Runoko Rashidi (born 1954) is a writer and public lecturer based in Los Angeles. His academic focus is on "the Black foundations of world civilizations". Many of his claims are disputed, however, as evidenced by various anthropological and DNA studies. He has coordinated educational group tours to India, Aboriginal Australia, the Fiji Islands and Southeast Asia, as well as to Egypt and Brazil.

Rashidi rejects what he says are the claims by European anthropologists that the Negritos, Australoids, Negroids and Arabic peoples are separate ethnic groups. He claims that they are all "Africoid" or "Black". He believes European anthropologists have used "unscientific" and "invalid" methods and that their work was "racially motivated" to divide peoples whom he thinks are Africoid in race. He cites Cheikh Diop's statement on race:

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Since the later 20th and early 21st centuries, academic theorists have generally rejected such definitions of race; instead, they define it as a social construct along a continuum, rather than a strict biological reality. In addition, as the most genetically diverse continent on Earth , the African continent possesses as much ethnic variation among so-called "negroid" peoples as among sister populations outside the continent.