We Are Here. | Spring 2026

The Department of African and Black Diaspora Studies

Spring 2026 Spring 2026 Newsletter Newsletter

WE ARE HERE.

Cover Art Cover Art by by Jeremy Battle Jeremy Battle

Table of Contents 3

Letter from the Chair

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Fall Course Descriptions

5-6

Student Art Spotlight

7

Senior Reflection

8-9

Major and Minor Info

10-12

Faculty Reading, Watching, and Listening Recommendations

13

Interdisciplinary Studies Fest

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ABD Podcast

Message from the Department Chair Dr. Chernoh Sesay Welcome to the Spring 2026 issue of We Are Here, the African and Black Diaspora Studies Department’s newsletter. And, yes, despite these interesting times, “We Are Here!”

First, I want to highlight the determined effort of ABD student and office assistant, Charisse Conard, to make this newsletter happen. This publication is due entirely to her effort. Thank you Charisse!

As the new Chair of ABD, I stand in the footsteps of giants. This, my first year as the new chair of ABD, follows from an important history that requires a brief retelling. In spring of 2002, funding was approved to start what was then, the African and Black Diaspora Studies program. Dr. Daryl Moore and Dr. Francesca Royster were the first Directors of this inaugural Program. In 2003, ABD hired its first dedicated full-time faculty, Dr. Julie Moody-Freeman and Dr. Amor Kohli. Pioneers of ABD, Dr. Moody-Freeman served as Chair from 2012 to 2015 (and as Interim Chair during 2023-2024) with Dr. Kohli taking the reins of leadership for 3 successive terms, from 2015 to 2025. Three years after becoming Chair, Dr. Kohli lead ABD from program to department. I thank Dr. Moody-Freeman and Dr. Royster for helping to build a vibrant and dynamic academic unit that is vital to DePaul’s self-understanding as a mission driven university. And special thanks to Dr. Kohli. Even as he stepped away from ABD leadership, he continued laboring in various and critical ways to ensure my smooth transition into the position of chair. Again, thank you, Dr. Royster, Dr. Moody-Freeman, and Dr. Kohli!

msg from chair

Thank you to all the ABD majors and minors for their support of ABD inside and outside the classroom this year! And congratulations to the graduating ABD majors and minors!

A special congratulations goes out to Karmen Johnson who, this year, was awarded the Emmett Till Scholarship and named the ABD Outstanding Senior. Karmen has been accepted to law school, and ABD will miss her! However, Karmen is leaving us with words of wisdom. Dig further into this issue to read her reflections on ABD and DePaul.

ABD is excited that two of its term faculty are coming back next year! Dr. Samantha Davis is returning as the ABD Ida B. WellsBarnett Postdoctoral Fellow, and Dr. Taurean Webb is coming back as the ABD Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow in Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies.

ABD wants to congratulate Dr. Symone Johnson and Dr. Julie Moody-Freeman for both being awarded DePaul’s Social Transformation Research Collaborative Faculty Fellowship! And as they step away, in the fall, ABD will welcome back Dr. Xorla Ocloo, who was a recipient, last year, of the Social Transformation Research Collaborative Faculty Fellowship. ABD also wants everybody to know that Dr. Lori Pierce has begun her phased retirement. Please take the time to catch up with Dr. Pierce as she gets closer to ending a great career at DePaul.

ABD wishes you a great summer, and as you begin your summer, we invite you into this issue, where you will find student art work and reading recommendations from ABD faculty and friends.

See you in the fall!

NEWSLETTER EDITOR: Charisse Conard, Office Assistant ‘27 COVER ART: Jeremy Battle MODEL: Nel Afenya

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Student Art Student Art Spotlight Spotlight LIBERATION

By Genesis Coffey ABD Minor Read the artist’s statement here!

Liberation is a series carved on plexiglass transferred through ink on paper. Though those who have been incarcerated due to cannabis possession have declined, 200,000 arrests are made annually. Thousands remain in local jails and state prisons, and Black individuals are, on average, 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis use, while facing racial discrimination throughout this process (https://graphics.aclu.org/marijuanaarrest-report/). As cannabis consumption becomes legalized, those who have been impacted still face injustice. This piece reflects the collateral consequences as those who fight for liberation deserve a chance at life. The colors, scratches and roughness signify the erasure, feeling and fight that goes unnoticed. The chains and emotion are something, throughout history, Black folks are familiar with, however in history the name wasn't incarceration, it was slavery.

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Excerpt from the Cover Artist

For decades, darkskin has been a blind spot in photo education. Where light skin reflects light, dark skin absorbs it, and the two need to be lit differently. Often without knowing why, Black people everywhere know the feeling of seeing themselves in a school picture or group photo where they just look a little off. It's a subtle form of racism that pervades our most accessible form of visual art. This piece draws attention to light and features the work of trailblazing Black photographers like Gordon Parks and Michelle Agins, who understood this problem intuitively.

Jeremy Battle

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Senior Reflection with

Karmen Johnson Major: African and Black Diaspora Studies

What initially attracted you to ABD? I was a DePaul Social Transformation Research Collaborative (STRC) summer student and met a lot of ABD faculty. The ABD faculty were very welcoming and encouraged me to explore the major further. One class during my first fall quarter made me decide ABD was for me.

How did ABD shape your college experience?

I believe if I majored in anything else I would not have had as many unique experiences that deeply connected with my identity. I was able to do research of female genital mutilation and even go to South Africa.

I don’t think I would have had those experiences or opportunities if I chose a different major.

How did ABD shape your career goals?

My classes, especially classes focused on the civil rights era, always connected the law to how Black people position themselves in society. Fighting for freedom, good jobs, nice homes, basic human rights, etc. and how laws continue to oppress minorities is so transparent. My classes taught me about the direct and indirect ways laws target Black people and other Minorites, which helped me solidify my interest in Civil Rights law.

Why should any student at DePaul become an ABD major or minor?

The ABD department is what I would call small but mighty. All professors in the department truly want you to succeed and will work with you. The ABD major is a major where you will not only learn about Black history, but about law, religion, history all over the world, art, and more. It’s an allencompassing major, a little bit of everything.

If you had a favorite professor or professors, who were they and what impact or impacts did they have on you?

The ABD department has so many great professors! I had a few classes with Professor Moody-Freeman, and she truly is a ray of sunshine, so encouraging and helpful.

Professor Sesay is very knowledgeable about religion and its role in the Black community which helped with some of my class research. Professor Ocloo’s class inspired my research topic of Female Genital Mutilation in Africa. Finally, one of the best professors at DePaul as a whole is professor Oppong Wadie. She has encouraged me so much throughout my time at DePaul. Although she isn’t an ABD professor, I learned so much about Black history and culture through our chats.

What were some of your favorite ABD courses?

Some of my favorite ABD classes were Black Feminist theory, African history 1800s1900s, and my study abroad class about segregation and the South African system of apartheid, with Dr. Valerie Johnson.

What advice would you give to your past selfprior to attending college?

I’d tell myself it’s a marathon not a race.

There’s plenty of time to find your interests and make an impact on campus.

Take your time and give yourself grace.

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JORIN A IN AFRICAN+BLACK DIASPORA STUDIES

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MAJOR & MINOR INFO

four core classes

ABD 100: INTRO TO ABD ABD 200: AFRICA ABD 206: AFRO-CARIBBEAN & LATIN AMERICA ABD 208: AFRICAN AMERICA four 300-level courses

13 COURSES

200-LEVEL AND ABOVE

four electives senior capstone

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ORIN N I IN AFRICAN+BLACK DIASPORA STUDIES

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ABD 100: INTRO TO ABD

one core course one of the following

ABD 200: AFRICA ABD 206: AFRO-CARIBBEAN & LATIN AMERICA ABD 208: AFRICAN AMERICA

6 COURSES

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four additional courses

AT 200-LEVEL OR ABOVE CONSULT WITH ABD ADVISOR

DUAL DEGREES Double Majoring

Fulfill the ABD major Fulfill your additional major Double count domain credits

4+1: combined ABD B.A. + Critical Ethnic Studies M.A.

3+3: ABD + Law School

Complete ABD B.A. requirements

Complete ABD B.A. requirements in 3 years

CES M.A. courses can fulfill ABD B.A. requirements

3 years for DePaul College of Law J.D. degree

Earn B.A. and M.A. in 5 years

Still graduate on time Double Demon Discount eligible

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r s e r s ii nn e e e r r aa

aa bd

LAW

HIGHER EDUCATION

ART

HUMAN RESOURCES

JOURNALISM

ADVERTISING

CONSULTANCY

ATHLETICS

ACTIVISM

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

MEDIA

TECH

HEALTHCARE

POLITICS

SECONDARY EDUCATION

AND MORE!

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FACULTY READING RECOMMENDATIONS SAVINGS AND TRUST: THE RISE AND BETRAYAL OF THE FREEDMAN’S BANK Justene Hill Edwards Fully informed by new archival findings, historian Justene Hill Edwards unearths a major turning point in American history in this comprehensive account of the Freedman’s Bank and its depositors.

She illuminates the hope with which the bank was first envisioned and demonstrates the significant setback that the sabotage of the bank caused in the fight for economic autonomy. A page-turning story filled with both well-known figures like Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Jay and Henry Cooke, and General O. O. Howard, and less well-known figures like Dr. Charles B. Purvis, John Mercer Langston, Congressman Robert Smalls, and Ellen Baptiste Lubin. Savings and Trust is necessary reading for those seeking to understand the roots of racial economic inequality in America.

Recommended by Dr. Lori Pierce

ANCIENT AFRICA: A GLOBAL HISTORY, TO 300 CE Christopher Ehret This book brings together archaeological and linguistic evidence to provide a sweeping global history of ancient Africa, tracing how the continent played an important role in the technological, agricultural, and economic transitions of world civilization. Christopher Ehret takes readers from the close of the last Ice Age some ten thousand years ago, when a changing climate allowed for the transition from hunting and gathering to the cultivation of crops and raising of livestock, to the rise of kingdoms and empires in the first centuries of the common era.

Recommended by Dr. Mark DeLancey

THE SURFACE OF THINGS: A HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE SWAHILI COAST Prita Meler Immersing readers in the globally interconnected networks of eastern Africa’s port cities, Prita Meier demonstrates how photographs are not static images but mobile objects with remarkable shape-shifting qualities. Featuring more than two hundred images published here for the first time, The Surface of Things repositions the continent’s islands and archipelagos at the center of global photographic histories and shows how the people of the African Indian Ocean world experienced photography as a force of both oppression and freedom.

Recommended by Dr. Mark DeLancey

AFRICA’S STRUGGLE FOR ITS ART: HISTORY OF A POSTCOLONIAL DEFEAT Bénédicte Savoy For decades, African nations have fought for the return of countless works of art stolen during the colonial era and placed in Western museums. In Africa’s Struggle for Its Art, Bénédicte Savoy brings to light this largely unknown but deeply important history. One of the world’s foremost experts on restitution and cultural heritage, Savoy investigates extensive, previously unpublished sources to reveal that the roots of the struggle extend much further back than prominent recent debates indicate, and that these efforts were covered up by myriad opponents. Making the case for why restitution is essential to any future relationship between African countries and the West, Africa’s Struggle for Its Art will shape conversations around these crucial issues for years to come.

Recommended by Dr. Mark DeLancey

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FACULTY READING RECOMMENDATIONS A PASSIONATE MIND IN RELENTLESS PURUIT: THE VISION OF MARY MCLEOD BETHUNE Noliwe Rooks When Mary McLeod Bethune died, tributes in newspapers around the country said the same thing: she should be on the Mount Rushmore of Black American achievement. Indeed, Bethune is the only Black American whose statue stands in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol, and yet for most, she remains a marble figure from the dim past. Now, seventy years later, Noliwe Rooks turns Bethune from stone to flesh, showing her to have been a visionary leader with lessons to still teach us as we continue on our journey toward a freer and more just nation.

Recommended by Dr. Julie Moody-Freeman

GATHER: BLACK FOOD, NOURISHMENT, AND THE ART OF TOGETHERNESS Ashanté M Reese In Gather, anthropologist Ashanté M. Reese argues for a vibrant new vision of food justice that places Black communities at the center and offers us a visionary, delicious path forward. Reese reveals that to truly create equity in our food systems, we must embrace the abundance that already exists around us—and recognize that the social body is as important as our individual health Gather presents rich, on-the-ground stories of gathering around food in four spaces—gardens, family reunions, repasts, and protests. Blending rich storytelling with analysis, these chapters argue for the political power of food and invite us to learn from the tactics Black communities have long used to create sustainable, systemic change.

Recommended by Dr. Symone Johnson

THIS IS THE HONEY: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY BLACK POETS Kwame Alexander

In this comprehensive and vibrant poetry anthology, bestselling author and poet Kwame Alexander curates a collection of contemporary anthems at turns tender and piercing and deeply inspiring throughout. Featuring work from well-loved poets such as Rita Dove, Jericho Brown, Warsan Shire, Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith, Terrance Hayes, Morgan Parker, and Nikki Giovanni, This Is the Honey is a rich and abundant offering of language from the poets giving voice to generations of resilient joy, “each incantation,” as Mahogany L. Browne puts it in her titular poem, is “a jubilee of a people dreaming wildly.”

Recommended by Dr. Symone Johnson

MEDITATIONS OF THE HEART Howard Thurman, Yolanda Pierce Howard Thurman’s Meditations of the Heart is a beautiful collection of over 150 prayers, poems, and meditations on prayer, community, and the joys and rituals of life by one of our greatest spiritual leaders. Thurman, a spiritualist and mystic, was renowned for the quiet beauty of his reflections on humanity and our relationship with God. In a new foreword, Yolanda Pierce, dean of Howard University’s School of Divinity, calls attention to the justice-centered theological framework of Thurman’s words. Pierce notes how Thurman brings to light an image of God who can always be found “in and among the struggling,” both in times of weariness and in strength.

Recommended by Dr. Symone Johnson

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FACULTY READING RECOMMENDATIONS MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS: ESSAYS & WRITINGS – A PERSONAL AND HISTORICAL EXPLORATION OF BLACK WOMEN'S JOURNEYS THROUGH INTERSECTIONALITY Honoree Fanonne Jeffers In Misbehaving at the Crossroads, Jeffers explores the emotional and historical tensions in Black women’s public lives and her own private life. She charts voyages of Black girlhood to womanhood and the currents buffeting these journeys, including the difficulties of racially gendered oppression, the challenges of documenting Black women’s ancestry; the adultification of Black girls; the irony of Black female respectability politics; the origins of Womanism/Black feminism; and resistance to White supremacy and patriarchy. As Jeffers shows with empathy and wisdom, naming difficult historical truths represents both Blues and transcendence, a crossroads that speaks.

Recommended by Dr. Julie Moody-Freeman

THE DEEP

By Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Huston, and Jonathan Snipes Octavia E. Butler meets Marvel’s Black Panther in The Deep, a story rich with Afrofuturism, folklore, and the power of memory, inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep” from Daveed Diggs’s rap group Clipping.

The Deep is “a tour de force reorientation of the storytelling gaze…a superb, multilayered work,” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a vividly original and uniquely affecting story inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping.

Recommended by Dr. Francesca Royster

HOMEGOING Yaa Gyasi Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery.

One of Oprah’s Best Books of the Year, Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi’s extraordinary novel illuminates slavery’s troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed—and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.

Recommended by Dr. Francesca Royster

GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER Bernadine Evaristo Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives of twelve very different people in Britain, predominantly female and black. Aged 19 to 93, they span a variety of cultural backgrounds, sexualities, classes and occupations as they tell the stories of themselves, their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.

“Bernardine Evaristo demonstrates in an impressive way how we can learn to recognise and perceive ourselves despite superficial differences.”

Barack Obama, 2023 Recommended by Dr. Francesca Royster

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FACULTY MEDIA RECOMMENDATIONS film

SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT Johan Grimonprez

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat is a 2024 documentary film directed by Johan Grimonprez about the Cold War episode that led American musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. It features excerpts from My Country, Africa by Andrée Blouin; Congo Inc. by In Koli Jean Bofane; To Katanga and Back by Conor Cruise O'Brien; and audio memoirs by Nikita Khrushchev.

Recommended by Dr. Symone Johnson

MR. LOVERMAN Nathaniel Price Mr Loverman is a British television drama series based on the novel of the same name by Bernardine Evaristo and stars Lennie James in the lead role. James won Best Leading Actor at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards in March 2025.

Antiguan-born Londoner Barrington Jedidiah Walker (James) has his marriage collapse after a decades-long affair with his male best friend is revealed.

Recommended by Dr. Francesca Royster

music

7 PIANO SKETCHES (2025) André 3000

André 3000 describes his new EP as a collection of improvisational piano sketches created by randomly exploring the keys until he finds appealing sounds. He doesn't focus on specific notes or chords but enjoys the mechanics of playing. Influenced by composers like Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner, Philip Glass, Stephen Sondheim, Joni Mitchell, and Vince Guaraldi, these pieces were recorded informally at home and shared with family and friends rather than intended for public presentation.

Recommended by Dr. Symone Johnson

GOLLIWOG (2025) Billy Woods GOLLIWOG is billy woods’ first album in two years, preceded by 2023’s Maps, his second collaboration with producer Kenny Segal. That nimble travelogue has little in common with woods’ newest work, despite the fact that Segal shows up a couple times in the credits.

GOLLIWOG is a haunting collection that weaves horror, humor, surrealism and Afropessimism into a cinematic tapestry, aided and abetted by a murderer’s row of producers. African zombies, time traveling trap cars, malevolent ragdolls and a dying Frantz Fanon are just a few of the revelers in woods’ danse macabre.

Recommended by Dr. Heidi Nast

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The Interdisciplinary Studies Fest For the fall, winter, and spring quarters, ABD participated in the IDS Fest. Big thanks to Dr. Heather Montes-Ireland and Dr. Allison McCracken for organizing these great events!

Thanks to them, we had the opportunity to meet so many of you all!

Thank you so much for attending, and we hope to see you next quarter!

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ABD PODCAST Blossoming Seeds is ABD’s podcast where we interview ABD alumni, current students, and faculty. Our most recent episode features ABD alum, Ashli Funches. Below is a sneak peek!

The Department of African and Black Diaspora Studies presents:

blossoming seeds the ABD podcast

Scan to listen to the latest episode!

“ABD has given me the ability to curate Black work. I know what makes a great Black work in the sense of it being intellectually aware that it's Black, but also in the same sense of, like, this person is exploring themselves and who they are, and the diasporic nature of us--how we have had to disperse.”

- Ashli Funches

About Ashli: Ashli is currently working as an Actor, Educator, and Florist. Ashli is a teaching artist with Timeline, Lifeline, Writers Theatre, and a touring artist with Pegasus. Ashli’s recent credits include: IS GOD IS (Red Orchid), Native Son (Lifeline), Notes from the Field (Timeline), Stew (Shattered Globe), For Colored Girls (Fleetwood-Jourdian), A Drop in the Bucket (Jackolope), and Detroit 67 (The Theatre School). Ashli received their BFA in Acting and an BA in African and Black Diaspora Studies from DePaul University.

She wrote, produced, and portrayed Amari in the film, A Yellow Circus (premiered at the Black Film Festival New Orleans, Micheaux, Black Alphabet, and Black Harvest Film Festival). Ashli also portrays Z in a feature entitled, The Lapse (Nicholas Merchant, 2025), an independent film. Ashli has also appeared in Chicago PD.

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