Meet the CIP National Leadership Team
Anthony (Tony) Browder is an author, publisher, cultural historian, artist, and an educational consultant. He is a graduate of Howard University’s College of Fine Arts and has lectured extensively throughout the USA, Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico, Japan and Europe, on issues related to African and African American history and culture. He has traveled to Egypt 61 times since 1980 and is director of the ASA Restoration Project, which is funding the excavation and restoration of the 25th dynasty tomb of Karakhamun in Luxor, Egypt. He is the author of six publications (including the best sellers, “From the Browder File” and “Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization”) and the co-author of six publications, including two written with his now 41-year-old daughter, Atlantis Tye. Between 2014 and 2018, Tony Browder taught students in San Jose, California, using his books, “Survival Strategies for Africans in America: 13 Steps to Freedom” and “From the Browder File: 22 Essays on the African American Experience.” While on Tony’s 22nd study tour to Egypt in August 2017, interest was generated in replicating aspects of the San Jose model in other cities. In 2018, Tony and Debra Watkins collaborated to create a national model of the Cultural Imperative Program in multiple cities across the United States.
Debra Watkins is Founder Emerita and Director of Strategic Partnerships of A Black Education Network (ABEN). For 35 years Debra taught in the East Side Union High School District of San Jose, and has made major strides in the field of education including helping to start an alternative school and developing a culturally responsive intervention program for African American students. Debra is committed to assisting youth in reaching their full potential by facilitating academic and cultural excellence, and using culturally informed research, technology, visionary parent education and networking in our communities here and in the diaspora.
Atlantis T. Browder is an educator, curriculum writer, historian, and author of three children’s books about her travels to Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, Gambia and the Ivory Coast. At the age of 8, Atlantis coauthored her first book, “My First Trip to Africa” and has travelled and lectured throughout the United States, in South America, Europe, and the Caribbean to teach African history and share her experiences as a young author and historian. Atlantis is currently the National Director of the Cultural Imperative Program and has developed an engaging and culturally relevant curriculum to compliment the program text, “From the Browder File: 22 Essays on the African American experience.”
