, Thurgood Marshall Award for Excellence; American Association of Higher Education Black Caucus, Harold Delaney Exemplary Educational Leadership Award; American Educational Research Association, Distinguished Career Contribution Award, Research and Development Award for Excellence; honorary doctorates from DePaul University, Wheelock College.

During the 1970s Hilliard authored a study for the California State Department of Education on alternatives to IQ testing for identifying gifted minority children. In his essay “The Standards Movement” Hilliard wrote: “IQ is the biggest scam in the history of education. Nobody needs IQ testing. Nobody benefits….” Hilliard helped develop several national assessment systems, including a proficiency assessment for professional educators and developmental assessments of infants and young children. However, he worried about cultural bias in testing and the use of assessments in place of educational reform. As a board-certified foren- sic examiner and diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Examiners and the American Board of Forensic Medicine, Hilliard served as an expert witness in several landmark federal and Supreme Court cases involving the validity and biases of assessment tests.

Promoted Educational Excellence

Hilliard was astounded when he first witnessed William Johntz's SEED program in 1970. Here were poor black sixth-graders learning high-level mathematics in an egalitarian, high-energy, and totally engaged manner. However, it was apparent to him that the method required public school teachers with a profound knowledge of mathematics, a very rare commodity.

In Young, Gifted, and Black Hilliard wrote: “Successful teaching experience with traditionally low-performing students should be a qualifying criterion for experts who make pronouncements about teaching and learning.” Hilliard saw the “quality-of-service” gap that plagued low-income schools as the only valid explanation for lower achievement among black students. He wrote: “Ordinary teachers and ordinary principals with extraordinary commitment and energies can transform ordinary schools, and even failing schools, into islands of hope in a sea of despair.”

In an interview with Intervention in School & Clinic, Hilliard talked about the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002: “I know very few people associated with the implementation who are themselves successful practitioners, or worse, that even know anything about who the successful practitioners are…. [NCLB] is essentially test driven. That's where almost all the resources are going in order, supposedly, to have accountability.” He continued, “Not only are these tests not valid for the diverse groups that make up the country but they're not valid for anyone…. The assessments are meant to measure standards, but the standards aren't high at all, being little more than minimum competency, because we don't really believe that we can reach the highest standards of quality.”

In 2001 Hilliard was installed as Development Chief of Mankranso Village in the Ashanti region of Ghana and given the name Nana Baffour Amankwatia II, meaning “generous one.” Hilliard died of complications from malaria in Cairo, Egypt, on August 13, 2007. Thousands of people attended his memorial at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Marian Wright Edelman wrote in the New York Beacon: “We lost a giant … a pioneering scholar … a special kind of freedom fighter who struggled to liberate us from the bondage of ignorance of our rich African heritage.”

Selected works

Books

The Intellectual Strengths of Black Children and Adolescents: A Challenge to Pseudo Science, Institute of Afrikan Research, 1974.

(With others) From Ancient Africa to African-Americans Today, Portland Public Schools, 1983.

(Editor, with Barbara Sizemore) Saving the African American Child, National Alliance of Black School Educators, 1984.

(With Bettye M. Caldwell) What Is Quality Child Care? National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1985.

(Editor, with Larry Williams and Nia Hilliard Damali) The Teachings of Ptahhotep: The Oldest Book in the World, Blackwood Press, 1987.

Fifty Plus Essential References on the History of African People, Black Classic Press, 1993.

The Maroon Within Us: Selected Essays on African American Community Socialization, Black Classic Press, 1995.

(Editor) Testing African American Students, Third World Press, 1995.

SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind, rev. ed., Makare Publishing, 1998.

African Power: Affirming African Indigenous Socialization in the Face of the Cultural Wars, Makare Publishing, 2002.

(Editor, with Nefertari Patricia Hilliard-Nunn) True of Voice: The Poetry of Listervelt Middleton, Makare Publishing, 2003.

(With Theresa Perry and Claude Steele) Young, Gifted, and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African American Students, Beacon Press, 2003.

Book chapters

“I.Q. Testing as the Emperor's New Clothes,” in Perspective on Bias in Mental Testing, ed. Cecil Reynolds and Robert E. Brown, Plenum Press, 1984, pp. 139-169.

“Historical Perspectives of Black Families,” in Proceedings of the Black Family Summit, National Urban League, 1985.

“Blacks in Antiquity: A Review,” in African Presence in Early Europe, ed. Ivan Van Sertima, Transaction, 1985, 2000.

“Waset, the Eye of Ra and the Abode of Maat: The Pinnacle of Black Leadership in the Ancient World,” in Egypt Revisited, ed. Ivan Van Sertima, Transaction, 1991.

“Mathematical Excellence for Cultural Minority Students: What Is the Problem?” in Prospects for School Mathematics: Seventy-Five Years of Progress, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1995.

“Race, Identity, Hegemony, and Education: What Do We Need to Know Now?” in Race and Education,ed. William Watkins, James Lewis, and Victoria Chou, Allyn & Bacon, 2001, pp. 7-33.

“Language, Culture, and the Assessment of African American Children,” in The Skin We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom, ed. Lisa D. Delpit and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, New Press, 2002.

“If We Had the Will to See It Happen,” in Letters to the Next President: What We Can Do About the Real Crisis in Public Education, ed. Carl D. Glickman, Teachers College Press, 2004.

“The Meaning of KMT (Ancient Egyptian) History for Contemporary African American Experience,” in Africana Legacy: Diasporic Studies in the Americas, ed. Cecily Barker McDaniel and Tekla Ali Johnson, Tapestry Press, 2006.

Periodicals

“Psychological Factors Associated with Language in the Education of the African-American Child,” Journal of Negro Education, 1983, pp. 24-34.

“The Cultural Unity of Black Africa: The Domains of Patriarchy and of Matriarchy in Classical Antiquity,” Journal of African Civilizations, 1986, pp. 102-109.

“Back to Binet: The Case Against the Use of IQ Tests in the Schools,” Contemporary Education, 1990, pp. 184-189.

“Do We Have the Will to Educate All Children?” Educational Leadership, 1991, pp. 31-36.

“What Good Is This Thing Called Intelligence and Why Bother to Measure It?,” Journal of Black Psychology, 1994, pp. 430-44.

“Excellence in Education versus High-Stakes Standardized Testing,” Journal of Teacher Education, 2000, pp. 293-304.

Videorecordings

Free Your Mind: Return to the Source, African Origins, Waset Education Productions, 1986.

Testing and Tracking, National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1989.

(With Ela Aktay) Cultural Diversity and Student Achievement: A Basic Necessity, Skylight Professional Development, 1999.

First People, Our People: Ancient Egypt Revealed, MEE Productions, 2001.

Online

“Cultural Pluralism in Education,” Africa Within,http://www.africawithin.com/hilliard/cultural_pluralism.htm (accessed November 14, 2007).

“The Standards Movement: Quality Control or Decoy?” Africa Within,http://www.africawithin.com/hilliard/standards_movement.htm (accessed November 15, 2007).

Sources

Periodicals

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 8, 1999, p. JD9; August 14, 2007, p. B5.

Atlanta Tribune: The Magazine, February 2006, p. 14.

Educational Leadership, May 1999, pp. 58-62.

Intervention in School & Clinic, November 2004, pp. 96-105.

New York Beacon, October 11-17, 2007, p. 23.

Washington Post, August 16, 2007, p. B7.

Online

“Asa Hilliard Biography,” The History Makers, http://thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=552&category=EducationMakes (accessed November 15, 2007).

“Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard, III,” Africa Within,http://www.africawithin.com/hilliard/hilliard_bio1.htm (accessed November 14, 2007).

“Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III Biography,” College of Education, Georgia State University,http://education.gsu.edu/main/1641.html (accessed November 15, 2007).

“Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard, III, Pan-Africanist, Educator, Historian and Psychologist, Has Passed from This Life,” Asa G. Hilliard,http://www.asaghilliard.net (accessed November 15, 2007).

“Maintaining the Faith in Teachers' Ability to Grow: An Interview with Asa Hilliard,” Africa Within,http://www.africawithin.com/hilliard/faith_in_teacher.htm (accessed November 15, 2007).

“Tribute to Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard III (1933-2007), " Black Britain,http://www.blackbritain.co.uk/feature/details/120/USA/ (accessed November 15, 2007).

—Margaret Alic