Jacob Hudson Carruthers Jr. was an educator and historian. Carruthers was born on February 15, 1930, in Dallas, Texas, to unnamed parents. He attended Phyllis Wheatley High School in Houston, Texas, after his family relocated there. After high school, he attended Samuel Huston College in Austin, Texas, where he received his B.A. in 1950. After being drafted during the Korean War, Carruthers volunteered for the United States Air Force (USAF) in 1951.
Carruthers enrolled at Texas Southern University after serving in the USAF, where he earned an M.A. in Government in 1958. Carruthers taught at Prairie View College (now Prairie View A&M University) in Prairie View, Texas, from 1961 to 1964 before earning his Ph.D. in Political Studies from the University of Colorado in 1966, becoming the university’s first Black student to do so.
Carruthers then taught at Kansas State College in Pittsburg, Kansas, for two years before joining the Department of Inner City Studies Education (ICSE) facility at the Center for Inner City Studies of Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) in 1968. Carruthers was a professor of history and education at the Center of Inner City Studies of NEIU for thirty-two years.
Carruthers was instrumental in the creation of both undergraduate and graduate degrees in ICSE. His work influenced the careers of hundreds of students seeking work in inner-city urban environments across the United States. He also shaped the development of the ICSE academic discipline in the United States and fostered the Chicago School of African-Centered Thought. Carruthers had the opportunity to visit Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop in 1975, and was impressed by Diop’s knowledge and understanding of ancient Egypt’s history and its role in the development of civilization throughout Africa.
At the First Annual Ancient Egyptian Studies Conference in Los Angeles, California, Carruthers co-founded the African World History Project of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC) with John Henrik Clark, Asa Grant Hilliard, Leonard Jefferies, Yosef Ben-Jochannan, and Maulana Karenga. Carruthers was elected as the organization’s first president at this conference.
Carruthers also authored many books during his academic career that provided the framework for the African-centered approach to researching and studying classical African history and African civilization. During his career, Carruthers authored numerous books, including The Irritated Genie: An Essay on the Haitian Revolution (1984), MDW NTR: Diving Speech (1995), and Intellectual Welfare (1999).
Carruthers’ research challenged the prevailing ideas in Egyptology and promoted the heretofore ignored role of other African people in developing a culture in the ancient Nile Valley.
On January 4, 2004, Jacob Hudson Carruthers Jr. died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 73 in Chicago, Illinois. Carruthers was married to Mama Ife Carruthers, and the couple had three children together.