Runoko Rashidi is a historian, research specialist, writer, world traveler, and public lecturer focusing on the African presence globally and the African foundations of world civilizations.  He is particularly drawn to the African presence in Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands.  In March 1999, he coordinated a historic tour to India called Looking at India through African Eyes.  In March 2000, he toured Viti Levu, Fiji, while in July 2000, he coordinated an educational tour to Aboriginal Australia titled Looking at Australia through African Eyes.

Runoko is the author of Introduction to the Study of African Classical Civilizations (published by Karnak House in London in 1993), the editor, along with Dr. Ivan Van Sertima of Rutgers University, of the African Presence in Early Asia, considered “the most comprehensive volume on the subject yet produced” (published by Transaction Press, and now in its third edition), and a major pamphlet titled the Global African Community: The African Presence in Asia, Australia and the South Pacific (published by the Institute of Independent Education in 1994).  In 1995, he completed editing Unchained African Voices, a collection of poetry and prose by Death Row inmates at California’s San Quentin maximum-security prison.

Runoko Rashidi is a prolific writer and essayist. His historical essays have been prominently featured in virtually all of the critically acclaimed Journal of Civilizations anthologies edited by Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, and cover the broad spectrum of the African presence globally. Rashidi’s Journal of African Civilizations essays include: “African Goddesses: Mothers of Civilization,” “Ancient and Modern Britons,” “The African Presence in Prehistoric America,” “A Tribute to Dr. Chancellor James Williams,” “Ramses the Great: The Life and Times of a Bold Black Egyptian King,” “The Moors in Antiquity,” “The Royal Ships of the Pharaohs,” and the “Nile Valley Presence in Asian Antiquity.”

Included among the notable African scholars that Runoko has worked with and been influenced by are: Dr. John Henrik Clarke, John G. Jackson, Yosef A.A. Ben-Jochannan, Dr. Chancellor James Williams, Dr. Charles B. Copher, Dr. Edward Vivian Scobie, Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III, Charles S. Finch, M.D., Dr. James E. Brunson, Legrand H. Clegg II, and Dr. Jan Carew.   He believes that his principle missions in life are to help make Africans proud of themselves, to help change the way Africa is viewed in the world, and to help reunite a family of people that has been separated far too long.