Celebrating Dr. Ben’s extraordinary life

AMSTERDAM NEWS | 4/9/2015

As family and friends prepare to commemorate the lifelong achievements of renowned factologist, Dr. Yosef A. A. ben-Jochannan, affectionately known as “Dr. Ben,” at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, 132 W. 138th St., Thursday and Friday, April 9 and 10, thousands from all walks of life are expected to attend.
He was born Yosef Alfredo Antonio ben-Johannas, Dec. 31, 1918, in Ethiopia, the homeland of his father, Kriston ben-Jochannas. When he was 6 years old, the family moved to Fajardo, Puerto Rico, the native town of his mother, Julia Matta, where his younger sister was born.
The family practiced the Beta Israel way of life, and ben-Jochannan credited his parents for instilling the hardened discipline in him that allowed him to feed his insatiable appetite for knowledge.
When ben-Jochannan was a teenager, his father suggested he go to Egypt and study that country’s Black heritage. He made his first voyage there in 1938. And until the late 1990s, “Dr. Ben’s Alkebu-Lan Educational Tours” conducted annual fact-finding journeys to Egypt, taking hundreds at a time.
During his early years, ben-Jochannan also spent time in St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he was heavily influenced by Pan-African pioneers Edward Wilmot Blyden and Hubert Harrison.

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