Cheikh Anta Diop -- Senegal
Cheikh Anta Diop born 29 December 1923 in Thieytou, 
Diourbel Region was a historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture. He is regarded as an important figure in the development of the Afrocentric viewpoint, in particular for his theory that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans.
Diop was born to an aristocratic Muslim Wolof family of the Mouride sect in Senegal, where he was educated in a traditional Islamic school. He obtained a bachelor's degree in Senegal before moving to Paris for graduate studies to become a physicist.
He remained there for 15 years studying under Frédéric Joliot-Curie, and ultimately translating parts of Einstein's Theory of Relativity into his native Wolof. Diop's education included History, Egyptology, Physics, Linguistics, Anthropology, Economics, and Sociology. He also studied under André Aymard, professor of History and later Dean of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Paris. As a student of Gaston Bachelard, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, André Leroi-Gourhan, and others" Diop "acquired proficiency in such diverse disciplines as rationalism, dialectics, modern scientific techniques, prehistoric archaeology etc." Diop was "the only Black African of his generation to have received training as an Egyptologist." He applied this encyclopaedic knowledge to his researches on African history.
In 1948 with Madeleine Rousseau, a professor of art history, Diop edited a special edition of the journal Musee vivant, published by the Association populaire des amis des musées. The special edition featured the abolition of slavery in the French colonies and an overview of contemporary African culture and society. Diop contributed an article to the journal: "Quand pourra-t-on parler d’une renaissance africaine" (When will we be able to speak of an African Renaissance?). He examined a wide range of fields and proposed that African culture should be rebuilt on the basis of ancient Egypt, in the same way that European culture was built upon the legacies of ancient Greece and Rome.
In 1951, Diop submitted a Ph.D. thesis at the University of Paris in which he argued that Black people had peopled ancient Egypt. He said that the Egyptian language and culture had later been spread to West Africa. He could not find a jury of examiners for his thesis, but in 1954, he published many of his ideas as the book Nations nègres et culture (Negro Nations and Culture). While continuing to study nuclear physics at the Collège de France, he continued to work on his thesis and finally obtained his doctorate in 1960.
Since his early days in Paris he had been politically active in the Rassemblement Democratique Africaine (RDA), and was general secretary of the RDA students in Paris from 1950 to 1953. The RDA students continued to be highly active in politicising the anti-colonial struggle and popularised the slogan "National independence from the Sahara to the Cape, and from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic." The movement’s key task was restoring the African national consciousness that had been warped by slavery and colonialism. It was particularly necessary to avoid the pitfall of facility. As it could seem tempting to delude the masses engaged in a struggle for national independence by manipulating scientific truth, by unveiling a mythical, embellished past. Diop believed that the political struggle for African independence would not succeed without acknowledging the civilizing role of the African, dating from ancient Egypt.
He return to Senegal in 1960, the same year, 
Senegal gained its independence and he continued what would be a life long political struggle. In the course of over 25 years Diop founded three political parties that formed the major opposition in Senegal, these parties opposed the pro-French policies of President Leopold Senghor’s government. "Black Africa : the economic and cultural basis for a federated state" is the book that best expresses Diop's political aims and objectives. In it he argues that only a united and federated African state will be able to overcome underdevelopment. This critical work constitutes a rational study of not only Africa's cultural, historic and geographic unity, but of Africa's potential for energy development and industrialisation.
Diop argues for the need to build a capable continental army, able to defend the continent and its people and proposes a plan for the development of Africa's raw materials and industrialisation. All these factors combined based on the formation of a federated and unified Africa. Culturally and otherwise, are surmised to be the only way for Africa to become the power in the world that she should rightfully be. In protest to the refusal of the Senghor administration to release political prisoners, Diop was largely absent from politics between 1966 - 1975.