I was saddened to hear of Brother Ali Salahuddin’s transition to the ancestral realm. He was a doer, a local entrepreneur, a community organizer, an activist, a visionary, an influencer, and an educator who made a profound impact on young people around the nation with his African Genesis Institute.
I met Ali and reconnected with his wife Helen, who I’ve known since elementary school in the early 1990s through the d’Zert Club. The d’Zert Club was created by Ali and Helen as a place for adolescents to gather to have fun in a safe supervised environment chaperoned by caring adults that later branched into an African and Afro-American history and cultural education initiative.
Ali and Helen recruited scholars like Dr. Ed Robinson, Runoko Rashidi, Wayne Chandler, and Anthony Browder to create a twenty-seven-month curriculum around African and African-American history. The program included trips across the country to trace several routes of the Underground Railroad, visit museums and historic sites in the US. The program culminated with a trip to Africa, Egypt (Kemet), or Ghana at no cost to the students. The students were required to learn the curriculum, study and show proficiency in the material, maintain regular attendance, participate in the field trips and promote the program.
I was blessed to go on three of their trips to Egypt, where we took several hundred students, including chaperones on study tours to the Nile Valley. We visited Cairo, toured the pyramids, museums, we traveled to the Valley of the Kings and Queens, Luxor, and Aswan. These were study tours where knowledgeable guides and scholars showed us the legacy of African genius, dispelling the lies about Kemet not being an African society.
This was accomplished through Ali and Helen’s belief in self-determination, the power of education, and working together. Their motto was, “It is better to build a child than repair an adult.” Initially, they received no government funds or support; they expanded the program from the Delaware Valley to over twelve cities around the country. Their success garnered recognition from educators and elected officials in Philadelphia and around the country.
Ali and Helen’s calm demeanor, focus, and vision were ever-present assets that served as role models to the youngsters aged eight through fourteen and the adults who participated in the program. The students were expected to be attentive and well behaved, and they were. The chaperones were held to a high standard and the program’s curriculum was life-changing in the way it showed young people from cities like Philadelphia, New York, Newark, Baltimore Washington D.C., and elsewhere what their ancestors had done and that they too had the same brilliance and potential within them. Ali and Helen exposed the children, their parents, and supporters to giants in the field of African and African American history, and their field trips helped expand the horizons and knowledge base of so many students, parents, and chaperones.
In addition to his tireless work with the African Genesis Institute, Ali was involved in getting out the vote campaigns, Juneteenth, and economic empowerment campaigns to promote economic viability and sufficiency in the city. Ali was a driving force for empowerment and was a regular on Michael Coard’s Sunday radio program on WURD, expounding upon one project or another he was working on.
Ali Salahuddin grew up in Philadelphia and attended public schools here in the city, graduating from Olney High School as Phillip Dixon. He matriculated to Howard University and graduated with a degree in accounting. Returning to Philadelphia upon graduation, he embarked on a business career starting and partnering in several successful business ventures.
Ali leaves a powerful legacy of community involvement and improvement and an irreplaceable energy. He will be sorely missed. We have lost a good brother.
