The next day — Aug. 8 — ASCAC held a banquet where the preeminent Black psychologist Dr. Na’im Akbar of Florida State University gave the conference’s keynote speech. Hilliard, who was on the main dais, had to be escorted out during Akbar’s speech because he was so ill.
“That’s the last time he appeared publicly,” Carr says.
Hilliard flew to Cairo and over the next four days his conditioned worsened until he passed away on Sunday. Hilliard and his wife, Patsy Jo, have four children.
On Tuesday, ASCAC conducted a ritual in the Valley of the Kings for Hilliard —who was the organization’s first international vice president. It was at the tomb of Thutmose IV, who was the eighth pharaoh during the 18th Egyptian dynasty.
“We did a libation, a ritual for him of ancestor return in the Valley of the Kings,” says Carr, in a telephone interview from Luxor. “In that ritual we noted that Asa Hilliard was in so many ways the founder of the modern African-centered education movement. He believed in the natural genius of African children and he believed in the purpose and function of education as it relates to developing our people. We like to refer to him in ASCAC as our Ptah-Hotep because in so many ways he was our wise instructor.”
--Ibram Rogers
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