NCBS 2025 Annual Report

The Discipline and the African World 2025 Report:

An Annual Report on the State of Affairs for Africana Communities

From the National Council of Black Studies Annual Report Committee

Report Preparation Team

Editor

Dr. Serie McDougal III, California State University, Los Angeles

Associate Editor

Dr. Michael Tillotson, State University of New York, Cortland

Editorial Board

Dr. Valerie Grim, Indiana University

Dr. Maulana Karenga, California State University, Long Beach

Dr. James Stewart, Professor Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University

Production and Communications

Ms. Venus Kent

General Disclaimer: The analyses, opinions, and recommendations in this report do not represent official positions of the National Council of Black Studies.

STATEMENT FROM THE NCBSPRESIDENT, BY VALERIE GRIM, PH.D.................................

AFRICAN RESISTANCE TO STATE POWER AND SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION..................................................................................................................20

UNRANDOM ACTS: PART I, AHISTORY OF STATE VIOLENCE BY TEKLA ALI JOHNSON,PH.D., L.WILLIFORD & C.JACKSON

THE PARTICLES OF POLLUTION: AREPORT ON THE STATE OF THE PLASTIC POLLUTION PROBLEM IN BLACK GEOGRAPHIES IN THE UNITED STATES BY AJANAE T.WILLIS ...................................................................................................

SILENCING AGENCY: RESURGENCE OF REACTIONARY POLICY BY KEYONNA J.A. WHITE............................................................................................

“ASKING THE OLD WOMAN” THROUGH “SANKOFA KUKUO” AS METHODOLOGICAL INTERVENTION: AFRICAN-HERITAGE WOMEN AND GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH INQUIRIES BY ELIZABETH PEPRAH-ASARE & PETER O.NDAA, PH.D...........................

AFRICA RISING: HIP HOP, POLITICS, AND CRITICAL RESILIENCE IN SENEGAL BY IMA L.H

AI AND THE THREAT TO THE AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILY ECOLOGY BY RASHEED J. A

,PH.D. .................................................................................

ONE AFRICA: UNITED–DIASPORA STRONG BY NKIRUKA L.EGWUENU .....................111

REIMAGINING THE SOUTHWEST BORDERLANDS: BLACK SOVEREIGNTY AND ENDURANCE IN NEW MEXICO BY CHARLES E.BECKNELL,JR., PH.D.........................123

BLACK/AFRICANA STUDIES RESEARCH FOR YOUTH AGENCY: HEKA AND YPAR-EETHICAL RESEARCH BY MELISSA SPEIGHT VAUGHN,PH.D., AND JOYCE ELAINE KING, PH.D.

ASHEVILLE,REPARATIONS,& BLACK STUDIES: APATH FORWARD BY MICIAH Z. YEHUDAH, PH.D.

BEYOND EXTRACTION: COMMUNITY ETHICS AND INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY IN BLACK STUDIES – ACASE STUDY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY’S CHANGING RELATIONSHIPS WITH PROVIDENCE’S BLACK COMMUNITY BY MELAINE FERDINAND-KING .................................................................................

ADVANCING COMMUNITY-ENGAGED YOUTH ACTIVISM, TRANSFORMATIVE AFRICAN-CENTERED LEARNING, AND BLACK/AFRICANA STUDIES RESEARCH

BY

MELISSA SPEIGHT VAUGHN,PH.D., AND JOYCE ELAINE KING,PH.D...................

BLACK TO THE COMMUNITY: THE URGENCY OF COMMUNITY-CENTERED BLACK STUDIES BY BOBBY E.DAVIS,JR. ..............................................................................

THE STATE OF BLACK/AFRICANA STUDIES

THE STATE OF BLACK STUDIES PROGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES: INSTITUTIONAL PRESSURES AND PATHS TO SUCCESS BY KATRINELL M.DAVIS,PH.D. 197

THE ENEMY WITHIN: AFRICANA STUDIES IN THE AGE OF IMPOSTORS BY MARK CHRISTIAN, PH.D.

IN DEFENSE OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE: ALEGACY FOR RE-ELEVATION AND ADVANCEMENT BY KERSUZE SIMEON-JONES,PH.D. 222

KATHERINE OLUKEMI BANKOLE MEDINA’S NEW PATHS THROUGH THICKETS OF OLD RESEARCH BY MOLEFI KETE ASANTE,PH.D. 233

THE BLACK MAN FROM SLICK, OKLAHOMA: CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE SOCIOLOGIST NATHAN HARE TO BLACK STUDIES AND ETHNIC STUDIES BY J.VERN CROMARTIE, ED.D...................................................................................

CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................

Statement from the National Council for Black Studies President

By Valerie Grim, Ph.D.

Academic Excellence | Social Responsibility | Cultural Grounding

As we live in a society where some individuals want to make African Americans invisible by erasing our history, co-opting the words and phrases of our past leaders (i.e. like the ways that some have abused the color blind phrase to reinscribe white hegemony), and by conflating white privilege with their kind of meritocracy, while, at the same time, searching for ways to demean and demote African Americans using false interpretations of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), this 2025 NCBS Annual Report is a reminder that we are still here, not going anywhere, and that we will continue to be excellent in academically excellent, socially responsible, and grounded culturally in our epistemological understanding of who we are. This issue of The Discipline and the African World Report for 2025 provides broad understanding relative to the discipline as well as provocative analyses concerning issues related to the progress (or lack thereof) and achievements of African descended peoples, especially African Americans. This report offers insights concerning many issues and ideas, ranging from science, history, and culture to community engagement.

The 2025 Annual Report is divided into five sections, not including the introduction and conclusion. Section One, Science, Historiography, and Identity, is especially useful at this moment. One of the essays examines the history of abuse against African Americans and how the state supports random acts of violence to “cultivate fear among African Americans. Another essay in this section analyzes how an overabundance of plastic pollutes African American communities and how they have a costly and impactful effect on the human agency of African Americans. Reactionary policies as a form of violence are rapidly becoming more entrenched in this current political environment. Because of this, one writer in this section reminds us to give ready attention to all efforts designed to reduce Black agency and which also causes harm to the internal security of African descendent people.

In Section Two, Culturally Grounded Knowledge Production, readers are invited to view this current moment through the lens of African centered cultural analysis and historical contexts. It is important to note how both the symbol of Sankofa is utilized in one particular exploration of this section as well as how the theory and practice of Sankofa Kukuo can be employed methodically to gain significant culturally grounded knowledge Further, this section contains discussions that intersect Black Studies with AI technology, reminding us that Africana communities must also be prepared for the evolving AI revolution since the potential for job loss and under-employment lie in wait. How can hip-hop music help to ground Black culture at this time when knowledge production of African descended peoples is being dismissed and/or made invisible. The Hip-Hop dialogue within this section offers ways that African descended communities can use music as radical dialogue to galvanize global movements dealing with oppression, domination, growing imperialism and autocracies that are demanding more power than ever. This section should make us actualize philosophical, intellectual, and community-practiced strategies determined to produce and maintain cultural resilience through various agentive

intersections within Pan-African global world scopes and visions.

Pan-African Unity and Diaspora Relations comprises the third section of this 2025 Annual Report A unified Africa is one central theme being explored. There is a belief that Africa becomes stronger if those on and away from the continent focus on helping to build a strong African Diaspora that supports the continent. This idea of “One Africa” is also imagined as part of reimagining how Blacks in the United States can create more freedom and liberation for themselves by imagining how America’s southwest borderlands provide the opportunity for African Americans to find greater sovereignty. Perhaps, this is a moment when homelands and borderlands can be reconceived and reconceptualized in ways that bring African descended people to the center of their own strategies for social, economic, political, and racial survival.

Social responsibility is one of the three tenets of the National Council for Black Studies disciplinary focus. In the section, Community Engagement,” there are very rich essays regarding how to use research to build connections in Africana communities One essay, which concerns Black youth, clarifies ways to get African American young people involved. Perhaps, this specific kind of thinking may work well for those using Africana methodologies and theories to concretize Black Male Studies, to further ground this area of research and teaching in ways that Black Male Studies also function as an engaged practice. Collectively, essays in this section provide strong analysis regarding how ethics can be transformative to research on African descended people. In the larger African American community, for example, ethics is important when securing data that involves memory, which is a powerful tool to engage when attempting to address questions related to agency and self-ethics. Much of this section helps us understand the value of being communityengaged and how this engagement can translate to active centered learning from a Black perspective. Taken together, the essays in this section encourage us to return to social

responsibility through memory, community-engaged research, practice, and actions. Reading the essays together as a means by which to develop a protocol to address specific historical issues and questions may help those interested in the reparation question better understand how to develop a strategy that translates discussions from ideas to action, to a focus that includes not only compensation and institution building but also reclamation of land and other valuable properties to the re-generation of human assets

In the final section of this 2025 Annual Report is a section titled, “The State of Black/Africana Studies. Today, this is a question on the minds of those who are engaged in the discipline of Africana Studies and who are performing Africana/Black Studies kinds of work. The State of Black/Africana Studies essays focus on Black Studies programs in the United States and the institutional pressures they face daily. Many of these pressures, some believe, are the result of some in the field writing about Black life and claiming it to be Black/Africana Studies, but who do not engage Black/Africana studies disciplinary, methodological, or theoretical approaches. The result of this kind of intellectual battling has caused some Africana Studies scholars and disciplinary developers to believe that such unfortunate entanglements have kept the field divided.

Within this context, readers will find useful how reflecting on the aforementioned is leading some scholars to look back to move African descended peoples forward philosophically and intellectually, while culturally grounding the discipline phenomenally to serve in social responsibly ways, especially as self and economic empowerment are concerned. Essays regarding historical disciplinary knowledge, usefulness of old research and its connection to contemporary ways of thinking about Africana/Black Studies, and ways that Black Studies, in some places, is co-existing with Ethnic Studies to further intersectional theoretical and methodological practices that support research and pedagogy regarding of Africana Studies.

We are grateful that you chose to be a member of the National Council for Black Studies. This Discipline and the African World 2025 Report is timely, especially now, as we live during a time when great efforts and very successful strides are being made to erase the horrific encounters and experiences of Blacks in America and Africans in the African Diaspora from the pages and annals of colonial, imperial, and capitalist histories of dominating and oppressive nations that have often placed greed above humanity. No matter how great the power to forge disingenuous curriculums, dehumanizing legislations, and criminalizing actions against those seen as the other, WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM, EQUITY, DIVERSITY, and INCLUSION WILL NOT REST. WE WILL NOT QUIT STANDING UP FOR HUMANITY. Equally as important, there is no eraser broad or strong enough to take away our value nor to disappear Black/Africana Studies from the minds and mouths of those who believe in truth and justice for all peoples. This is why NCBS publishes an annual report. We must talk to each other and speak to the world uncomprisingly about our abilities to determine for ourselves what we need, and how we will bring about change for ourselves.

Recognizing that struggles and conflicts exist in nearly every corner of the world where there is a respectable percentage of Blacks and Africans working to achieve their dreams, we keep at the forefront of our efforts cultural wars dealing with human rights, civil rights, women’s rights, and the rights of children. NCBS cares about such issues as sex trafficking, poverty, militarism, police brutality, hunger, economic devastation, immigration, oppression of gender identities, inequitable existences in employment, unequal education, the criminalization of the poor, and many others that have been turned into cultural wars.

Yes, there are MANY ISSUES and DEGRADING SITUATIONS. However, we are not without help and the freedom to stand. This 2025 Annual Report helps US STAND, as we develop

approaches, frameworks, and practical strategies to build the power of collective agencies. In this 2025 Annual Report, there are discussions regarding theoretical, methodological, and practical perspectives that can help us achieve self-agency and empowerment as well as ideas that lead to appropriate actions We are moving beyond the “this is what happened” narrative to “the now is the time for action” narrative, so we can understand how to best lay bare our own resources and define TODAY how we must use them to build a humane Afro/African Future

Through The Discipline and the African World 2025 Report: An Annual Report on the State of affairs for Africana Communities, we want you to know what we stand for. We stand for academic excellence, cultural grounding, and social responsibility. We name ourselves, so we are the ones identifying who we are, and we say loudly and proudly that we are dedicated to speaking our truths and to establishing correct and evidenced perspectives (untwisted) aligned with selfdetermined agency that guards and sustains our internal security. Neither our sense of purpose or self, whether real or imagined, will be undermined by continuous misrepresentations of our ancestors, their’ histories, and the contributions they (and we) have made to help make a better world. Let us converse together (begin again) concerning what should be the work of the National Council for Black Studies organization as well as for the Africana/Black Studies discipline at this current moment Let us reimagine attacks on our cultural values and on who we are as a people as an opportunity to empower ourselves to move beyond “JUST SURVIVING TO THRIVING.”

Dr. Valerie Grim, President National Council for Black Studies

Preface

At this critical moment in the collective history of African people, the National Council of Black Studies Annual Report for 2025 aims to present a critical intervention. The African world is navigating increasingly complex challenges to racial justice and academic freedom. The scholarly works in this issue demonstrate the continued vitality and relevance of Black/Africana Studies as both an intellectual discipline and a force for positive transformation. These essays reflect our discipline’s unwavering commitment to academic excellence, social responsibility, and cultural grounding by addressing pressing issues, from state violence to environmental racism, and proposing innovative frameworks for resistance and collective African empowerment. They also reflect our organization’s dedication to addressing resistance to state power, systemic oppression, and the imperative of culturally grounded knowledge.

African Resistance to State Power and Systemic Oppression

The opening section, African Resistance to State Power and Systemic Oppression, examines how scientific and historical discourses have shaped Black experiences and identities. Although these essays approach substantively different topics, they share a methodological commitment to rigorous historical analysis as a foundation for understanding contemporary challenges. The ahistorical, cross-sectional, and episodic perspectives of contemporary daily media often describe incidents of Afro-phobia, anti-Black racism, and White supremacism, and moments of African/Black resistance, advocacy, and liberation movements. But the essays in this section provide an understanding that only historical analysis can reveal, and the lessons that can provide for efforts toward change across the African world.

Tekla Ali Johnson, Ph.D., L. Williford, & C. Jackson’s “Unrandom Acts: Part I, A History of State Violence” sets a sobering tone for the current state of affairs, dissecting the historical and contemporary realities of racial violence in America, and framing police killings of African

Americans as a predictable function of systemic injustice rather than isolated incidents. The authors trace the evolution of state-sanctioned violence from slavery through Reconstruction to the present day, revealing how institutions have transformed but maintained mechanisms of control and terror. From there, ajanae T. Willis’s “The Particles of Pollution” shifts the focus to environmental racism, exposing the disproportionate burden of plastic pollution on Black geographies in the United States. Willis offers a comprehensive historical examination of how environmental hazards have followed Black communities from slavery through industrialization to today’s plastic crisis. The essay demands an acknowledgment of the way pollution particles invade the air, soil, and water in Black communities, affecting health and overall well-being, while also critiquing current policies that claim to address these issues but fall short. Similarly, Keyonna J. A. White’s “Silencing Agency: Resurgence of Reactionary Policy” examines how contemporary policies systematically suppress and curb Black voices and perpetuate intergenerational trauma. Looking at Florida as a case study, White highlights the intersection of historical legacies and current mechanisms of suppression, and analyzes how legislation like Florida’s HB7 and HB1 purposefully and specifically targets Black agency and collective action.

Together, these three essays illustrate how historical analysis can illuminate the structural continuities between past and present forms of oppression, whether through state violence, environmental degradation, or policy mechanisms designed to silence Black voices. As Malcolm X wisely observed, “Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research.” Indeed, these works demonstrate how rigorous historical inquiry can uncover the persistent threads connecting past injustices to present struggles. Collectively, they offer a comprehensive framework for understanding how science and historiography can be tools for both oppression and liberation, affirming Malcolm’s insight that in the careful study of what has been lies the key to understanding what is and what might yet be.

Culturally Grounded Knowledge Production

The second section explores innovative methodologies that center African/Black knowledge systems and cultural expressions. The essays in this section share a commitment to epistemological centeredness but also constructively diverge in their specific applications across research, artistic, and technological domains.

Elizabeth Peprah-Asare & Dr. Peter O. Ndaa, in “‘Asking the Old Woman’ through ‘Sankofa Kukuo’ as Methodological Intervention,” champion the wisdom of African-heritage women and their importance to culturally informed research. Drawing on fieldwork in Ghana, the authors present Sankofa Kukuo as an innovative methodology that centers African women’s knowledge systems and creates pathways for decolonial knowledge production that honors intergenerational wisdom and cultural continuity, providing the African world with another tool of culturally grounded inquiry. Ima L. Hicks, in “Africa Rising: Hip Hop, Politics, and Critical Resilience in Senegal,” explores how hip hop serves as a vehicle for political expression and critical resilience in Senegalese society. She documents how Senegalese artists have adapted this global art form to address local concerns, mobilize youth, and challenge power structures, demonstrating the potential of cultural expression for creating positive social change and fostering pan-African solidarity in alignment with the aims of Black Studies as a discipline. Dr. Rasheed J. Atwater warns of “AI and the Threat to the African American Family Ecology,” urging a critical examination of emerging technology through an Afrocentric lens. This timely examination covers the economic, educational, environmental, and spiritual threats posed by artificial intelligence to Black communities, while proposing culturally grounded commons as tools for maintaining selfsufficiency and ontological harmony in an increasingly AI-driven world. Together, the authors in this section reflect a commitment to centering African and Africandiasporic ways of knowing and being, whether through research methodologies, artistic expression,

or technological critique. They demonstrate how culturally grounded knowledge production and analytic lenses offer alternatives to Eurocentric and other non-African paradigms while addressing contemporary challenges facing Black communities globally.

Pan-African Unity and Diaspora Relations

The Pan-African Unity and Diaspora Relations section broadens our geographic scope to examine connections between African and diaspora communities. In addressing different regional contexts, these essays share an emphasis on solidarity across geographic boundaries while acknowledging the specificities of local struggles. As the Krio proverb from Sierra Leone reminds us, “A bundle cannot be fastened with one hand,” perfectly capturing the essential message of these works: that the collective strength of pan-African unity depends on the mutual support and cooperation of communities across the diaspora, each contributing unique perspectives and resources toward shared liberation.

Nkiruka L. Egwuenu’s “One Africa: United Diaspora Strong” emphasizes the untapped potential of the global African diaspora and the importance of collaboration with Africans on the continent. She examines key challenges facing diaspora communities and proposes concrete pathways for cooperation in research, business, medical exchange, and education. Egwuenu presents a comprehensive solution-oriented vision for leveraging collective diasporic resources to advance development across the African world. Dr. Charles E. Becknell, in “Reimagining the Southwest Borderlands,” examines Black sovereignty and endurance in New Mexico, demonstrating the diverse expressions of Black identity and resistance in specific regional contexts. Through historical analysis and contemporary case studies, Becknell illuminates how Black communities in the borderlands have forged strategies of resistance and autonomy, building cross-cultural solidarities while maintaining distinct cultural identities in a complex racial landscape.

While Egwuenu focuses on transcontinental connections between Africa and its global diaspora, Becknell examines the specific regional dynamics of Black communities in the American Southwest. Together, they illustrate how pan-African unity must encompass both global solidarity and recognition of the distinct experiences and strategies developed by African/Black communities in diverse geographic and cultural contexts. In this way, they demonstrate the profound truth of the Krio proverb: the bundle of pan-African liberation requires many hands working in concert, each grasping one piece of a shared struggle. It is only through the joining of many hands that the bundle of our liberation can be properly fastened.

Community Engagement

Scholarship and activism are the DNA of Black Studies as a discipline. They also go hand in hand, and uplifting one never calls for undermining the other. As a Zulu proverb teaches us, “Hands wash each other” (Izandla ziyagezana): just as one hand cannot be cleansed without the other, so too must theory and practice, scholarship and community work, nurture and strengthen each other in reciprocity. The fourth section of this report highlights strategies for meaningful engagement between academic institutions and African/Black communities. These essays offer varied approaches to community-based research and action, but they converge in an emphasis on reciprocity, agency, and practical application of knowledge, embodying this ancient wisdom and showing us how genuine transformation can emerge from the cleansing interplay between academic insight and community wisdom.

Dr. Melissa Speight Vaughn and Dr. Joyce Elaine King showcase “HeKA and YPAR-E Ethical Research,” innovative models for Black/Africana Studies that prioritize youth agency and community empowerment. They detail how these approaches equip Black youths with rigorous ethical research skills and methodological frameworks to become co-investigators in communitybased inquiries, fostering leadership and critical thinking while advancing community-driven

solutions and marshaling scientific skills for the purposes of African liberation. Dr. Miciah Z. Yehudah reflects on the complexities of reparations in North Carolina in “Asheville, Reparations & Black Studies: A Path Forward,” emphasizing the crucial role Black Studies can play in supporting and informing local movements for collective advancement. Drawing from firsthand experience on the Community Reparation Commission, Yehudah provides valuable frontline insights into both the possibilities and pitfalls of municipal reparations efforts and they ways Black Studies scholars can engage with these processes. Melaine Ferdinand-King contributes “Beyond Extraction: Community Ethics and Institutional Memory in Black Studies,” a case study on Brown University’s changing relationships with Providence’s Black community. Examining the historical role of the Rites and Reason Theatre and the Department of Africana Studies, Ferdinand-King traces the way community engagement has evolved over time and argues for renewal: a renaissance of commitment to mutually beneficial partnerships that will honor Black Studies’ founding principles. Speight Vaughn and King’s second contribution to this issue, “Advancing Community Engaged Youth Activism, Transformative African-Centered Learning, and Black/Africana Studies Research,” further explores youth agency and leadership development through the Guardians of Heritage International Youth United Civic Leadership Collaborative. This essay demonstrates how African-centered pedagogies can empower youths to become agents of change in their communities while developing critical research skills and cultural consciousness.

Bobby E. Davis, Jr.’s “Black to the Community: The Urgency of Community-Centered Black Studies” presents a compelling argument for returning Black Studies to its roots in the community. Davis examines how institutional pressures have worked to disconnect Black Studies from its foundational mission and highlights exemplary community-based organizations that embody the discipline’s core principles of education for liberation and social transformation. These five essays offer a comprehensive examination of community engagement from

multiple angles: youth leadership, reparations, university–community partnerships, and institutional transformation. Collectively, they demonstrate how Black Studies can fulfill its founding commitment to serve the needs of Black communities while generating new knowledge and pathways for liberation. In the spirit of izandla ziyagezana, these scholars show us that when the hand of scholarship is washed by the hand of community wisdom, and when community practice is likewise refreshed by scholarly insight, both emerge stronger, more effective, and more capable of the work that the liberation of our people calls for. Neither hand alone can accomplish what they can achieve together, in this sacred act of mutual cleansing that has always been at the heart of Black Studies’ most transformative work.

The State of Black/Africana Studies

The final section turns inward to examine the current state of the discipline itself. These essays address different institutional and intellectual challenges but share a commitment to preserving the integrity and advancing the mission of Black Studies in a hostile political climate. A West African proverb wisely reminds us, “If your house is burning, there is no time to go hunting,” and this admonition resonates throughout these works, underscoring the existential urgency of the challenges facing our discipline. These scholars recognize that in a time of unprecedented attacks on Black Studies programs, curriculums, and faculty, we must be the vanguard that secures our intellectual and institutional foundations, strengthening them against the flames of reactionary politics, misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information that threaten to consume decades of hard-won progress.

Dr. Katrinell M. Davis addresses “The State of Black Studies Programs in the United States: Institutional Pressures and Paths to Success,” analyzing how performance metrics, staffing challenges, and political pressures threaten the sustainability of Black Studies. Using Florida State University’s African American Studies program as a case study, Davis identifies strategic

interventions to counter these challenges and ensure the discipline’s continued vitality. Dr. Mark Christian cautions against “The Enemy Within: Africana Studies in the Age of Impostors,” providing a critical assessment of how individuals without genuine commitment to the discipline’s core principles can undermine its mission from within. Drawing on Maulana Karenga’s analysis of problematic administrators, Christian offers guidance for identifying and counteracting those who enter Black Studies for personal gain rather than authentic commitment to its liberatory goals. Dr. Kersuze Simeon-Jones offers “In Defense of Historical Knowledge: A Legacy for Re-Elevation and Advancement,” emphasizing the ongoing importance of preserving and elevating Black historical consciousness. Analyzing texts from the late 1700s onward, Simeon-Jones demonstrates how historical knowledge creates agency and empowerment, arguing that Black Studies must continue this legacy while developing new vistas for understanding and action.

The final two essays in this section serve as an intellectual libation to the discipline’s ancestors. Dr. Molefi Kete Asante reflects on “Katherine Olukemi Bankole Medina’s New Paths Through Thickets of Old Research,” honoring the contributions of a pioneering scholar in Africology who recently became an ancestor. Asante highlights Bankole Medina’s innovative work on slavery and medicine, her commitment to Afrocentricity, and her legacy as an intellectual who created new pathways for understanding Black experiences while mentoring future generations of scholars. Finally, Dr. J. Vern Cromartie examines “The Black Man from Slick, Oklahoma: Contributions of the Sociologist Nathan Hare to Black Studies and Ethnic Studies,” documenting the foundational role Nathan Hare played in establishing the first Black Studies department at a four-year institution. Cromartie details Hare’s vision, his scholarly contributions, and the personal and professional sacrifices he made to advance the discipline, ensuring that this important historical figure receives his due recognition.

These five essays offer both critical assessments of current challenges and celebrations of

our discipline’s intellectual heritage. They range from institutional analysis to intellectual history, from internal critique to commemoration of pioneering figures. Together, they demonstrate the importance of both vigilance against threats and recognition of the rich intellectual tradition that sustains Black Studies as a discipline. Like firefighters confronting the burning house of our proverb, these scholars bring their specialized knowledge to bear on different facets of the fire Davis addressing structural vulnerabilities, Christian identifying the arsonists who infiltrated from within, Simeon-Jones preserving essential historical documents from the flames, Asante and Cromartie ensuring that the blueprints and creative visions of our disciplinary home survive the fire whether that fire is forgetfulness or weaponized amnesia. At this critical moment, they remind us that we cannot afford to be distracted by the hunt for external recognition or peripheral concerns when the very foundations of our intellectual home require our immediate and focused attention.

As you delve into these pages, I encourage you to consider the interconnections among these essays, even across sections. They represent a diverse range of perspectives and approaches, but they are united by a shared commitment to advancing the liberation and well-being of Black communities. Let this report serve as a call to action, inspiring us to push the boundaries of knowledge further, challenge systems of oppression, and most importantly, build a more just and equitable world for African people and for all of humanity.

AFRICAN RESISTANCE TO STATE POWER AND SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION

Unrandom Acts: Part I, A History of State Violence

by

Tekla Ali Johnson, Ph.D. African American Studies University of

South Carolina

Along with L. Williford & C. Jackson

The essay offers a brief historical overview of state violence against unarmed African Americans in the United States prior to May 5, 2020. The live-streaming of George Floyd’s horrific murder by officers of the state was a watershed event, eviscerating American denial of police officers’ deadly abuse of power in interactions with African Americans. In this two-part series, we look at the History of State Violence in Part I and offer our “Theory of State Violence” in Part II. Together, Part I and Part II unveil race’s role in official use-of- [deadly]-force as an integral tool of neo-colonial control.

Although sporadic with respect to geographic location, the murders of African Americans by police officers exemplify consistent systemic behavior by the American state toward a national minority group. Racial killings by those in authority and their deputies, while apparently erratic in the selection of a specific victim are a predictable function of the American legal apparatus, a part of the machinery of the American state and are in this fundamental sense neither accidental

nor random. Police murders of unarmed civilians can be considered a form of lynching, whether carried out during formal police interrogations, or in full view of the public by way of live streaming. The first fact which must be interrogated is that the victims are disproportionally from a single racial group. Upon its victims, this state on Black violence is typically carried out, in a spray of violence by municipal or county officers. The impact, and we argue, the intent, is to cultivate fear in African Americans in order to generate compliance with state policies and economic practices which African American communities might rationally resist including: incarceration and or criminalization of one quarter of African American men and boys, long-term incarceration of Black movement leaders, land theft through urban renewal and gentrification, inferior schools, lack of reparations etc. That death-by-police can occur anytime and anywhere for Black Americans, makes the specter ever more terrifying; even as the public is gaslit by references to those most dangerous to life as “protectors of the public peace.”

The public and the American media first acknowledged the outcries of the Black community over the death of arrestees and persons detained by police after the killing of Trayvon Martin. It was on February 26, 2012, that the 17-year-old was visiting his father in Sanford, Florida, when community watchman George Zimmerman demanded the teen stop. When Martin ran from the stranger, Zimmerman shot him in the chest. Zimmerman, in his defense, said that he had felt that the boy was a robber and had no way of knowing that the youth had just walked to the store to purchase some Skittles. We know that Martin was afraid for his life and ran because he was on his cell phone with his girlfriend at that moment and told her he was afraid (Alcindor, 2012).

In her introduction to Making All Black Lives Matter, Barbara Ransby notes, “No movement emerges out of thin air. There is always a prologue” (Ransby, 2018). A portion of the prologue for the Black Lives Matter Movement includes Trayvon Martin’s killing in Sanford,

Florida, by a White vigilante, the audio for which was recorded on Martin’s girlfriend’s cell phone.

In 2012, the Black Lives Matter hashtag emerged organically, a cry to organize some form of defiance in the face of unarmed deaths at the hands of the officers of “public safety.” Martin’s murder was to become part of an ongoing cycle of unarmed Black people who experienced very public deaths. For the first time since the police officer gang-style beating of Rodney King in the spring of 1991 in Los Angeles, California, it was possible to gather evidence of widespread police victimization of Black people because of the advent of the modern cell phone. Exponentially expanded numbers of eyewitnesses and recordings of state murders allow for the creation of Data

Sets and patterns, which are now observable and help explain the present state of affairs with respect to officer killings of people of color in the USA. What our team proposes in Part I is a historical timeline of racial violence in America. The disproportionate selection of the ethnicity of victims aligns with the regularity of a lack of accountability of police and patterns connecting these killings to historical White nationalism. We conclude that the deaths of unarmed African Americans by police function in support of the status quo are systemic and, therefore, are UnRandom Acts (Eberhardt, 2019).

The history of White supremacist violence and murder has its roots in slavery. In the Atlantic World, typical advertisements for runaways read recommended killing on-site any enslaved person who ran away and was apprehended. These private murders sent shock and pain through the plantations. The price of any form of resistance, including running away, was death. Later, under Reconstruction, displays of force used by the slave master on private plantations now gained new public meaning. Elaine Frantz Parsons, in her new book Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan during Reconstruction points out the gang and mob-like nature of the Klan writing, “with few exceptions, a Ku-Klux attack could not be committed by a lone sniper…[it is] private groups, continuous over time, with a leadership structure and with members who were bound to one

another by ties of friendship and loyalty” who used violence “sporadically” (Frantz Parsons, 2016).

From its 1866 origins in Pulaski, Tennessee, the Klan perpetuated terror locally and nationally. What was new about the Klan’s violence, versus violence employed on plantations, were its rituals and its pseudo-secrecy. Parsons continues, “The Klan attack was to transmute a specific violent act inflicted by a group of White men on the body of an individual victim into an attack by abstract men on an abstract body” (Frantz Parsons, 2016). This was the source of the terror, and above all, Frantz Parsons argues, the killers, the White supremacists, valued anonymity. Moreover, Whites could solidify their common identity and sense of superiority through the persecution of Black bodies (Clegg, 2012). Thus, what began as the utility of terrifying and or attacking enslaved Africans, transmuted to terrifying Black people in general during Reconstruction. By the arrival of Jim Crow laws, a general sense of superiority was afforded to “whites [who] liked to speak of freed people’s response to Klan violence as ‘dread.” The utility of White-on-Black violence would persist throughout the 20th century, and White power rested on “infliction of pain… on a specific person [as] an act of national political and cultural meaning” (Wilkerson, 2020).

Under Jim Crow, these lightning-like expressions of dominance belonged to all Whites as a constructed class and guaranteed them, through the power of the state. These historical facts serve as the bridge to understanding the regular police killings of unarmed Black people today. Isabel Wilkerson, in her masterpiece Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020), unveils the American caste system, which she posits undergirds and maintains America’s racial classification system. Wilkerson explains, “A caste system is an artificial construction, …using …boundaries to keep the ranked groupings apart” (2020). Wilkerson is forthright in pointing out that “the only way to keep

an entire group of sentient beings in an artificially fixed place, beneath all others and beneath their own talents, is with violence and terror” (2020).

In parallel to the Klan’s modus operandi, police killings of Black and Brown people throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries were enshrouded in pseudo-secrecy such that it was difficult for the family or public to get even the name of the involved officers. The simultaneous advent of cell phones and their use as body cam (officer body worn cameras) meant that the element of secrecy was now under the obvious control of the municipality, state, or federal agency. Thus, the complicity of the state in providing impunity for their employees after violent murders of unarmed Black people entered the mainstream discourse.

Sociologist Ruha Benjamin of the University of California has pointed to the racist structure in apparently neutral technology; for example, police camcorders created to monitor police misconduct are instead too often used to gain data about protestors. Scholar-activist Angela Davis spent her life exposing the state’s false neutrality with respect to the African American experience with police and in the courts. Davis’s analysis in Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement benefits from simultaneous local and international synthesis of modern applications of apartheid, racism, and systemic discrimination, which she cooly points to as tools of neo-colonialism. On a granular level, Franz Parsons writes that calling out the names of the slain creates a painfully local and yet poignant national discourse (Benjamin, 2019; White, 2022; Davis, 2016; Franz Parsons, 2016). A slightly different explanation is offered by Bryan Peterson’s Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). According to the EJI, “Terror Lynching” reached its highest point between 1880 and 1940. EJI has provided evidence for 4084 lynchings in the American South from 1877 to 1950 and another 341 lynchings in the North and West during those years. In the North and West, lynching occurred predominantly in eight states: Illinois, Kansas, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Missouri

(Stevenson, 2017). In addition to documenting what Raeford Logan calls the Nadir for African Americans in the United States, Stevenson contributes a major theory to our understanding of the contortions of racial power and how it would survive the Civil Rights Movement. Stevenson argues convincingly that capital punishment partially replaced lynching in the White supremacist arsenal. He points to death row statistics to buttress his claim. African Americans make up about 13 percent of the population of the United States and 34 percent of those executed by the death penalty. Stevenson stops short of revealing that the pattern of violence in policing reveals another major source of cover for White supremacist violence. On the other hand, Samuel Sinyangwe, a data scientist and policy analyst, mapped police violence from 2013 to 2023. Sinyangwe found that while police deaths average over 1000 per year in the United States, Black People are three times more likely to be the victims of a police killing. Sinyangwe’s Mapping Project traced the convictions of police officers and uncovered that in 98.1 percent of killings by police, officers were exonerated. Sinyangwe concluded that “there is no police accountability” (Gross, 2019; Stevenson, 2017; Sinyangwe, 2023).

After the American Civil Rights Movement and subsequent Civil Rights legislation, the US Justice Department could no longer completely turn a blind eye to extralegal lynching by private White men. Whites now, as a group, for the first time in centuries, had no legal authority to use lethal force on Black people. The writing for White nationalists was on the proverbial wall: without the cover of law, White people’s ability to inflict terror and, therefore, maintain White power was uncertain and, thus, White power was threatened. This paper agrees that although capital punishment offered up Black targets for violence (Bryan Stevenson’s argument), feeding the White supremacist appetite for dominance through planned execution, lacked the secrecy and apparent randomness necessary, as identified by Elaine Frantz Parson in Ku Klux Klan. Franz Parsons writes that secrecy is a required component in order to inflict the degree of terror that

would satisfy White supremacist desire for the ultimate-absolute power over Blackness (Franz Parsons, 2016). Thus, extra-legal vigilante lynchings went indoors into police stations and police unions where Black unarmed deaths by Whites again enjoyed the cover of law. In fact, after the highly televised period of the Civil Rights Movement, even before the subsequent passage of new federal Civil Rights legislation, the change had occurred from White-layperson on Black violence to police-state on Black persons violence. Nor did everyone miss this moment. It was pointed to by independent members of Black intelligencia such as Malcolm X, and marked by resistance from African American Youth in their uprisings against police that lasted throughout the duration of the Black Power Era, prior to destruction of the movement by the FBI, who established intelligence units in the police departments in major cities. Even the Kerner Commission’s study points out that police actions were at the root of violence in the 1960s urban uprisings. In sum, a Post-Civil Rights Movement 1960s Compromise was reached between the government (the White power apparatus) and police unions the newly reinforced bastions of localized White power and the country at large. Black lynchings would not end, but the ranks and power of police would expand, and under cover under of law, police departments would serve as ground zero for generational transmission of White supremacist ideologies with the state’s authority to maintain domination over Black people’s bodies through terror (see: Washington Post, 2024 for recent data on the disproportionate number of police killings among the African American Population).

While statistics of police killings were not independently reported for the 100 years of Jim Crow, nor through the end of the twentieth century access to cell phones in the twenty-first century would make police murder much more difficult to cover up. On July 14, 2014, the author’s son phoned from college to say, “mom, they are choking out a Blackman on TV.” When she asked, “who,” he replied “the police.” In fact, police officers Daniel Pantaleo and Justin D’Amico had only minutes before approached a 43-year-old father of six, who was selling

cigarettes near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal in the New York City Burrough where he lived. Fondly known as the community “peacemaker,” Garner had just broken up a fight when officers arrived. Garner was relating what had occurred when Officer Pantaleo put him in a choke hold. Garner was able to utter “I Can’t Breathe” before passing out and ultimately dying. The medical examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide. The community’s rage was palpable when Pantaleo was fired but not charged with murder. The officer had seven previous misconduct reports in his file, and the NYPD had prohibited the chokehold he used on Garner. “I Can’t Breathe” would be the slogan of the Movement to end police lynchings of unarmed Black people, until Ferguson (Goodman, 2014).

Indeed, even before the May 25, 2020 video streaming of George Floyd’s horrific police murder at the intersection of 38th and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota; with national and international media attention and worldwide demonstrations, the world had already been introduced to the hashtag “Black Lives Matter” and the Movement to end police killings of Black People. The #BlackLivesMatter hashtag originated in July of 2013 when Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi learned of the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. Use of BLM as a symbol of the protest against police violence spiked on Twitter in November 2014, when average daily use of the term rose from around 3,000 to 95,000 utterances in one day. The Twitter Storm itself was a form of protest in response to yet another acquittal of a police officer who had killed an unarmed Black Person. This time, it was the announcement that Ferguson, Missouri, Police Officer Darren Wilson, killer of the 18-year-old unarmed Black youth Michael Brown, would not be indicted. Ferguson, St. Louis, Missouri would thereafter become the site of the longest continued resistance struggle to police killings in the first quarter of the 21st Century. In Ferguson, Missouri, on a summer afternoon, August 9th of 2014, Michael Brown was walking down the street with a friend when Police Officer

Darren Wilson stopped him for “jaywalking.” Witnesses say they soon saw Brown running away with his hands in the air, and they saw Wilson shoot him six times, causing Brown’s death.

According to news reports, Wilson used a number of racial tropes, namely that the officer felt threatened and “feared for his life” from the presence of the unarmed teenager, who Wilson felt was demonic. Forensic evidence showed that Wilson had shot the youth at point blank range (Bestvater et.al 2023; Goodman, 2015).

Local activists sustained the protests for a full year despite a violent police response that included riot squads, tear gas, rubber bullets, and widespread arrests. The city’s prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch, did not file charges against the officer. However, he eventually called for an investigation in hopes of calming the public outrage, only for the grand jury to declare the officer innocent of any wrongdoing in their November 24, 2014, verdict. US Attorney General Eric Holder initiated an investigation of abuse of force in the Ferguson Police Department, eventually announcing that practices existed in the FPD that needed to be altered but that:

“This morning, the Justice Department announced the conclusion of our investigation and released a comprehensive, 87-page report documenting our findings and conclusions that the facts do not support the filing of criminal charges against Officer Darren Wilson in this case. Michael Brown’s death, though a tragedy, did not involve prosecutable conduct on the part of Officer Wilson” (Holder, 2015.)

In the fallout, Chief of Police Thomas Jackson resigned, and Ferguson’s nightly protest led by high school and college students, and other members of the local community, endured. The local struggle was waged by “holding the streets” in Ferguson in protests of Michael Brown’s police killing. The teens and college age youths kept the struggle up for a full year, from 2014 through 2015. The riot-geared officers sent to face off with the youth on a nightly basis resulted in some arrests but also helped the protestors maintain the attention of the nation.

An uprising occurred two years later in the southern city of Charlotte, North Carolina, a region that enjoyed the reputation of “civility,” sadly for another unnecessary death at the hands of police. On the afternoon of September 20, 2016, Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old African American father, was reading a book while waiting for his children to get off a school bus. Scott’s SUV had the misfortune of being parked beside an unmarked police vehicle at the scene to deliver a warrant to someone else in a nearby apartment building. Police Officer Brentley Vinson, (an African American) said he saw marijuana in Scott’s hands and a gun. Scott’s wife, Rakeyia Scott, recorded the incident, all the while shouting at police not to hurt her husband. She captured Vinson shooting bullets into Scott’s body. Vinson would report that he saw a gun, and other officers reported that once Scott had exited the vehicle (on their command), he had been shot by Vinson. They claimed that a gun lay on the sidewalk beside Scott, which would seem irrelevant since North Carolina is an open-carry state. Scott’s wife said her husband held only the book that he had been reading (Greenlaw, 2017). Charlotte citizens became increasingly incensed with the lack of answers about the shooting. A week-long uprising ensued. On the second night, police cars were damaged, and uptown businesses had their window panes broken. One protestor, Justin Carr, was killed. The police claimed that one protestor had shot the other. Protestors say that the death was at the hands of the police. The aftermath was the largest uprising the city had experienced prior to George Floyd’s live-streamed murder that was on the horizon.

Data

In “Black Lives Matter: Evidence that Police Caused Deaths Predict Protest Activity,”

Vanessa Williamson, Kris-Stella Trump, and Katherine Levine Einstein develop a data set, determining that Black Lives Matter Protests were effective, in part by holding protests in cities with the greatest number of Black deaths by police per capita. The researchers examined 780 Black Lives Matter protests in 44 states in 223 different cities or towns from August 9, 2014 (after

the death of Michael Brown) for one year. The findings included that the greatest number of police violence protests held in the twenty-first century, pre-George Floyd, occurred at the nonindictments of the police officers. In addition to Trayvon Martin, these included the protests after Eric Garner’s police murder by officer Daniel Pantaleo in New York City on July 17, 2014, after Garner was accused of selling cigarettes on the street without a license; and after the police murder of Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri In the latter case, Robert McCulloch, St. Louis County Prosecutor, acquitted Police officer Darren Wilson on November 24, 2014. The US Justice Department would uphold the acquittal in March of 2015, and the decision was reaffirmed in July of 2020 by Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell. Brown’s family sued the city of Ferguson in 2017 and would win $1.5 million dollars in compensation for the wrongful death of 18-year-old Michael. In New York City, although the medical examiner declared Garner’s death a homicide, the Richmond County Grand Jury declared on December 4, 2014, that it would not indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo. African Americans and their allies took to the streets in protests. This uprising resulted in a settlement by the City of New York of $5.9 million dollars for Garner’s family.

However, the US Justice Department never brought charges against Pantaleo. In 2019, Pantaleo was finally fired by the NYPD (Goodman, A. 2015; Dickerson, 2023).

The “Black Lives Matter: Evidence that Police Caused Deaths Predict Protest Activity” study also found a direct correlation between surveillance by the state and a reduction in civic engagement by people of color, especially in the realm of political participation. In particular, African Americans showed lower political participation in areas with the greatest frequency of contact by police officers. Researchers, more specifically, found that voting participation is reduced by persons experiencing direct contact with police. Their findings shadow the findings of Nell Irvin Painter’s book, Exodusters, who pointed out that the historically White violence increased around elections for the purpose of reducing political participation. The “Black Lives

Study” concludes by arguing that gains made by African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement have been systematically undermined by state and federal institutions who “regain command of the agenda” though racial themed power moves, or, in plain speech, terror (Williamson et al, 2018; Painter, 1992).

The conclusions of the “Black Lives” study were foreshadowed by Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Alexander’s ground-breaking book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness provides overwhelming evidence that the Civil Rights Movement did not dismantle the caste system in the United States. On the contrary, this former ACLU attorney discovered that millions of African Americans are held in prisons, disproportionally due to race and not due to having committed more crimes than White communities, and that when they emerge from incarceration, are labeled felons which denotes permanent second-class citizenship; supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, Alexander’s book stands in agreement with the findings of EJI and scholar Franz-Parsons that White supremacy affixed itself to the entire legal system rather than dispersing. That White supremacist power dove underground and into the law after the apparent legal defeat of segregation is becoming clearer. It survived on death rows, in the secret fraternities of police departments, in police unions, and in other bastions of state power such as military units, courts, and prisons. We argue in “Un-random Acts” that lightninglike attacks on Black individuals, under the cover of the police uniform, allows local acts of terror to ring out with national messaging- White supremacy lives! The drive for the maintenance of White privilege, economic access, and political power are all signaled as thriving through simultaneously real and symbolic murder and other acts of aggression against Black bodies (Alexander, 2010; Franz Parsons, 2016).

As a protestor to police violence, Lexa Rice said in 2016:

“Probably the most challenging aspect of this was controlling the narrative keeping it from the people's perspective, and also fitting the Charlotte uprising into a larger context of White supremacy and capitalismimperialism. That Keith Lamont Scott’s murder was not an anomaly is something that people know, but

stressing that the true blame for the police murder of Black people on the entire system, and that revolution is necessary, is much harder” (Rice, 2016).

Concluding Thoughts

The present research offered a brief history of state-sanctioned killings of Black people. Our work documents the constancy of these systemic murders over time and space, with the assistance of, in this third decade of the 21st century, raw data (recorded by independent journalists and now the establishment press) coupled with undeniable video evidence. The historical designation of African-descended people as property and free labor under slavery in the United States, and later as sharecroppers and prison workers in the American South and unskilled labor in the North, meant that Black workers subsidized and undergirded the capitalist economy. These economic institutions shaped the relationship between Diasporic communities and the government. As the late Minister Malcolm X (AKA El Hajj Malik El Shabazz) said in his speech the “Ballot or the Bullet” “it is the government itself, the government of America, that’s responsible for the oppression and exploitation and degradation of Black People.” (X, 1964). Despite the rise of a significant Black middle-class two and a-half decades into the twenty-first century, the relationship between police and low-income communities of color has remained largely unchanged. The most violent domestic encounters of the exploitive-economic system occur along predictable front lines, namely, wherever police and or prison forces come into contact with low-income workers, who are also people of color. In the name of enforcing compliance with the political, social, and economic rules of order, agents of the state may inflict the degree of force they deem necessary starting with surveillance and escalating up to death rarely facing consequences. As Africana Studies moves into the second quarter of this century, we recommend an even sharper focus on the systemic structures that must be dismantled to finally end these neo-colonial government practices and regimes.

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The Particles of Pollution:

A Report on the State of the Plastic Pollution Problem in Black Geographies in the United States

by

ajanae T. Willis, Ph.D. Candidate Department of History University of Houston

Take a moment to look around and notice all the plastic in your vicinity. Are you writing with a plastic pen, or drinking from a water bottle made of plastic? Is the keyboard or mouse for your computer made of plastic? Are the frames of your glasses made of plastic? Venture further away from where you are reading, and ask how much plastic is in that larger space. The next time you go into your kitchen to open your refrigerator or pantry, consider: how much of the food and drink you consume comes in plastic? The next time you shower, consider: how many of your personal hygiene products come in plastic? The next time you’re cleaning, notice that nearly all your cleaning products are encased in plastic.

How many of these products did you choose to purchase because they came in plastic? The next time you’re in the grocery store, try to buy all your products in alternative packaging. You will probably find that it’s almost impossible, as plastic has replaced the majority of other

packaging materials in the United States (NRDC, 2024). Plastics are everywhere, but not by our choosing, and for Black communities, this is a problem.

Throughout this report, I refer to plastics as “particles of pollution” in an attempt to compel readers to see plastics for what they are: a conglomerate of micro and nano particles melted into a solid. I propose that, when we start seeing plastics in this manner, we can begin to understand how invasive they are as air, soil, and water pollutants. In this report, I examine the plastic pollution problem in Black communities across the United States. I begin by providing brief histories and updates on the invasiveness of these particles of pollution in air and water supplies near Black communities to highlight the urgency of the problem. I then analyze four energy policies that have been offered as solutions to the current crises and evaluate the effectiveness of each toward plastic pollution in Black communities. Finally, I briefly examine how the field of Black Studies offers a great deal of infrastructural promise for anti-pollution documentation, solutions, and advocacy.

The Particles of Pollution: Air

Exposure to poisonous air is not new for Black Americans. En route to the Americas via the Middle Passage, Black bodies were chained so closely and inhumanely that they convulsed from the mixture of urine, feces, blood, and vomit particles that polluted their air (Mustakeem, 2016). In the Antebellum South, some White planters maintained close proximity to pine forests in the southeast in order to use enslaved people to supply naval stores with tar and turpentine (Outland, R.B., 2004). In eastern counties of North Carolina, where this labor was concentrated, Black bodies were engaged in the heat and hazard of processing longleaf pine for wood and sap by firing clay kilns to deadly temperatures in order to char the wood (Johnson, 2025). Because tar making required pinewood burning at a consistent temperature, Black bodies already exposed to the inhalation of wood particles were forced to tarry over the flames, being further exposed to thick, black, soot-filled smoke (Johnson, 2025). Once the heat liquified the tar, they were then exposed to

its toxic fumes, a greater exposure to tar than the intake of constant chain-smoking (Zhao, 2020).

During the Reconstruction era, populations of newly free Black Americans left the South and moved into more industrialized work in the North, Midwest, and West, bringing them into more urban spaces like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, cities where constant everyday particles of air pollution came from substances like coal in local industries (Cayton & Drake, 1946). In addition to this round-the-clock exposure, the majority of Black Americans who found employment ended up in jobs that exposed them to air pollution from coal, from metal (in steel mills), and by 1930, increasingly from diesel (Cayton & Drake, 1946). In 1930 Chicago, most Black men were employed in coal yards, steel mills, railroads, and stockyards, industries where exposure to coal and diesel were constant (Cayton & Drake, 1946). The pollutant particles included sulfur, black carbon, formaldehyde, and metals, all of which scar the lungs, cause a variety of cancers, and damage liver and kidney function (Doctrow, 2023). Black women found work mainly in domestic labor, as charwomen, cleaners, cooks, laundresses, and janitors (Cayton & Drake, 1946). These jobs placed them in direct exposure to another deadly air pollutant, lye. Although sodium hydroxide is odorless, constant exposure can irritate and corrode the skin, lungs, and eyes (National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2025). So Black women, relegated to just three or four sectors of work, found no relief from air pollution either.

The postwar period in the middle of the twentieth century ushered in a rapid boom in industries like oil in cities such as Houston, and automobiles and steel in Detroit, and even higher numbers of Black migrants moved into polluted urban spaces (Sugrue, 1996). The end of the twentieth century brought no relief either, as the bust of deindustrialization, combined with racial discrimination in housing, urban renewal, and suburbanization left the majority of Black Americans in metropolises increasingly polluted by diesel emissions (Kent & Lewis, 2022).

Modernity has yet to offer Black Americans better air quality in either rural or urban

spaces, as particles of plastic pollution are ever-present and increasing in the air. Among the nation’s largest air polluters in Black geographies are plastic producers. As of this year, 66% of the three-quarters of a million Americans who live within a three-mile radius of a plastic production facility are Black (Environmental Integrity Project, 2024); and as the radius grows, so does the proportion of Black people living in proximity to facilities injecting particles of plastic pollution into the air. It is important to note that regardless of income level, Black communities are more likely to be subjected to nearly twice the air pollution as White Americans. In these areas, chemicals like ethylene oxide are emitted a deadly, colorless gas that increases the risk of breast, blood, and other cancers in quantities up to twenty times as high as the EPA had previously estimated (Environmental Protection Agency, 2018). This is especially true in Black communities between Baton Rouge and New Orleans (Deelen, 2024).

Particles of plastic pollution have a geography: plastic producers target lands near Black communities for new facilities. Studies of places like Charleston, West Virginia, have indicated that plastic producers (whether of chemical building blocks or finished products) choose to locate facilities near Black neighborhoods: Institute, WV is one of just two predominately Black communities in the entire state (Song, et al., 2022). The damage is widespread and worsening as the South, where more than half of the country’s Black population lives, registered more than a thousand air pollution hot spots in data that came out nearly four years ago, in 2021 (Ward, 2021).

Schools that predominately educate Black children are also increasingly located near plastic producers, and as of last year, stark increases in allergies and asthma among Black children have been recorded as a result of elevated ethylene oxide exposure (Li, 2024).

The Particles of Pollution: Water

Historically, polluted water has always been weaponized by state and corporate entities against Black people who built geographies of freedom across the United States. Before

emancipation, Black slaves endured this weaponization by planters, who functioned as corporation-like entities, via overexposure to stagnated, bacteria-polluted waters and harsh working conditions draining swamps, navigating dangerous rivers to reroute them, and even trading.

And after 1865, newly freed Black Americans who moved away from these plantations often settled in low-lying flood plains (Grego, 2022). Disastrously, these lands were often (and still are) in close proximity to disasters like severe thunderstorms, tropical storms, and hurricanes. These events would bring threatening amounts of water that did not recede quickly enough to avoid bacterial pollution (Mizelle, 2016). The water was transformed into a weapon by the purposeful neglect of mechanisms for alleviating flooding, like levies, dikes, and other backflow prevention devices. Cities and states diverted Black tax dollars away from maintenance and improvement of these life-saving mechanisms, exposing Black bodies to water pollution that bred bacteria and disease-carrying mosquitoes, and even injuries and death due to drownings in deep, rushing waters (Mizelle, 2016).

During the long Black struggle for freedom in the twentieth century, water was mainly weaponized by the state and corporation-like entities manipulating access to clean and safe water in public spaces. This was often followed by the diverting of Black bodies away from clean waters, back to closer proximity to particles of water pollution. Jim Crow and Black codes throughout the country cut Black Americans off from access to tax dollars to fund the installation of new inventions, like water-filtration systems powered by electricity, sewers, and non-toxic water pipe installations (Troesken, 2004). Despite Black labor being used to invent and install these systems to maintain clean water in White communities, this denial of access chained Black geographies to particles of water pollution via forced dependency on unfiltered or underfiltered water poisoned with fecal, bacterial, and chemical materials like E. coli and lead.

Black codes even denied Black Americans access to water use for leisure, as they were

disallowed from using clean swimming pools, beaches, lakes, and rivers, a denial which deepened the weaponization by forcing a dependency on public bodies of water that were also neglected through the manipulation of tax dollars to mitigate particles of bacterial and chemical pollution (Mizelle, 2016).

Today, this cycle of forced dependency on waters contaminated with the particles of pollution becomes threefold; the first two being continuations of historic exposure, each of which is now exacerbated by the third and more modern problem: microplastic. The three folds are as follows: (1) looking to cities like Flint, Michigan; Allensworth, California; Atlanta, Georgia; (newly predominantly Black) Brockton, MA; Detroit, MI; Chicago, IL; and Jackson, Mississippi, we can see that Black Americans are still navigating their overexposure to the purposeful neglect of city wide water filtration and sewer systems, (2) Disasters like tropical storms and hurricanes are ever increasing, due to climate change, leaving Black Americans in low-lying flood plains more exposed to polluted waters than ever; and (3) taking the aforementioned together, the continuation of this historic disease and death inducing cycle produces a forcible overreliance on plastic, bottled water consumption (SWRCB, 2022 and Liddie, et.al., 2023).

The particles of plastic pollution are found in bottles of water that are marketed as safer water options to Black communities as they continue to navigate historic pollution and disasters. Corporate power and political neglect by government entities allow plastic producers to deplete public drinking water sources by drawing from them for production. Microplastic particles released via toxic water dumping from plastic manufacturing sites are also leaching into public drinking supplies and have been found in bottled water (National Institutes of Health, 2024).

Plastic production is further harming water in proximity to Black communities by both engaging through a cycle of drawing water already plagued by underfiltration into production facilities and returning it more polluted, leaving the communities to rely solely on these

companies’ plastic products, mainly bottled water, under the guise that they are safer than local drinking water (CASPER, 2016). Black communities across the country must remain on high alert as this increasing reliance on water from plastic bottles is also increasing exposure to microplastics. In fact, recent studies have shown that a single liter of water from a single-use plastic bottle includes about 240,000 pieces of microplastic (Contie, 2024). Consequently, these microplastics are also being found in the blood, brains, and other organs of consumers.

Though microplastics are regularly being found in the bodies of many races across the United States, the disproportionate geographical proximity of Black communities to polluted or underfiltered water sources, which produces the need to consume more bottled water, combined with the health disparities these communities face, has created an unseen emergency for Black communities. Studies are just beginning to capture the many ways that microplastics in the blood and organs can exacerbate health problems like auto-immune diseases (e.g., lupus, arthritis) and endocrine-system problems (hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, polycystic ovary syndrome [PCOS], diabetes), many of which disproportionately affect Black communities (NIDDKD, 2024; BeWell Study, 2019; Cho et al., 2023).

An Analysis of Current Policies Affecting Plastic Pollution

In this section, I provide a few brief analyses of current policies affecting the plastic pollution problem in Black communities across the United States. I begin by highlighting two pieces of legislation issued under the Biden Administration and end with recent executive orders on the energy emergency put forth by President Trump.

It is imperative for Black communities to recognize that what currently stands between them and safer, less polluted environments is a toxic cloud of disinformation and propaganda aimed at distorting the true causes and solutions to plastic pollution: the seemingly chaotic but coherent expansions of fossil fuel and plastic production, and the federal government’s refusal to

hold corporations that pollute air, water, and soil accountable for cleanup. Furthermore, keeping in mind that fossil fuel production is inextricably tied to the expansion of plastic production and its subsequent pollution, Black communities must continue to increase their efforts to monitor fastchanging energy legislation. Doing so in the current political turmoil will allow Black communities to (1) avoid confusion about what seems beneficial to most communities by understanding the coded energy language that shrouds the true, dire consequences that deregulation will have on Black communities; (2) anticipate new challenges, and stay vigilant in fortifications and grassroots efforts to alleviate hardships brought on by pollution; and (3) maintain an up-to-date blueprint of issues to hold representatives accountable for.

House Resolution 987: “Denouncing the Harmful, Anti-American Energy Policies of the Biden Administration, and for Other Purposes.”

On January 31, 2024, Republican Representative Dan Newhouse from Washington State introduced House Resolution 987, which was meticulously crafted to appear at face value to acknowledge the hardships experienced by American families in high energy bills. However, analysis shows that the true purpose of the bill was to shape the House GOP’s rebellion against Biden’s strict guidance prohibiting the expansion of federal leasing for drilling permits, liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, and permits for export facilities as an “energy crisis” (H. Res. 97: 118th Congress, 2024). The resolution cites four main claims made by the House GOP toward Biden era energy policies: (1) denouncing the harmful anti-American energy policies of the Biden administration; (2) denouncing the irrational and unpredictable federal land policies of the Biden administration; (3) condemning the energy crisis plaguing families and businesses throughout the country, caused by the Biden administration; and (4) encouraging the domestic production of reliable and affordable energy generation sources.

Two alarming, counterproductive factors must be noted here. (1) The first portion of

this resolution argues that Biden era restrictions produced an energy “crisis” a time of trouble and turmoil for the energy sector, which due to accusations of restrictions, was increasingly unable to produce and increasingly dependent on foreign oil. But this shows a blatant disregard for the facts: in late 2023, big American oil exports registered well over 10 billion cubic feet of LNG exports per day; more than double those under the Trump administration (Magtulis et al., 2024). Thus the disdain for Biden’s “restrictions” was mere frustration with the administration’s unwillingness to further expand fossil fuel drilling, production, and LNG exports, even though the U.S. had become the largest LNG exporter, and consequently greenhouse gas polluter, in the world (U.S. Department of Energy, 2024). This resolution used the hardships of the American people as a scapegoat to set the stage for the Trump administration’s expansion of fossil fuel production and its plastic-production counterpart.

(2) As responsive to the financial hardships brought on by high energy costs as this resolution appears to be, it does not offer proposals to bring costs down for the American household. Though it does not discuss pollution directly, this sort of ominousness in energy legislation should alert Black communities to the hidden agendas to pass materials that appeal to emotion but are not followed by real protections. The most recent study by the U.S. Department of Energy estimated that if LNG export rates continue at their current pace, by 2050 natural gas prices for U.S. consumers will be 4% higher than they are now. So political posturing of this sort only indicates a win for corporate power and profits at the expense of the American people. It is safe to anticipate that in the face of efforts to increase gas, oil, and plastic production, Black Americans will once again be uniquely affected environmentally and financially (U.S. Department of Energy, 2024). It is also important to note here that a report by the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice released in 2024, revealed that

the large majority of LNG facilities are located in close proximity to Black communities, and that plans for new facilities all place the developments in Black communities as well (Bullard, 2024). In conclusion, this legislation serves as a precursor to harmful deregulations.

A

Biden

Era Policy on Plastic:

Mobilizing

Federal Action

on Plastic

Pollution,

A Collaborative Effort of the Interagency Policy Committee on Plastic Pollution and a Circular Economy

Following the legacy of the Carter Administration, of building political coalitions to ensure conservation, President Biden released the government’s most comprehensive plan to date to address plastic pollution in July of 2024. It was the first time the federal government acknowledged the holistic nature of plastic pollution that exists in landfills, oceans, government agencies, and communities across the country (Mobilizing Federal Action on Plastic Pollution, 2024). This policy outlines a few key sections.

In (a) Section 1: “Assessing and Reducing Pollution from Plastic Production,” the committee evaluates the potential to reinvigorate interagency cooperation in reducing the harms due to chemicals infused into plastics at the beginning of their production life cycle. Here, the committee not only acknowledges that particles of plastics are inherently deadly, but analyzes the connections of plastic production to fossil fuel production. This material benefits Black communities in particular by providing a blueprint for reapplying several acts that are already in place (e.g., the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act) for further protections, reopening legal inroads for the federal government to hold corporations accountable without new legislation. However, work by Black organizations must ensure that these regulations are applied.

In (b) Section 2: “Innovating Materials and Product Design,” the committee acknowledges that due to most plastic products being designed for single uses, recycling

efforts are not mitigating plastic pollution sufficiently, and scientific exploration is needed of plastics that will permit multi-use cycles, as well as federal funding for the expansion of recycling facilities and community recycling infrastructure. It is important to note here that policies that acknowledge the fraud of plastic recycling deserve the utmost attention of Black communities.

The plastic industry responded to anti-pollution activism throughout the twentieth century by developing false campaigns to encourage communities to (1) believe that they were investing in anti-pollution recycling to protect themselves, and (2) employ those recycling methods to keep plastic pollution out of their communities. From the 1950s through the 1980s, the industry developed campaigns aimed at cooling activists’ calls for cleanup and reform by convincing the American public of the disposability of plastic. By the 1990s, big plastic had begun concentrating its efforts to root out anti-plastic propaganda efforts that included performative humanitarian investments, and which continue today (Center for Climate Integrity, 2024). When these efforts are coupled with anti-Black sentiment and the idea that Black people are inherently destructive of their own living conditions, false solutions to pollution can be offered that only include recycling campaigns. These campaigns, when developed without acknowledgement of the falsehood of the rhetoric about recycling singleuse plastics, transfers the blame for plastic pollution from corporate producers to Black communities. Black communities must continue to monitor such “solutions” for such counterproductive biases and to lobby for corporate accountability.

In (c) Section 3: “Decreasing Plastic Waste Generation,” the committee upholds accountability through commitments by the federal government to reverse its purchases of single-use plastics across all agencies. Regarding this, Black communities must continue to lobby for the federal government to hold itself accountable to sustainable practices and to not

federally funding underregulated private industries like big plastics. It must also be noted that this is only the first step, and that more sweeping measures must encourage other public and private industries to follow suit.

And (d) Section 4: “Improving Environmentally Sound Waste Management” addresses the need to optimize the collection of plastic through the restructuring of recycling. Due to their close proximity to production facilities, Black communities must also consider the chemical makeup of the recycling materials that will be produced: Will the federal government expand plastic recycling efforts by paying big plastic to produce more recycling bins that are made of plastic themselves? A careful examination of what materials tax dollars will fund is needed. That examination must be applied to all “solutions” proposed for plastic pollution cleanup.

One of the strongest components of this policy is the willingness to direct federal money toward research into new inventions and infrastructure, all of which should be monitored closely by Black communities to ensure that predominantly Black cities, scholars, and community organizations receive equal funding opportunities. On weakness is a recurring question throughout federal legislation: Will efforts be concentrated on ensuring that corporations are held responsible (not destroyed, but held responsible) for their resistance to plastic pollution cleanup efforts, including when they have broken environmental protection laws? The lack of direct endorsement of such accountability threatens substantial roadblocks to Black communities working to answer to the plastic pollution question.

Finally, the Biden administration’s lack of policies to slow the expansion of plastic facilities remains in obscurity. The report largely addresses how to clean up existing plastic pollution, end the production of single-use plastics, reinvigorate recycling efforts, and implement carbon capture all excellent strategies for managing the existing problem. The

report does not address the juxtaposition of the administration’s commitment to mitigating the plastic pollution with its record-breaking fossil fuel and fracking operations, which provide rapid, direct pathways to increased production. Alarmingly, other policy objectives promote “solutions” like electric vehicles (EVs), which are proposed to curb pollutants, that are also driving the rapid increase in plastic production (Fortune Business Insights Reports on U.S. Plastics Market Size, 2024).

Trump Era Policies Toward Plastic Pollution

During the 2024 presidential campaign, the country witnessed a swift reaffirmation of the idea that the durability of the U.S. economy is based on the production of fossil fuels, mainly gas, oil, and coal. Wrapped in political talking points about making America great through energy dominance came the sentiment that for the U.S to recapture its economic strength and independence, big gas, oil, and coal must have the flexibility to increase production by expanding their drilling, manufacturing, and refining capabilities (Iglesias, 2024).

Executive Orders: “Declaring a National Energy Emergency” and “Unleashing American Energy”

This recent conservative rhetoric, bolstered by the “energy crisis” disinformation in the aforementioned House Resolution 987, responds directly to Biden era policies by rapidly expanding deregulations from President Trump’s previous term. It propagates the idea that increased fossil fuel production will provide multiple “payouts” to the American people: (1) Due to increased supplies and centralized and independent availability, a more streamlined supply chain will emerge (White House Council of Economic Advisers, 2019). Thus, American manufacturers of products derived from fossil fuels will have overall cheaper production costs. (2) As a result, the American people will receive cheaper prices for these

goods, answering their demands to lower inflation (Council of Economic Advisers, 2020).

(3) Finally, America will “become great again” by forgoing dependence on foreign fossil fuels, protecting itself by closing pathways that could be exploited by countries it needs for raw materials.

In these sentiments lurk several alarming truths that Black Americans should be aware of:

(1) In 2023, fossil fuel production was already at an all-time high (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2024). Thus these are not plans to reinvigorate an under-producing segment of the economy (as portrayed in the conservative rhetoric above), but to further increase production.

(2) Fossil fuels like crude oil contain the basic chemical building blocks of plastics, which links their increased production to increased in plastic production of all kinds (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2024). This means that air and water pollution in Black communities can be projected to grow increasingly worse over the next decade. In fact, more than 90% of U.S.-made plastics are derived from these very fossil fuels, and consequently, U.S. plastic production is projected to double or triple by 2050 (Karali et al., 2024), the year the Biden administration selected as the goal for the net zero procurement.

Black communities must remember that the end of plastic pollution is as murky as the waters polluted by that plastic, mostly because, by the 2024 presidential election, neither party had put forth legislation aimed at slowing the demand for plastic production. This means not only that the end of plastic pollution is nowhere in sight, but that this issue, which uniquely affects Black communities, will be exacerbated by the incoming Republican administration’s willingness to blot out identifiers of communities’ vulnerability to plastic production and pollutants: mainly, race, income, and geography.

The Promise of Black Studies in Critical Plastic Studies

Black Studies offers many promises to Black communities suffering from plastic pollution.

In this section, I discuss false academic rhetoric about the living conditions of Black people in America, mainly the narrative of “Black on Black harm” to living conditions the idea that Black people willfully “choose” to create and accept these conditions. I explain how this gets in the way of developing knowledge of and solutions to the plastic pollution in Black communities. Finally, I offer insights into how Black Studies is uniquely positioned to document and solve this plastic pollution problem.

Promise One: The Truth, in the Midst of Disinformation, from the Source

This particular subset of scholars stand on the shoulders of eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century Black thinkers whose purpose in creating the field was to combat anti-Black propaganda, mainly disinformation about the Black identity and condition. Each particle of this form of intellectual pollution was used to mislead the public with a foundational and dangerous lie: that the identity and culture of Black people in the United States are inherently self-destructive, so the woes Black communities face are of their own design, leaving no blame for the institutional entities that developed, manipulated, and controlled their living conditions. Scholarship and policy have been affected by this rhetoric, resulting in the refusal or inability to pinpoint the systemic causes of such living conditions.

For example, early scholars like Ulrich Bonnell Phillips propagated the idea that the enslaved were “given adequate housing, food, and clothing” on plantations and possessed “many leverages” to usurp power from their holders and improve their own living conditions (Smith, 1981). Phillips also characterized slaveholders as “patriarchal,” portraying them as willful and spirited providers of everything necessary to a good life (Smith, 1981). Thus, as they were adequately provided for, responsibility for improving living conditions was on the enslaved.

Black scholars like W. E. B. Dubois and John Blassingame, who both helped lay the intellectual foundations of Black Studies, exposed the manufacture of anti-Black propaganda via

the lack of sources from the enslaved themselves. Dubois, in his review of Phillips’s work American Negro Slavery, railed against his characterization of slavery and the domestic slave trade as genuinely concerned about the “moral and physical well being” of Black bodies (Dubois, 1918). Instead, Dubois highlighted the shortcomings of any account of slavery, characterized as an account of the Black experience, that does not include Black people as sources; the result not only obscures the institutions that work to maintain horrific living conditions, but also denies humanity to Black people in totality (Dubois, 1918). For this reason, Dubois spent time in his own works, like Black Reconstruction, excavating the systemic and sometimes invisible forces that created the living conditions Black people navigated. Dubois argued that these forces are so reactionary and opposed to Black progress that these systems produced paradoxical and diverse living condition combinations (Dubois, 1935). Understanding the ways the academy challenged the production of such studies, historians like Carter G. Woodson, created platforms like the Journal of Negro History (now the Journal of African American History) to publish these unique studies.

Confirming the long legacy of the commitment to disinforming the public about the Black experience, John Blassingame echoed Dubois’s concerns from the twentieth century in The Slave Community, where he argued that “the ghost of U. B. Philips haunts all of us” and that Phillips’s simplified, inhumane characterization of enslaved people as “submissive half-man, half child sambos,” was not only inaccurate, but denied to the record an entire history of communal efforts to create culture, maintain humanity, and resist the powerful entities that controlled their living conditions (Blassingame, 1972). A few years later, Black intellectual organizations like the National Council For Black Studies, founded in 1975, expressed concern about the inability of academic disciplines, even after the Civil Rights era, to recognize and mitigate the production of disinformation about the Black experience, and undertook to bolster universities with Black Studies programs and scholars who were correcting the record (Conyers, 2004). Finally, Black

Scholars and organizers, who are credited with direct influence over the insertion of Black Studies programs into universities - like Dr. Abdul Alkalimat, Dr. Nathan Hare and even grassroots organizers like Septima Clarke, Fannie Lou Hamer, and the Black Panther Party - crafted these practices and programs to be separate departmental (and in the case of activists: grassroots and communal) programs with curricula designed to study the experience of Black people functioning in environments of oppression; with a critical examination of how that experience helped them foster a cultural and political identity as a result of that environment, as well as to resist those forces (Jackson, 2023).

Today, in the face of conservative movements trying to roll back African American studies, stifle Black progress via false DEI rhetoric, reduce access to housing and healthcare, empower mechanisms of mass incarceration and racialized violence, defund the construction of Black wealth, and roll back federal regulations protecting Black communities, Phillips’s legacy of disinformation and propaganda lives on. It currently takes the shape of government agendas like Project 2025, where anti-Blackness (also articulated as anti “woke,” “anti-DEI,” “anti-Whiteness,” or “reverse racism”) manifests into a current call to concentrate federal power to deregulate research funding and policies that prioritizes “identity politics” (code for Black) over Conservative fiscal policies that place “America First.” Project 2025, crafted under the intellectual direction of a historian that has studied the Black identity, leans on the construction of the idea that America’s ability to regain its economic and political strength comes from bolstering the true “American family unit” - an old formulation of the American identity - to counter said new “woke” identity politics. Further, this project - citing statistics like “70% of Black American children are born to unmarried mothers” - uses Phillip’s mechanism of distorting numbers to place the Black identity as adjacent to those ideas of what makes America strong (Roberts, Foreword, Project 2025). By distorting the Black identity and refusing to uncover the systemic mechanisms that work to create

those issues, authors of Project 2025 continuously lean on the benevolent provisions of the statesanctioned power to further position their argument that the federal government, having taken on “agendas” that are centered around race and DEI (pro-Black in some instances) are anti-American for two reasons: (1) because it does not uphold “true American family values” and has become “unfair” to other “American” principles like “free markets” (pro corporation sentiments) by providing too many protections; and (2) leaning on Phillip’s ideological foundation that enough money and power has already been given to communities like Black ones - thus, their conditions should be solved by them (Gunasekara; Carson; Roberts, Project 2025).

Regarding plastic pollution and Black communities, this legacy manifests itself in two main ways: (1) it circulates propaganda that argues that Big Oil and other plastic producing corporations are benevolent and paternalistic towards communities: they provide good paying jobs to Americans during economic downturn, produce products that keep prices low within the US, and engage in safe production practices that keep living conditions clean; a point that is utilized to uphold their argument that (2) when accidents do happen, corporations ensure holistic environmental clean up that redeems their eligibility for federal subsidies and denies the need for increasing federal oversight and regulation of pollution (Chairman’s Report: United States Committee on the Budget, 2024). Thus, any other spending on said protections and programs threatens the economic wellbeing of “American families” that should be placed first (Zeldin, EPA Report).

In fact, as of March 12th of 2025, the EPA, upholding the idea that funding measures that counter pollution in Black communities have damaged the economic and political strength of America - developed under the ideological legacies of Phillips and Project 2025 - has issued a historic deregulatory agenda. Taken directly from the desk of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the EPA has issued 31 historic deregulatory acts that place “America First” (Zeldin, EPA Report). The

following rollbacks are direct repeals of existing protections (regulations placed on Big Gas and Oil that are inextricably connected to plastic production) that impact the quality of air and water in Black communities in the following areas:

● Reconsideration of regulations throttling the oil and gas industry (OOOO b/c)

● Reconsideration of mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program that imposed significant costs on the American energy supply (GHG Reporting Program)

● Reconsideration of limitations, guidelines and standards (ELG) for the Steam Electric Power Generating Industry to ensure low-cost electricity while protecting water resources (Steam Electric ELG)

● Reconsideration of wastewater regulations for coal power plants to help unleash American energy (Oil and Gas ELG)

● Reconsideration of Biden-Harris Administration Risk Management Program rule that made America’s oil and natural gas refineries and chemical facilities less safe (Risk Management Program Rule)

● Reconsideration of Particulate Matter National Ambient Air Quality Standards that shut down opportunities for American manufacturing and small businesses (PM 2.5 NAAQS)

● Reconsideration of multiple National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for American energy and manufacturing sectors (NESHAPs)

● Restructuring the Regional Haze Program that threatened the supply of affordable energy for American families (Regional Haze)

● Overhauling Biden-Harris Administration’s “Social Cost of Carbon”

● Redirecting enforcement resources to EPA’s core mission to relieve the economy of unnecessary bureaucratic burdens that drive up costs for American consumers

(Enforcement Discretion)

● Terminating Biden’s Environmental Justice and DEI arms of the agency (EJ/DEI)

I must note here again that all of the aforementioned items were taken directly from Zeldin’s report verbatim. I did not interpret them in any way.

When taken together, we can begin to see the ways that the ideas of Phillip’s “benevolent state-sanctioned power that does well by Black communities” is the foundation for this type of disinformation that purposefully engineered lies to propagate that the responsibility for pollution in Black communities should be turned away from the corporations that pollute; leaving room for propaganda that they (said corporations) provide Black communities with adequate living conditions.

In terms of critical environmental studies:

(a) The unique mixture of cultural and political approaches, with a direct focus on defining the true Black identity, leaves Black Studies perfectly designed to monitor the many ways that the media, politicians, and corporations use anti-Black disinformation and propaganda that clouds understanding of who Black people are and how they live, in order to shift the blame for living conditions away from corporations and policy failures onto Black communities.

(b) The interdisciplinary nature of Black Studies provides key pathways for the field to case and capture any primary sources (pertaining to Black Americans experiencing pollution) that already exist in non-traditional sources. The interdisciplinary infrastructure is so wide-ranging that it already has long-standing access to Black cultural institutions (having had scholars that are members of these institutions and/or were present at the founding of these institutions), a history of scholars who work within a variety of departments and institutions, and organizational

infrastructure that allows for the constant sharing of information across disciplines. Therefore, this access allows the field to quickly introduce new research lenses to uncover and "legitimize" these non-traditional sources, expanding the primary source pool with first-hand accounts from Black Americans who experience(d) pollution. This will help alleviate the “silences” of Black voices in environmental studies.

(c) Due to the aforementioned, Black Studies possess the infrastructure to leverage the production of new primary sources that center Black voices within the history of pollution - which does include its unique ability to inject Black scholars into research projects that already exist, but are in desperate need of realistic perspectives from people who have direct experience and a deeper understanding of this subject matter.

(d) Finally, the methodological practices developed by Black scholars in the field of Black Studies have been purposefully shaped to uphold and center Black cultural values. This provides a unique framework for the field to develop culturallyrelevant educational materials to disseminate to Black communities to keep them informed of rapid changes in policies and practices that are directly affecting their living conditions.

Promise Two: The Flexible and Interdisciplinary Nature of Black Studies as a Solution

As swift changes in politicians and political agendas sweep the country and research into pollution in Black communities continues to be done in non-Black spaces, there are a few key areas that Black Studies needs to monitor:

1. How effective are climate policies at mitigating pollution in Black communities?

(i) I identify this question because, Black Studies - being inherently designed to analyze the application and effectiveness of the combination of anti-Black propaganda, policy, and practice - is positioned to measure the socio-political implications that policy failures, disinformation, and a lack of corporate accountability pose to Black communities in real time.

(ii) Moreover, in regards to climate policies, Black Studies also possesses the infrastructure to evaluate the culture of policy making towards the Black community. The important aspect of this will be to focus on the way the culture of policy making in DC is purposefully crafted to counter the culture of Black resistance.

2. Are Black leaders in either party informed, invested, and independent enough of corporate funding to truly challenge the plastic industry and ameliorate their polluting practices in Black geographies? Because Black Studies was formulated and is governed by Black scholars who became community leaders, the infrastructure exists to monitor these matters.

3. Finally, as federal and state governments aggressively impose anti-DEI and anti-Black measures, do Black communities have an equitable presence and stake in institutions that are working to mitigate plastic pollution?

I end my report by noting that the last two years have proved one thing about plastic: it transformed the nation’s culture mainly due to cost-effectiveness, but the price Black communities have paid and are paying is so high that it surpasses the materials. It has cost Black lives.

References

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Silencing Agency: Resurgence of Reactionary Policy

by

Keyonna J. A. White Doctoral Student

Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies Indiana University

The resurgence of reactionary policies targeting Black agency has taken on newly recycled forms grounded in White supremacist ideology and reinforced by modern governance. These measures systematically suppress Black voices and perpetuate intergenerational trauma through mechanisms of epistemic violence and culture making, effectively reducing Black collective agency. This paper explores how contemporary policies serve as tools of suppression, using Florida as a case study to highlight the intersection of historical legacies and present-day mechanisms of suppression. The analysis draws from agency reduction formation and epistemic violence frameworks to illustrate the implications of policies such as House Bill 7 (HB7), House Bill 1 (HB1), and Senate Bill 90 (SB90) on Black agency and collective psychological well-being (Fla. HB1, 2021; Fla. SB90, 2021; Fla. HB7, 2022). A solution-driven analysis will be implemented using the Kawaida paradigm that advances “cultural and social change philosophy,” defined as “an ongoing synthesis of the best of African thought and practice in constant exchange

with the world” (Karenga, 2010, p. 260). Kawaida also implements the seven principles, or Nguzo Saba, which may act as a guide for suggested solutions to be implemented by organizational arms of Black Studies.

Historically, White supremacism has influenced policies and culture, shaping a sociopolitical environment that marginalizes Black communities’ functions and agency (Christian, 2002; Dovidio et al., 1989; Miller-Idriss, 2021; Rodney et al., 2018; Zanden, 1959). The legacy of practices such as slavery, segregation, and Confederate culture laid the groundwork for contemporary modes of oppression. These practices often employ epistemic violence, a practice described by Dotson (2011), that involves the systematic silencing of marginalized groups by failing to recognize their testimony or discouraging their participation in discourse. Historical context is essential to understanding the mechanisms through which Black voices continue to be suppressed. Contemporary policies in Florida exemplify the mechanisms of suppression through targeted legislation. For instance, HB7, commonly referred to as the “Stop WOKE Act,” restricts discussions of systemic racism and of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in educational and workplace settings (Fla. HB7, 2022).

By discouraging critical engagement with these topics, HB7 fosters testimonial smothering, in which individuals avoid expressing concerns due to the potential for punitive retaliation. Similarly, HB1, an anti-assembly bill, redefines rioting in vague terms, creating a chilling effect on protest, while SB90 introduces restrictive voting measures that disproportionately disenfranchise Black voters, perpetuating historical patterns of exclusion (Fla. HB1, 2021; Fla. SB90, 2021). These policies exemplify the silencing and reducing of Black agency through the legislative process and use the threat of criminalization to stifle both agency of voice and action. Because of this function, regardless of any particular or group intention, the policies should be viewed as agency reduction formation: “any system of thought that distracts, neutralizes, or reduces the need

and desire for assertive collective agency by African Americans” (Tillotson, 2011, p. 60).

The resurgence of reactionary policies can be understood as a backlash to increased demands for racial justice. Rhetorical strategies that frame DEI initiatives as indoctrination exemplify how systemic racism adapts to maintain dominance. This reactionism is further fueled by unconscious biases and racial resentment, as evidenced by studies like those of Hout and Maggio (2021), which document persistent racial resentment among voters. These sentiments are instrumental to shaping policies that undermine Black agency while legitimizing White supremacist ideologies that are often based on an emotional fear range (Gil, 2016; Hout et al., 2021; Friedrichs et al., 2022).

The implications of these policies are far-reaching, with not only immediate socioeconomic impacts but long-term socio-psychological consequences (Graff, 2014; Haslanger, 2019; Alang et al., 2021). Policies that limit access to education, voting, and assembly perpetuate poverty and health disparities, as documented by Cockerham (2013). The resulting intergenerational trauma not only undermines quality of life in Black communities but perpetuates a sense of disempowerment and alienation. This dynamic creates fertile ground for what Wright (1984) described as mentacidal conditioning, in which systemic oppression erodes Black cultural identity and mental health. This implies that policies like those described have both direct and indirect correlations with the reduction and neutralization of collective Black agency.

Mechanisms of Suppression

Rooted in slavery, segregation, and institutionalized racism, White supremacism has shaped the socio-political landscape through policies and cultural practices designed to marginalize Black communities (Haslanger, 2019; Bailey, 2022). These systems have not only dictated the terms of racial hierarchies but established patterns of exclusion and domination that persist in modern governance. These markers serve as reminders of a socio-political order that denies Black

individuals their agency, reducing their contributions and struggles to narratives dictated by White supremacist ideologies.

White supremacism operates not only through overt violence and discrimination but through subtler, institutional mechanisms that perpetuate harm (Zanden, 1959; Dovidio et al., 1986; Kleinpenning, 2006; Alang et al., 2021; Christian, 2022). Forms of silencing are deeply embedded in American policy and culture, perpetuating the marginalization of Black communities by disregarding testimony and erasing historical realities. For example, post-Civil War policies such as Jim Crow laws institutionalized racial inequality, effectively silencing the political and economic aspirations of African Americans (Bailey, 2022). These practices set a precedent for modern governance, in which reactionary policies serve to maintain the status quo by suppressing efforts to address systemic racism and inequality.

White supremacism continues to inform the cultural and political dynamics that suppress Black agency. Confederate, MAGA, and anti-DEI culture, particularly in states like Florida, play a significant role in perpetuating these dynamics. Symbols such as Confederate monuments and MAGA flags are not mere relics of history or promotional materials in support of a presidential candidate, but are active tools of a cultural narrative that glorifies the subjugation of Black individuals. Studies like that of Vyas (2017) have highlighted how these symbols evoke psychological trauma in African Americans, linking historical oppression to contemporary experiences of racial microaggressions.

The ongoing connection between past and present underscores the cyclical nature of White supremacism, allowing for a better understanding of how historical frameworks of racial oppression continue to shape the socio-political realities of Black Americans. By using ARF as a methodological tool, one can identify the elements that threaten the assertive collective agency of Black communities. Frameworks such as epistemic violence can function as additional explanatory

tools regarding the operational realities, or the how of this process.

In contemporary governance, these mechanisms often manifest as policies limiting freedom of expression, equitable education, and participation in democratic processes (Christian, 2002; Rodney et al., 2018; Miller-Idriss, 2021). Florida exemplifies this trend with legislation such as House Bill 7 (HB7), House Bill 1 (HB1), and Senate Bill 90 (SB90). Each of these laws employs ambiguous or restrictive language to silence Black voices and curtail avenues for addressing inequities. HB7, for instance, prohibits the discussion of systemic racism and DEI in educational and workplace settings, stifling critical conversations about race and identity. In this way it fosters testimonial smothering, in which individuals or groups self-censor due to the risks associated with sharing their experiences.

Similarly, HB1 redefines the peaceful assembly to create an environment in which Blackled protests against social injustices are more likely to be criminalized. By expanding the definition of rioting to include vague terms such as “imminent danger of injury” or “damage to property,” this legislation allows law enforcement to suppress protests that challenge systemic racism (Fla., 2021; Kam, 2022). This ambiguity creates a chilling effect on the right to assemble, silencing voices that seek to address inequities. SB90 disproportionately affects Black communities by introducing restrictions on voting rights (Anderson, 2021; Fla. SB90, 2021; Berry, 2023; Bud, 2023; USCCR, 2023). By limiting access to vote-by-mail ballots, drop boxes, and third-party voter registration, SB90 systematically disenfranchises Black voters. These measures echo historical practices, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, that were designed to exclude African Americans from the voting process. To combat these practices, the Black community historically relied on collective power in the form of self-organizing, building and investing in community, and selfdefinition in various forms, all of which reflect the core values of Nguzo Saba. Revisiting community engagement in all forms of resistance is vital and can be applied to many such agency-

reducing policies at both the micro and macro levels.

The ongoing, recycled systemic silencing of Black voices through these mechanisms reflects a broader strategy of epistemic violence and systemic reduction of collective agency. As an increasing number of states follow Florida’s legislative lead, a cumulative effect of cultural silencing can be seen across the country (Bryant et al., 2024). Florida’s recent actions exemplify the trend, as policies such as the 2023 House Bill 999 and Senate Bill 266 are continually framed as necessary to preserve societal “neutrality” and prevent “indoctrination” (Fla. HB999., 2023; Fla. SB266, 2023). This framing is a rhetorical strategy designed to suppress discussion of systemic racism and marginalize the efforts of Black communities to advocate for meaningful change, thus qualifying as ARF. This backlash is not confined to overt opposition; it also operates through unconscious bias and coded language that reinforces systemic inequities.

Beyond legislative measures, reactionary rhetoric further undermines Black agency by denigrating racial justice movements and reframing them as threats to societal order. The resurgence of reactionary policies also reflects a broader cultural narrative that delegitimizes Black agency by reframing historical and systemic inequalities as individual or community failings. This backlash against Black agency highlights the enduring power of White supremacism to adapt and maintain dominance, meaning continued vigilance and resistance are required to dismantle its influence in policy and culture.

Conclusion

The resurgence of reactionary policies targeting Black agency reflects a continuation of systemic oppression rooted in White supremacism. Modern governance employs restrictive laws and cultural erasure to silence Black voices and invalidate their experiences. Kawaida theory offers a framework for resistance by fostering unity, self-determination, and collective empowerment through the principles of Nguzo Saba. In addition, Tillotson’s ARF theory highlights how these

policies systematically dismantle Black agency, making it imperative to counteract them with strategic organization and empowerment. By centering cultural reclamation, educational selfdetermination, and community-driven activism, Black communities can combat epistemic violence and maintain their agency.

Laws like HB7, HB1, and SB90 exemplify suppression by restricting discussions of systemic racism, curbing protests, and disenfranchising Black voters. These reactionary policies arose as backlashes to racial justice movements, exploiting racial resentment and deploying strategies like colorblindness to perpetuate inequities and delegitimize Black advocacy. Beyond their immediate socio-economic effects, these policies deepen disparities in health, education, and economic opportunities while exacerbating psychological harm, neutralizing or reducing the collective agency of the Black community. It is vital that academic, organizational, and activist factions continue to maintain all processes of decolonization while ensuring that we increase community education and collaboration to support resistance and promote collective agency.

To address these challenges, the National Council of Black Studies (NCBS) must continue to play an active role in advocacy, curriculum development, community education, cultural revitalization, research, and institutional partnerships and expand efforts to challenge restrictive policies and develop alternative educational materials. Electoral engagement efforts should counteract voter suppression, while research should critically examine reactionary policies and publish data-driven analyses. Institutional partnerships with Black-owned media, grassroots organizations, and global liberation movements will further strengthen collective resistance. By exposing the links between policy, culture, and agency, this analysis contributes to the broader discourse on Black agency and racial justice for the Black collective. The resurgent reactionism against Black agency in Florida demonstrates how modern policies perpetuate historical patterns of oppression. Addressing these issues requires an acknowledgment of systemic

inequities, a commitment to reforming policies that harm marginalized communities, and continued evaluation and creation of practical steps towards the deconstruction of White supremacism on multiple fronts. Future research should continue to explore the psychological and cultural consequences of such policies, building on studies like those of Vyas (2017) to provide a deeper understanding of how these dynamics affect Black agency to develop better solutions.

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CULTURALLY GROUNDED KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION

“Asking the Old Woman” through “Sankofa Kukuo” as Methodological Intervention: African-Heritage Women and Genealogical Research Inquiries

Elizabeth Peprah-Asare Cultural Studies Ph.D. Candidate Queen’s University

by &

Peter O. Ndaa, Ph.D. Director of Centre for Disability & Advocacy Studies, University of Ghana

An African Canadian of Ghanaian heritage, Elizabeth Peprah-Asare is a cultural studies

Ph.D. candidate completing the final year of her studies at Queen’s University. In June 2024, she was selected by Dr. Heather Aldersey, through Queen’s University’s International Centre for the Advancement of Community Based Rehabilitation (ICACBR), as a Queen Elizabeth scholar (QES) to travel to Accra, Ghana and work with the QES Ghana team under on-site project lead Dr. Peter O. Ndaa, University of Ghana (U of G) director of the Centre for Disability and Advocacy Studies.

Peprah-Asare was given the opportunity to assist the U of G team with qualitative data analysis and institutional capacity building on inclusive education (IE) for students with disabilities while also completing her field research on her Asante foremother’s matriarchal “her-stories.” The experience taught Peprah-Asare and Ndaa about the importance of empowering continental Africans and their diasporic kin to ideate culturally-informed research methodologies and interventions for change.

One pathway to this is to incorporate the knowledge and wisdom of African mothers and grandmothers by following the Akan proverb, “Ask the old woman.”

For centuries, European anthropologists have travelled to African countries to excavate the remains of its “timeless” past (Busia, 1989). Over last the several decades, African-heritage women have also travelled across the continent and within their own communities in the pursuit of “herstories” (McClaurin, 2001). In doing so, they have attempted to “dig up” the remains of their foremothers while also amplifying their own voices and stories (Busia, 1989). However, this task of “her-storical” recovery has often proved difficult for several reasons, as Adjaye (2008) argued: “Historical writing during the precolonial era was dominated by foreigners and non-historians for the most part travelers, missionaries, and European traders. In consequence, much of what they wrote . . . [was] clouded by their perceptions of Africans” (p. 2). Adjaye’s findings are important when we consider the various ways that Ghanaian women’s “her-stories” have been difficult to locate in archival records. Misconceptions and racism surrounding the idea that “Africans had no history” prevailed in colonial documents about Africans for centuries (Adjaye, 2008, p. 4).

Despite writing several volumes on Asante culture, leading colonial ethnographer R. S. Rattray admitted that he failed to ask Asante women about their lives, customs, and worldviews until late in his career. He wrote (1923), Queen Mothers are unrecognized by us and their position and influence are rapidly passing away. . . . I find it difficult to believe what is here described. . . . I have asked the old men and women why I did not know all this I had spent very many years in Ashanti. The answer is always the same: “The white man never asked us this; you have dealings with and recognize only the men; we supposed the Europeans considered women of no account, and we know you do not recognize them as we have always done.” (p. 84, emphasis added)

Throughout the text, Rattray continually demonstrated that he should have “asked the old woman”

for information about Asante cultural history and traditions. The remark “The white men never asked us” confirms the archival silences on African women in history. As they were seen as nonactors, it is no wonder that large portions of women-centred traditions among the Asante have long been absent from the historical record and mainstream academic publishing. These “old mothers of Africa” were forces to be reckoned with, however, approached as seers and griottes (storytellers) embodying the cultural histories of their peoples as living libraries.

Rattray (1923) also remarked,

If, however, we really wish to break up the clan system, then we are doing the right thing by ignoring the position of these women, for they are the keystone of the whole structure.

(pp. 85–90)

In one breath he extolled the power of the queen mothers’ influence among the Asante and sought to diminish their control so that European imperialists could gain control over their people more quickly.

Ghanaian scholars have attempted to recover the lost her-stories of Akan women of precolonial Ghanaian communities in response to anthropologists like Rattray who did not view African women as credible sources (Donkoh, 2012). Mercy Oduyoye, Wilhelmina Donkoh, Paul and Elizabeth Adjin-Tetteh, and Christine Oppong, among others have written about matriarchal and matrifocal foundations and patterns among pre-colonial Asante through various rituals and events of women’s life cycles (girls’ puberty rites, pregnancy, cooking in the matrilineage, “visiting marriage,” etc.), and goddess worship. Although this report does not to go into detail on Peprah-Asare’s doctoral work, the following section provides justification for her determination in establishing Sankofa Kukuo as an intervention to empower diasporic African heritage women to research the lives, cultures, and traditions of their continental foremothers.

Moving beyond the falsehoods about matriarchy as the inversion of patriarchal domination,

leading modern matriarchal scholar Heide Goettner-Abendroth (2017) argued that “the misinterpretation of the concept ‘matriarchy’ as ‘rule by mothers or women’ has led hundreds of scholars operating within the patriarchal framework to adhere to this fiction in their citations” (p. 2). A “matriarchy” is an egalitarian community in which mothers and motherhood are valued, reciprocity or gift giving governs economics in an often agrarian economy, peace and consensus govern communal decisions, all genders live in relational community with specific roles that contribute to the whole, and spirituality guides communal relations with some form of goddess worship (Goettner-Abendroth, 2017, p. 2–6). In the 1970s, modern matriarchal studies was taken seriously by two formidable academics: Heide Goettner-Abendroth in Germany and Ifi Amadiume in Nigeria. Whereas Goettner-Abendroth faced several smear campaigns for her work in challenging patriarchal projections of “matriarchies” resembling popular culture representations of Amazon warriors, Amadiume’s monographs on the matriarchal Nnobi of Nigeria (her own cultural group) helped established the field of West African matriarchy.

Goettner-Abendroth (2012) argued that “feminists and indigenous researchers, for the most part women, have taken the investigation of matriarchal forms of society into their own hands . . . assert the right to proceed on their own terms and have developed a very different perspective about society and history” (p. 3). This large task that Goettner-Abendroth highlighted led PeprahAsare to conceive a theory of her own to map out the various erasures and fragments within her cultural her-story. As Peprah-Asare (2023) has written elsewhere, The AfroWomanist Sankofa Archive is an Afrocentric theoretical framework a living archive informed by the intuitive knowledge of women born within the African diaspora who desire to uncover the sacred stories of women and peoples of Afro-heritage through space-time. . . . It functions as a guideline for researching and reconstructing African folks’ pasts in order to speculate about our futures more effectively (pp. 96–97).

In considering the possibilities of this new methodology, Peprah-Asare (2023) articulated the components of her interdisciplinary research tool and its function as a symbolic food for the soul.

Hence, “The AfroWomanist Sankofa Archive” combines multiple theories and concepts, just as the Ashanti of Ghana combine multiple food items within a pot of light soup. . . . [It] consists of miscellaneous mixtures of meat, vegetables, and spices. . . . Each theory and concept thrown into the pot . . . represents a metaphoric food item to be included in the bowl of soup that we, the diverse participants in each research process used within this sacred praxis, will share in communion as we eat and feast. (Peprah-Asare, 2023 pp. 96–97)

Once Peprah-Asare travelled to Ghana, the AfroWomanist Sankofa Archive began to evolve as she worked with the QES Ghana team at the University of Ghana and completed her field research on her mothers:

During a miraculous interview with an Akan Cultural Historian during my time as a Queen Elizabeth Scholar (QES) in Ghana during the summer of 2024, “Mr. Kwaku” shared the following about Asante women past and present, “Because feminists recognize the pot of wisdom that women carry as powerful beings, but they think that they can take that pot of wisdom flowing out from them and then go and dominate the men . . . you have to work together.” (Peprah-Asare, field interview with Mr. Kwaku, August 6, 2024)

With one reference to Asante women’s “pot of wisdom flowing out from them,” Peprah-Asare understood that if her foremothers were to create a theoretical framework, it would be based on one of the primary tasks they governed in their matrifocal matrilineal homes: cooking. Hence, she argued that Sankofa Kukuo is an “intellectual soup kitchen” because it nurtures all who take part in its process:

As the forebears of Matrifocal Governance, my Foremothers nurtured our clan physically,

spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually. The “pot of wisdom” that they governed was allencompassing to the point where Sankofa Kukuo, going back to fetch our Matriarchal heritage and knowledge through a combination of “ingredients” (i.e., theoretical concepts) to help feed us as we heal, grow and learn is quite profound. Sankofa Kukuo is a language of resistance and wonder; it is a language of love and longing, a language of communicating our Matriarchal blood heritages to map our unique genealogies. (PeprahAsare, 2024, p. 20)

Peprah-Asare’s experience of completing her doctoral field work as she walked where her grandmothers walked in their “matricentric women’s compounds” and consumed vegan versions of traditional Ghanaian foods (red, kontomire, etc.) led her to shift her “theoretical recipe” in Sankofa Kukuo to include the Akan philosophy of Sankofa, Alice Walker’s womanism, Katie Cannon’s womanist ethics, Heide Goettner-Abendroth’s modern matriarchal studies, Ifi Amadiume’s West African matriarchy, Rachel Ama Engmann’s (2019) autoarchaeology, and Tricia Hersey’s (2022) “Rest is Resistance.”

Alice Walker created womanism as a culturally informed alternative to feminism derived from southern American Black culture, where young girls who “try to act grown” were called “womanish” (Phillips, 2006, p. 19). In her 1983 four-part definition of “womanist”, Walker presented a matriarchal conversation between mother and daughter, illustrating intergenerational knowledge transfer in which the wisdom of mothers directs their daughters’ ontologies and supports their activisms. Similarly, Clenora Hudson-Weem’s (2020) “Africana womanism” links the diaspora to the continent by emphasizing the need to empower African families and communities for their wellbeing, in contrast to gender-separatist feminisms (p. 12). Katie Geneva Cannon (1996) designed womanist ethics as a critical intervention fashioned with the moral wisdom of Black women to challenge the brutality of White supremacism in Jim Crow America.

Drawing from Black women’s literature, Cannon (1996) discovered that it was the best available source for learning how historical Black women invented moral formulas to challenge America’s perversion of ethics (p. 36). Womanist ethics largely became a project of knowledge production for Black women’s “truth-telling” exercises (Cannon, 1996, p. 9).

Goettner-Abendroth’s modern matriarchal studies provides a theoretical foundation for scholars to map the ways that cultures transmit the matristic, egalitarian principles of matriarchal and matrifocal societies, where the wisdom of grandmothers and mothers governs the spiritual, economic, cultural, and political ethos of the culture. Ifi Amadiume’s West African matriarchy fills a large gap in the study of pre-colonial matriarchal foundations in West Africa. In uncovering the dual-sex governance system in her unique Nnobi clan, Amadiume (1997) demonstrated the importance of matricentric patterns flowing from “the spirit of common motherhood” through the leadership of a women’s council and reverence for the goddess Idemili, who gave women the “pot of prosperity” in a gender-fluid society (Amadiume, 1997, p. 128). Finally, Rachel Ama Asa Engmann’s (2019) “autoarchaeology” provides people engaged in genealogical research with the ability to process information through three positionalities: (1) as researcher, (2) as practitioner, and (3) as direct descendant of the demographic being studied (p. 213). Engmann, a descendant of the Danish-Ga community in Ghana, conceived of autoarchaeology after a conversation with an aunt in which she learned that her Danish ancestor Carl Engmann was not the missionary her family believed him to be he was discovered to be an enslaver working at Christiansborg Castle. In setting off on another research expedition to uncover the truth of her family’s history, she opened a new pathway for diasporic direct descendants to “do archaeology” when the personal is political (p. 204).

The grouping of these theories provides diasporic scholars with the ability to engage in decolonial knowledge praxis. In Sankofa Kukuo, diasporic researchers are invited to incorporate

non-traditional elements into academic research processes, such as intuition, somatic experiences, and “rest” from grind culture, as Tricia Hersey (2022) proposed.

In Sankofa Kukuo, the intuitive knowledge of Africana mothers and daughters is recentered, truth-telling is celebrated, and a space is carved out for African-heritage women of the diaspora to feast in knowledge excavation, rest, and repetition. This model for knowledge accumulation prioritizes our stories, our own forms of academic inquiry, in which the knowledge and direction of our mothers is prioritized in a corrective response to the centuries-long Eurocentric campaign of silencing African women and their descendants. Sankofa Kukuo is neither science fiction nor a project of make-believe; it is a fully vetted methodology that helped Peprah-Asare discover sources in “unscientific ways,” as she was connected to knowledge keepers she would have not encountered without “trusting the process” of Sankofa Kukuo. Sankofa Kukuo invites Afro-heritage scholars to ask the old woman through Sankofa to revisit her-story and to employ ancient wisdom in addressing modern social problems. It is hoped that this introduction to Sankofa Kukuo will ignite conversations across the diaspora and the continent, inviting pan-African kin and allies to join in the “intellectual soup kitchen” embedded in Afrocentric methodologies.

Declarations

This research was funded by the Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarships (QES) West Africa program. QES is managed through a unique partnership of Universities Canada, the Rideau Hall Foundation (RHF), and Canadian universities. The QES-AS West Africa program is made possible with financial support from IDRC.

References

Adjaye, J. K. (2008). Perspectives on fifty years of Ghanaian historiography. History in Africa, 35, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1353/hia.0.0006

Amadiume, I. (1997). Re-inventing Africa matriarchy, religion, and culture. Zed Books.

Busia, A. P. A. (1989). Silencing Sycorax: On African colonial discourse and the unvoiced female. Cultural Critique, 14, 81–104. https://doi.org/10.2307/1354293

Cannon, K. G. (1996). Katie’s canon: Womanism and the soul of the Black community. Continuum.

Engmann, R. A. A. (2019). Autoarchaeology at Christiansborg Castle (Ghana): Decolonizing knowledge, pedagogy, and practice. Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage, 6(3), 204–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/20518196.2019.1633780

Göttner-Abendroth, H. (2012). Matriarchal societies: Studies on indigenous cultures across the globe Peter Lang.

Goettner-Abendroth, H. (2017). Matriarchal studies: Past debates and new foundations. Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, 23(1), 2–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/12259276.2017.1283843

Hudson-Weems, C. (2020). Africana womanism: Reclaiming ourselves (5th ed.). Routledge.

McClaurin, I. (2001). Black feminist anthropology: Theory, politics, praxis, and poetics. Rutgers University Press.

Peprah-Asare, E. (2023). Reflections on the remember me project: Queen’s University’s Black past and the AfroWomanist Sankofa archive to our future. Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, 10(2), 92–115. https://doi.org/10.24908/jcri.v10i2.17052

Peprah-Asare, E. (2024). “Decolonizing knowledge with “Sankofa Kukuo.” Doctoral dissertation (chapter 3). (Unpublished).

Rattray, R. S. (1923). Ashanti. Oxford University Press.

Africa Rising: Hip Hop, Politics, and Critical Resilience in Senegal

by

Ima L. Hicks Assistant Professor of Languages & Literature Department of Humanities Virginia Union University

This article addresses the history and impact of hip-hop in Senegal, focusing on its use as a tool for social and political change and a means of empowering youth in disadvantaged areas. It discusses the development of hip-hop music in Senegal from the 1980s to the present, exploring the significance of Senegalese hip-hop inAfrican Studies and highlighting its role in cultural dialogue, social commentary, political engagement, the ongoing dialogue betweenAfrican practitioners and the arts of the Black diaspora, and the Black radical tradition. Senegalese hip-hop reflects global resistance by incorporating ideas aboutAmericanness and the politics of style, which are often tied to themes of resistance and empowerment. The genre draws from the transatlantic rhetorics of the Civil Rights, Négritude, and Black Power movements, which are historically rooted in struggles against oppression and for social justice. This infusion of global resistance narratives into local practices has allowed Senegalese hip-hop to serve as a platform for

expressing dissent and advocating for change. By drawing on these global narratives, Senegalese hip-hop artists address local and global issues of inequality, injustice, and resistance, making their music a powerful tool for social commentary and activism.

Bamba Ndiaye, a Senegalese hip-hop researcher at Emory University, explained that hiphop arrived in Dakar through middle- and upper-class citizens who were able to travel abroad to places like New York in the U.S. and France (Ndiaye, 2023). By 2018, Senegal celebrated 30 years of hip-hop, known locally as “Rap Galsen.” The genre’s development involved localization and adaptation, with early influences from U.S. and French hip-hop. French colonial history and Wolof-centric cultural policies also significantly shaped Senegalese hip-hop. The genre emerged through a blend of local languages and cultural elements with global hip-hop influences, creating a unique and powerful medium for social and political commentary. Politically engaged hip-hop started when youths from working class neighborhoods made hip-hop also a way of expressing discontent and criticizing the socialist regime that ruled Senegal since its independence from France in the 1960s until the year 2000.

The former French colony’s first twenty years of independence were marked by cultural policies that prioritized French humanism and Francophonie under President Leopold Sedar Senghor, so despite its diminished formal domination, France’s cultural legacy remained strong.

On the other hand, the French colonial policy of assimilating a select, elite urban population into French culture (and sometimes citizenship) meant that, to this day, nonelite and rural Senegalese have never fully adopted the French language. Thus unlike other West African countries formerly colonized by France, French is not a lingua franca in Senegal, despite its status as a national language. When Abdou Diouf succeeded Senghor as president in the early 1980s, he initiated a shift to Wolof-centric cultural policy, which privileged indigenousAfrican values over the assimilated French ones of Senghor, while retaining French as the language of governance and

education (Kringelbach, 2013, p. 100). The same decade saw the Western imposition of structural adjustment programs, a surge in youth and student demonstrations against government corruption, and intensifying transnational networks of Senegalese migrants.

French colonial history thus influenced Senegalese hip-hop in several ways:

1. Cultural legacy: The colonial policy of assimilating a select elite into French culture left an impact on Senegal’s cultural landscape that persisted even after independence, with French remaining the language of governance and education. This duality allowed hip-hop artists to draw from both French and local cultural elements in their music.

2. Language: Despite French being a national language, it was not widely adopted by non-elite and rural populations. This led to the prominence of Wolof in hip-hop, as artists sought to connect with a broader local audience while also incorporating French and English to reach international listeners.

3. Urban development: Colonial urban planning, such as the creation of neighborhoods like Médina and SICAP, shaped the social and physical environments where hip-hop emerged. These areas became hubs for cultural exchange and the development of the hip-hop scene, with access to global media and influences.

4. Social and political context: Colonial history contributed to the socio-political landscape that hip-hop artists often critique in their lyrics. Issues like government corruption, social inequality, and the legacy of colonialism are common themes in Senegalese hip-hop, reflecting the ongoing impact of colonial history on contemporary society.

5. Transnational connections: The colonial relationship with France facilitated transnational connections, allowing for the flow of media, ideas, and people between Senegal and France. This exchange played a crucial role in the initial introduction and

subsequent evolution of hip-hop in Senegal.

Overall, French colonial history provided both a cultural framework and a set of sociopolitical issues that deeply influenced the development and themes of Senegalese hip-hop.

However, Senegal’s cultural policies shifted from French humanism under President Senghor to a Wolof-centric approach under President Diouf in the 1980s. This period also saw the rise of youth demonstrations and transnational networks, which facilitated the spread of hip-hop. Early Senegalese hip-hop was characterized by breakdancing and MCing, with localized lyrics and instrumentals. The hip-hop scene in Senegal split into two main movements: the international style, which incorporated R&B and reggae elements, and the hardcore style, which adhered strictly to U.S. hip-hop aesthetics and focused on local political issues. Despite these differences, both movements shared a commitment to social commentary and urban Wolof language.

As Senegalese hip-hop’s international wave swelled, a countermovement grew in Dakar’s working-class neighborhoods, themselves a concrete legacy of colonial development. The French constructed the first of these, Médina, in the early twentieth century, when after a prolonged struggle with indigenous residents for the land in what is now the Plateau section of downtown Dakar, an outbreak of plague provided an excuse for them to forcibly relocateAfrican inhabitants into “hygienic” concrete fixtures in Médina (Bigon, 2009). The urban population swelled in the mid-twentieth century, leading to the development of the Sociétés Immobilière du Cap-Vert (SICAPs), which were constructed to accommodate a growing population of civil servants and military officials beginning in the 1950s under colonial rule, and extending after independence in 1960 (Ndiaye, 2011, p. 57) to neighborhoods just beyond Médina, and eventually to the rise of banlieues, the overcrowded, underserviced working-class neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city (Vernière, 1973).

The opening up of the underground to singing and traditional music in the second decade of

the twenty-first century was a process of localization typical both of hip-hop as a genre that has always centered on ideas of place (Forman, 2002) and of popular music globalization more broadly. It was also, however, part of a conscious process of commercialization. By emphasizing the metric distinctions between hip-hop and indigenous musics, hip-hoppers were able to relocate hip-hop consciousness in their lyrical content while moving toward musical styles that appealed to broader national and foreign audiences. In a parallel vein, rappers spoke about the relationship between language, global intelligibility, and local relevance. They recognized Wolof’s necessity to their primary goal of reaching Senegalese audiences, even as some became more open to using French and English to extend their reach. The desire for internationalization had to do both with extending the range of their messages and meeting the need-based desire to benefit financially from their labor as artists. Ultimately, however, aesthetic considerations led many to continue recording almost exclusively in Wolof, prioritizing a skillful flow in their first language over a broader lyrical intelligibility. Here, the global reach of hip-hop music exceeds that of either the French or the English language (Appert, 2018).

By the 2000s, hip-hop had become a significant force in Senegalese politics, notably supporting opposition candidate Abdoulaye Wade in the 2000 presidential elections. The genre continued to evolve, with newer generations blending traditional Senegalese music with contemporary hip-hop styles. In the 2010s, the lines between mainstream and underground hip-hop began to blur, with artists incorporating more singing and traditional instruments. This trend reflected a broader process of localization and commercialization, aiming to appeal to both national and international audiences.

Senegalese rappers localized and adapted hip-hop by incorporating elements of their own culture and languages. They started by producing original lyrics in Wolof, French, and English, often addressing local social and political issues. They also integrated traditional Senegalese

musical instruments and sounds into their beats, creating a unique blend that resonated with local audiences. This localization involved mixing indigenous and colonial languages as well as incorporating familiar musical styles like reggae and R&B, which were already popular in Senegal. It led to the creation of a style known as Rap Galsen, a distinct Senegalese genre that maintained the core elements of hip-hop while embedding them deeply in Senegalese cultural and social frameworks.

International and hardcore hip-hop were thus nearly parallel movements. In retrospect, they give the impression of being consecutive because the working-class rappers who dubbed themselves “underground” had fewer resources to record and disseminate their music, were less visible in mainstream media, and produced music that, in its adherence to a strict U.S. hip-hop aesthetic, did not appeal to international audiences. But across categories, rappers shared an interest in social commentary, a reliance on an urban Wolof inflected with French, and of course, an engagement with U.S. hip-hop styles.

All along, hip-hop continued its stylistic development. The generation of rappers who came up under the tutelage of hardcore formed their own groups and collectives. In the first decade of the new millennium, their sound continued to evolve in step with U.S. hip-hop norms while maintaining an emphasis on Wolof-language social critiques and a hardcore musical aesthetic that often alienated them from their elders in Senegalese society. This continuous intergenerational conflict between adults who think rap is bad and youths who hope to convince them it is not was the topic of hardcore group Keur Gui’s 2009 song “Guiss Guiss you Woro” (Opposing Views). Even so, hip-hoppers’continued involvement in electoral politics aided in the broadening social acceptance of their musical activities.

But this trend has increasingly extended beyond the mainstream. Afew underground hiphop artists, notably Fata El Presidente, long ago shifted to rapping over the rhythms of Mbalax

(Senegal’s preeminent popular music genre, based on indigenous rhythms), to criticism from hardcore hip-hoppers. More recently, rapper M.A.S.S., one of the first generation of underground hip-hoppers, released several Mbalax-inspired tracks, including “Wodou Wodou” (Tie a Wrap) in 2017. In 2018, rapper and beatmaker Iss 814, who came up through the underground scene in the Guédiawaye banlieue, released “Noce” (“Dakar Trap #1” is the rest of the track’s title on its YouTube video), which similarly melds a synthesized xylophone with a trap beat. This points to how in the second decade of the century, a turn toward increased musical localization itself a kind of internationalization and linguistic openness has loosened the categories that previously governed Rap Galsen. “Underground” artists are less and less concerned with maintaining a strict distinction between hip-hop and other genres. They too increasingly draw on indigenous rhythms, now without necessarily altering them to fit hip-hop beats. They also experiment with contemporary Nigerian and Ghanaian popular styles. The result is that it is much harder to tell underground and mainstream hip-hop apart stylistically than it used to be.

Multidirectional and complex flows of people, power, and capital brought hip-hop to Senegal and Senegalese hip-hop to the world. Colonial influences on Senegalese culture and urban geography influenced hip-hop in turn, as I have outlined here, so that early divisions in the hip-hop community centered on critiques of certain kinds of internationalism as embraces of colonialism and instead reclaimed BlackAmerican music as a nonimperial medium of global connection.And so we see in the history of Rap Galsen a consistent movement toward understandings of internationalism that have more to do with musical style than with language, until finally a song’s potential for global impact is not limited to its embrace of colonial languages but can rely on its ability to tap into the global circulations ofAfrican andAfricanAmerican musics. This was true when rappers in the 1990s positioned hip-hop as a global musical expression of racialized urban struggles, in which they heard and participated in a diasporic resonance of experience, and it

remains true as hip-hoppers increasingly turn toward the globally circulatingAfrobeats of their WestAfrican neighbors.As Ndiaye put it,

The rise of Senegalese hip-hop in the 1990s meant the emergence of a new political force that predominantly appealed to the younger generations. Emanating from the middle class of Dakar with a strong American influence, hip-hop quickly spread to the suburbs of Dakar and the other regions of Senegal where groups like Keur Gui Crew gave the music its particular “Senegaleseness” and used it as a means of social and political activism. (Ndiaye, 2023)

Hip-hop in Senegal is manifest in a number of registers, from graffiti to dance. The annual Kaay Fecc (Come Dance) festival evidences Senegalese innovation and play with hip-hop dance forms. The Dakarois smurfing scene, inspired by French versions ofAmerican hip-hop dance, has infused club dance styles in the city for two decades. Today, many young Dakarois people practice breakdancing in the soft silt of the Dakar beaches and in national group dance competitions, alongside dances taken from bhangra, salsa, and global dancehall bass. Freestyle hip-hop flourishes in the outer Senegalese suburbs of Ginaaw Rail, Thiaroye, and Rufisqe, where young people gather around boomboxes to improvise rhymes in the rapid-fire cadences of Wolof mixed with French, English, andArabic phrases. Venues like Pikine’s Cafeteria host evening-long freestyle battles. Young Senegalese practitioners, already skilled and schooled in the deployment of the poetic word, activate regional culture to converse with hip-hop forms. The monthly Kool Grawoul party at a downtown beach features DJs from around the world mixing hiphop from the Dakar plateau with French- andArabic-language rap, Tupac Shakur, zouk, kwaito, and mbalax. Bidew Bou Bess and Carlou D use the hip-hop form to declare their faith in the Sufi Islamic orders of which they are devotees.

Currently, Senegalese artists are using hip-hop music to promote peacebuilding following

the 2024 elections. They stress the importance of human security and urge the government to prioritize poverty reduction and improvements to civil rights and food security. In a traditional male genre, many female artists are now using rap to fight for political change. Through the power of music, they express their views on patriarchy, rape, domestic violence, menstruation, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, intergenerational conflict, and other issues affecting women and girls.

Ultimately, the power of popular music, especially rap music, has transcended the bounds of entertainment and folklore to infiltrateAfrican politics as an agent of change. MalalAlmamy Talla, alias “Fou Malade,” a leader of an anti-government movement Y’en a Marre, or “I’m Fed Up” that arose in 2011 and was led by rappers and journalists to encourage young people to vote, is now a member of the new Senegalese president’s Economic, Social and Environmental Council. This move signals that hip-hop has become instrumental in bringing about awareness of and resistance to oppression. But this is more complex than a simple invocation of hip-hop as resistance. With its experiential, transatlantic resonance, hip-hop in Senegal may also serve as a model for solving problems that face otherAfrican nations through its aesthetic potential for voiced social action.

The case of Senegalese hip-hop demonstrates that through the power of music, present-day youths are successfully using their voices to stand up for their rights, pushing their governments to do what is necessary. These musical practices, already deeply influenced by the historical creativity of enslaved Senegambian peoples in the New World, spoke both to shared histories and to an emerging global hip-hop solidarity (Awadi, 2013). Early Senegalese hip-hop, in turn, incorporated sounds and styles popular in both the U.S. and the growing European scene, infused them with themes ofAfrican migration and struggle, and breathed regional aesthetics into their sonic structures. The result was a spectrum of hip-hop practices, from streetside freestyle battles, to

traditional dance celebrations incorporating breakdance moves, to a thriving recording industry. Each of these represents one of many strains of Senegalese hip-hop that resonates variously with global movements and contributes to discourses on what hip-hop means to young people worldwide. Like their counterparts globally, young Senegalese activate hip-hop to think through the connectivity of theAfrican diaspora, the politics of the political stage and of the dancefloor, and the creative future of Third World youths. The Senegalese hip-hop community is keenly aware of the importance of its own representation in global discourses. To this end, Senegalese artists and cultural figures such as Keyti are filming documentaries about the scene, and Senegalese national television is heavy with hip-hop programming. Senegal’s longstanding cultural investment in thinking critically about national self-representation amid changing global circumstances beginning with revolutionary president Leopold Senghor’s leadership on the Negritude poetic movement in the 1960s ensures the continued development of new forms and discourses in hiphop. The world of Galsen has positioned itself at the cutting edge, never as a mere echo of new movements in global Black creativity.

References

Appert, C. M. (2018). In hip hop time: Music, memory, and social change in urban Senegal. Oxford University Press.

Awadi, D. J. (2013) Biography. https://www.rfimusique.com/artiste/rap/didier-awadi/biographie

Bigon, L. (2009). A history of urban planning in two west African colonial capitals: Residential segregation in British Lagos and French Dakar (1850–1930). Edwin Mellon Press.

Kringelbach, H. N. (2013) Dance circles: Movement, morality, and self-fashioning in urban Senegal. Berghahn Books.

Ndiaye, B. (2021). Hip-hop, civic awareness, and antiestablishment politics in Senegal: The Rise of the Y’en a Marre Movement. Youth and Popular Culture in Africa, 57.

Ndiaye, B. (2023). Senegalese rappers push for social and political change. Planet Hip Hop. https://theworld.org/stories/2023/07/27/planet-hip-hop-senegalese-rappers-push-social-andpolitical-change

Vernière, M. C. (1973). Ville, bidonville, banlieue: Migrations intra-urbaines vers DagoudanePikine, ville nouvelle de Dakar (Sénégal). Cahiers ORSTOM: Série Sciences Humaines 10(2–3), 217–43.

AI and the Threat to the African American Family Ecology

by

Rasheed J. Atwater, Ph.D.

Department of African American and Diaspora Studies

Xavier University of Louisiana

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly being integrated into our daily lives. From digital assistants like Siri to online shopping, social media, and search engines, AI is present. From these interactions, many people assume that we are using the technology, but some (Maathuis & Godschalk, 2023; Noble, 2018) contend that the technology is using us. As the technological and human worlds are wedded, scholarship must address the challenges this “progress” poses to African American families and communities. Using the Afrocentric paradigms of understanding of African axiology, ontology, and personhood, this paper highlights significant threats of AI to the African American family ecology. To combat these threats, culturally centered commons are offered as tools in the fight for African self-sufficiency.

The African American Family Ecology Defined

On the African American family ecology, this paper adds to earlier research on the definitions of “African American” and “Black” families (the terms are used interchangeably throughout) while trying to break the mental incarceration of ecology. Nobles et al. (1987) gave a foundational understanding of the African American family as “a particular set of biological,

spiritual, physical, and behavioral patterns and/or dynamics as a distinguishable entity, as defined by the traditional and contemporary African worldview” (p. 5). Gutman (1976) added, “To focus on the family also means to focus on culture” (p. xxi). Nobles (1978) contended that “Black culture in the United States is the result of a special admixture of a continued African worldview operating within another cultural milieu which is primarily defined by the philosophical assumptions underpinnings of the Anglo-American community. Accordingly, it is that African worldview which is at the base of the Black cultural sphere” (p. 683).

In this light, ontologically, all things in the universe are “force” or “spirit” in the African worldview (Mazama, 2003; Mbiti, 1969; Nobles, 1978; 2023). The ontological order includes a vital force or spirit that connects the Almighty (God), lesser divinities, ancestors, humans, animals and plants, and phenomena and objects without biological life as one (Asante & Mazama, 2009; Mbiti, 1969). From this perspective, an individual is interdependent with their community and this hierarchy.

African, and by extension African American families are based on relationships more than on biology (Mazama, 2003; McDougal, 2020; Rawick, 1972). Consequently, the “Black family” in this work describes the household, extended family, kinship ties, living dead, and yet-to-be-born with an ontological responsibility to praise that which is above, respect that which is on the same level, and protect those lifeforms lower in the ontological hierarchy.

The term “ecology” is “conceptually incarcerated” for this research. Wade Nobles described conceptual incarceration as the natural consciousness of Black people forced to normalize White consciousness. Moreover, it means living in a psycho-social reality that consistently supports White mental functioning while standardizing it as the norm (Mazama, 2003; Nobles, 2023). Although ecology is used throughout this paper, the relationships of organisms discussed will also include spirit, adding to the more-than-human and physical connections

normalized in the Eurocentric context. Thus the African American family ecology is the ability of the African American family to maintain itself as a unit while connecting with the ecological demands for ontological harmony. Specifically discussed in this paper are the economic, educational, environmental, and spiritual threats artificial intelligence poses to the African American family ecology.

An Overview of AI

In a September 2024 interview, historian Yuval Harari warned, “AI is not a tool. It is an agent. It’s the first technology in history that can make decisions and invent new ideas by itself. . . . now we’ve created something which potentially can take power away from us” (The Daily Show, 2024). AI aims to program data into machines by learning from experiences and adapting to environmental changes to simulate human decisions and reasoning (Mukherji & Forghani, 2020, p. 393). Stryker and Kavlakoglu (2024) added that AI stimulates computers and machines to human learning, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, creativity, and autonomy. Artificial intelligence is human intelligence exhibited by machines (Stryker & Kaylakoglu, 2024). It can be found in map applications, online shopping recommendations, smartphones, robotic cleaners, and elsewhere. The technology we know today is a series of nested concepts that have emerged over more than seventy years, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI (Stryker & Kaylakoglu, 2024). The algorithms that laid the foundations for the artificial intelligence we know today were coded with racial biases that continue to harm the African American community (Benjamin, 2019; Noble, 2018).

Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence concerned with algorithms that learn from complex tasks and develop predictive models through samples and historical data (Mukherji & Forghani, 2020). These productive analytics control our social media feeds, traffic predictions, email filtering, language processing systems, deepfakes, and so forth. Machine learning dictates

what you see on your newsfeed and customizes everything you see on the basis of your search history, messages, and posting patterns, among other gathered data. In a real sense, machine learning is how one interacts, digests, and discovers content.

From machine learning, deep learning produces the optimal set of features from data. This technology is based on neural networks designed to stimulate the neural activities in human brains (Mukherji & Forghani, 2020). Although machine learning is what customizes our social media and other applications to our liking, deep learning is what makes applications addictive. The dopamine compulsion to use media is so great that roughly 60% of the global population uses social media for an average of 2 hours and 31 minutes a day (Mastantuono, 2023). Every interaction with AI improves its ability to know, recognize, manipulate, sell, serve, and dominate.

Threats to the African American Family Ecology

Although Black people make up around 14% of the country’s population, Black social media usage accounts for 28% of X/Twitter users (Mastantuono, 2023). Social movements such as #Blacklivesmatter and #MeToo are testimonials to how African Americans use social media for good. Despite these efforts, high rates of depression and anxiety, increased eating disorders, declines in cognitive functioning due to sleep disruption, and the spread of fake news are among the many concerns about this technology (Mastantuono, 2023; Noble, 2018).

Generative AI creates original content based on deep learning models (Stryker & Kaylakoglu, 2024). Examples are ChatGPT, Adobe Photoshop, Google Gemini, and similar observers. Although little more than a decade old, generative AI is predicted to grow to a $1.3 trillion market by 2032, and was at $40 billion in 2022 according to Bloomberg Intelligence (2023). Though it is projected to be lucrative, for African Americans who are overrepresented in four of the five occupations most at risk of automation AI creates a notable risk (Brown et al., 2023). Cook et al. (2019) reported that African Americans are underrepresented in occupations

resistant to automation-based replacement, such as education, health, business, and legal positions. Office support, food services, and production industries have the highest expected displacement rate due to automation, and African Americans largely hold such positions. Economic losses due to AI-powered automation are projected to displace 4.5 million African Americans from jobs by 2030. By 2045, the racial wealth gap will have widened by $43 billion annually, according to these projections (Akhtar, 2019; Brown et al., 2023). Most vulnerable to these job losses are African American men with college degrees (Akhtar, 2019).

In the field of education, it has been argued that AI-enabled learning tools can serve students better and bridge achievement gaps by providing specific lesson plans and assignments for individual students (Dianegara et al., 2024). The hope is that these tools can best students with special learning needs best and can provide behavioral interventions for autistic students and those with similar attributes. Further, educators have been inspired by the possibility that AI-powered tools may get students more engaged in and enthusiastic about learning through generative images and texts. Sadly, these same images that create a spark of hope for more engaged learning are the culprit of racist stereotyping (Benjamin, 2019; Miller, 2024; Nicoletti & Bass, 2023; Noble, 2018).

In the ever-present attempt to protect African American youths from internalized White supremacist ideals, AI presents a grave challenge by promoting misinformation about African and African American culture, history, and values. Google, being the most popular search engine, adds to this problem. Noble (2018) described Google as a search monopoly that uses algorithmic practices of biasing information toward the interests of neoliberal capitalist and social elites in the United States, creating an environment in which the information presented is assumed to be credible while in fact reflecting the most influential paid advertising (p. 36). Google is one of the many agents tech companies use to hide, speed up, or intensify discrimination while appearing to be neutral, practices that Benjamin (2019) labeled the “New Jim Code” (p. 8).

AI models have been estimated to emit more than 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. For context, that is five times what the average American car emits during its lifetime (Dianegara et al., 2024). The training of GPT-3 in Microsoft’s U.S. data centers is calculated to have evaporated 700,000 liters of clean water (Dianegara et al., 2024, p. 13). Most critical to AI’s environmental impact is its manipulation of consumer behavior. AI has enabled such personalized experiences for online shopping that businesses can predict what customers want with more accuracy (Hironde, 2023). Enhanced manipulation of consumer purchasing enables planned obsolescence while creating tons of waste. Plastic waste is so extensive that a 2022 CNN report noted that most Americans eat and breathe around a credit card’s worth of plastic a week due to microplastics (Cillizza, 2022). There are three primary ways we get rid of waste: burying it, burning it, and throwing it in the ocean. The more we are manipulated into purchasing, the more our air, water, and land deteriorate and imbalance our physical environment and ontological order.

As industries continue to grow through AI-powered purchase accessibility, African Americans who have historically been disproportionately affected by environmental pollution will continue to suffer. Normalized ecological destruction has become a cultural crisis. AI has become such a powerful weapon of mass distraction that the ignoring of issues such as “Cancer Alley” and yearly decreases in wetlands in Louisiana display a normalized sickness.

Russell and Norvig (2016) observed that the risks of developing AI include people losing their jobs to automation, people having too much or too little leisure time, people losing their sense of uniqueness, loss of accountability, and AI systems being used for undesirable ends, and suggested the success of AI might mean the end of the human race (p. 1034). Although they concluded that some of these threats were unlikely or little difference from unintelligent technology, African Americans must make use of cultural commons to circumvent these threats to the African American family ecology.

African Commons to Combat the Threat to AI

Benjamin (2019) and Noble (2018) both advocated for human-centered AI and for governmental regulations on tech companies to combat the potential harm of artificial intelligence. Although both are correct in asking for a national solution, oligarchical politics due to tech wealth may leave this call unanswered. Cultural commons are non-money-based economic and social exchanges that include relationships, ecologically sound partnerships with natural systems, alternative education spaces, and communitarian beliefs (Martusewicz et al., 2015). Cultural commons may be our most accessible weapons to combat AI’s numerous threats. If the economic projections come to pass, the African American community must consider returning to African values that champion household responsibilities based on ability and not sex (Nehusi 2016; 2017). Further, transitioning back toward an agroecology lifestyle could combat consumer culture while ensuring a self-sufficient economy and environment and advancing a spiritual ecology for ontological harmony. We must remember that it was the agricultural lifestyle in traditional African societies that T’Shaka argued produced systems of parallel complementarity and male-female equality (T’Shaka, 1995, p. 236).

As AI pushes disinformation on social platforms, African Americans must take time to disconnect for cultural reconnection. Although the idea of an Afrocentric or even African-centered AI sounds optimistic, the reality of the programming and wealth gap that African American face makes it unlikely. Further, technological movements such as transhumanism and AI’s deepening dependency on technology over humans go against African American cultural precepts. The precepts of Black culture include collectivism, transformation, humanness, synergism, and cooperation (Nobles, 2023, pp. 110–11). The use of these cultural weapons enables the creation of new educational and social spaces to combat disinformation and unite in pushing a national culture in an ecologically just way. In an automated, focused economy, African Americans must establish

community apprenticeship programs that reskill African Americans taken out of office, production, and food service work. As these economic opportunities die, reskilling efforts must be made to ensure financially stable households. The consubstantiation aspect of African American culture allows for the recognition of the spiritual nature of the universe. Focusing on the cultural common pushes a Maatian responsibility to ontological harmony.

Two of nature’s greatest lessons are the value of silence and of observation. In a growing AI-controlled world, nature will continue to serve as a revolutionary space to reclaim our minds. AI takes advantage of boredom and discomfort by providing dopamine stimulation through social media, email, television, and constant access to people and propaganda that keep humans more distracted than ever (Hari, 2022). One of the most significant cultural commons is a focus on the mundane. In making what we consider insignificant (conversations with neighbors, real-world relationships, plastic usage, food quality, waste destinations, etc.) the most significant things in our daily lives, we can answer Ella Baker’s call to make the struggle every day. With this cultural push, we can combat AI’s nudge toward spiritual emptiness fostered by materialism and individualism. If we refuse to use our culture to push toward ontological harmony, then our instant wants may be the cause of our global destruction.

References

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PAN-AFRICAN UNITY AND DIASPORA RELATIONS

One Africa: United Diaspora Strong by

Nkiruka L. Egwuenu

African Union Sixth Region Global (AU6RG)

Africans in diaspora are a large and diverse community scattered around the globe, including people ofAfrican descent in the Caribbean, theAmericas, Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Numbering over 200 million, they represent a significant force of untapped potential. This essay explores the problems facing the globalAfrican diaspora and how they can collaborate withAfricans on the continent for mutual benefit, focusing on areas like research, business, medical exchange, and student exchange. In addition, it discusses the implications of this analysis forAfricana Studies and the National Council for Black Studies, framed within the context of panAfricanism.

Challenges Facing the GlobalAfrican Diaspora

The globalAfrican diaspora grapples with numerous issues. Racism and discrimination are stark realities that manifest in various ways, from microaggressions to systemic barriers. The struggle to maintain cultural identity while integrating into new societies is a constant balancing act for many. There is also a sense of guilt and helplessness when confronted withAfrica’s most glaring challenges, from poverty to political and economic instability. Despite their contributions,

people ofAfrican descent often occupy lower-rung jobs, face wage disparities, and have limited access to career advancement. Furthermore, remittances, which amounted to more than $80 billion in 2019, can strain their finances even as they serve as a lifeline for families back home (World Bank, 2019).

Challenges FacingAfricans on the Continent

Meanwhile,Africans on the continent contend with infrastructure gaps, limited access to high-quality education and healthcare, lack of opportunities, and the scourge of corruption. Yet there’s a tangible energy, a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship driving change. The continent boasts a growing middle class, increasing consumer spending, and a youthful population eager for progress.

The Role of the GlobalAfrican Diaspora inAfrica’s Development

The globalAfrican diaspora can play a pivotal role in several areas.

Research and Innovation

The diaspora is a rich source of intellectual capital. Many people ofAfrican descent excel in academia, research, and innovation. Their expertise can contribute significantly toAfrica’s development. For instance, Dr.Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, a Mauritian bioscientist who also served as the country’s president, has been a strong advocate for using scientific research to driveAfrican development. She has collaborated with variousAfrican countries to promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable development (Gurib-Fakim, 2017).

Real-Life Example: TheAfrican Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) is a panAfrican network of centers of excellence for post-graduate training, research, and public engagement in the mathematical sciences. Founded by SouthAfrica–born physicist Neil Turok, AIMS has benefited greatly from the involvement of the diaspora, with manyAfrican scientists abroad serving as lecturers and mentors (AIMS, 2021).

Mutual Benefits: Engaging in research and innovation projects inAfrica allows the diaspora to apply their skills and knowledge meaningfully while reconnecting with their cultural roots. For Africa, these projects bring valuable diaspora expertise that drives innovation, improves research capacity, and addresses local challenges. This collaboration also fosters “brain gain,” helping to reverse the extreme brain drain affecting manyAfrican communities.

How to Partner: African governments can establish research chairs and fund collaborative research projects with diaspora scientists. They can also create enabling environments for the diaspora to set up research institutions and tech hubs on the continent.

Business and Investment

The diaspora can drive business growth and investment inAfrica. They possess capital, business acumen, and international networks that can act as catalysts forAfrican economies. For example, Tony Elumelu, a Nigerian economist and philanthropist based in the U.S., has invested heavily inAfrican businesses through his foundation, which has committed $100 million to empoweringAfrican entrepreneurs (Tony Elumelu Foundation, 2021).

Real-Life Example: Ethiopia’s Sheba Valley, dubbed the “Silicon Valley of Africa,” is home to numerous tech startups founded by Ethiopians from the diaspora. These entrepreneurs have brought in capital, technology, and business models from abroad, contributing to Ethiopia’s digital transformation (Sheba Valley, 2021).

Mutual Benefits: Investing inAfrican businesses offers the diaspora lucrative opportunities, withAfrica’s growing markets promising high returns on investment and opening new markets: diversification of economies, joint ventures that foster unity, and social impacts that leads to sustainability and community development. The diaspora can leverage their cultural understanding and networks to navigate these markets successfully. ForAfrica, diaspora investment stimulates economic growth, creates jobs, fosters innovation, and facilitates technology and knowledge

transfer, enhancing the continent’s competitiveness in the global economy.

How to Partner: African governments can facilitate diaspora investment by streamlining business registration processes, providing investment incentives, and protecting property rights. They can also establish diaspora business forums to connect diaspora entrepreneurs with local business opportunities.

Medical Exchange

The diaspora can help strengthenAfrica’s healthcare systems through skills transfer, medical volunteering, and investment in healthcare infrastructure. For instance, Dr. Paul Farmer, a Haitian-American anthropologist and physician, has been instrumental in improving healthcare systems in Rwanda through his organization Partners in Health (Farmer, 2011).

Mutual Benefits: Medical exchange programs offer unique experiences and skill enhancement while improvingAfrican healthcare systems and services.

Real-Life Example: TheAfrican Federation for Emergency Medicine (AFEM) facilitates collaboration betweenAfrican healthcare professionals on the continent and in the diaspora. AFEM’s projects include emergency medicine training programs and advocacy for improved emergency care policies inAfrica (AFEM, 2021).

How to Partner: African governments can create platforms for diaspora healthcare professionals to volunteer their skills and expertise. They can also partner with diaspora organizations to invest in healthcare infrastructure and training programs.

Student Exchange

Student exchange programs can foster knowledge transfer, cultural exchange, and networking amongAfrican students on the continent and in the diaspora. For example, the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program has enabled thousands ofAfrican students to study abroad, with many returning home to contribute to their countries’development (MasterCard

Foundation, 2021).

Mutual Benefits: Student exchange programs offer significant benefits for both theAfrican diaspora and students from the continent. The diaspora gains international education and experiences, broadens perspectives, reassesses their image ofAfrica, builds global networks, and reconnects with their cultural roots. Meanwhile,African students acquire diverse skills that enrich their lives, drive innovation, improve research, and facilitate knowledge transfer, ultimately contributing to the continent’s development and progress.

Real-Life Example: The University of Cape Town’s InternationalAcademic Programmes Office (IAPO) facilitates student exchange programs with universities worldwide, including those in the Caribbean and the U.S. These programs have enabledAfrican students to gain international exposure and build global networks (University of Cape Town, 2021).

How to Partner: African governments can establish scholarship funds to support student exchange programs. They can also partner with diaspora institutions to create internship and mentorship opportunities forAfrican students.

Creating an Enabling Environment

To harness the diaspora’s potential,African governments must create an enabling environment. This includes policies that facilitate investment, protect rights, and ensure accountability. It also requires a shift in mindset to recognizing the diaspora as a valuable resource rather than just a source of remittance.African governments must also address the factors that drive Africans abroad and away from their homeland. That means tackling issues like lack of opportunities, conflict, and poor governance.

Success Stories: There are numerous success stories of diaspora engagement. For instance, the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) has facilitated diaspora investments and skills transfer initiatives. In Ethiopia, the Great Ethiopian Run, initiated by the diaspora, has become a

major international event promoting tourism and investment. In the Caribbean, the University of the West Indies has partnered with African universities to foster academic exchange and collaboration (NiDCOM, 2021; Great Ethiopian Run, 2021; University of the West Indies, 2021).

Recommendations: To foster diaspora engagement, the following recommendations are proposed.

Data Collection: There’s a dearth of data on theAfrican diaspora. Governments should collect and analyze diaspora data to inform policy decisions. These data can help them identify the diaspora’s skills, interests, and investment preferences, enabling governments to tailor their engagement strategies accordingly.Addressing this issue is one of the main areas of focus for African Union Sixth Region Global.

Real-Life Example: TheAfrican Union’s Global African Diaspora Summit brought together Africans from the continent and the diaspora to discuss issues affecting the diaspora and their role inAfrica’s development. The summit also served as a platform for data collection on the diaspora (African Union, 2012).

Diaspora Policies

African governments should develop and implement comprehensive diaspora policies that address their needs and harness their potential. These policies should include provisions for policy participation, citizenship, voting rights, business partnerships, project collaborations, joint research opportunities, and investment incentives.

Real-Life Example: Ghana’s Year of Return initiative, which marked 400 years since the start of the transatlantic slave trade, encouraged people ofAfrican descent to return to Ghana, offering them citizenship and investment opportunities (Year of Return, 2019).

Diaspora Inclusion

The diaspora should be included in national development plans and consulted on policies

that affect them. This can be done through the establishment of diaspora advisory boards, diaspora focal points in government ministries, and regular diaspora consultations.

Real-life Example: Rwanda’s Agaciro Development Fund, a sovereign wealth fund aimed at accelerating Rwanda’s socio-economic development, has a diaspora advisory board that provides strategic guidance on diaspora engagement (Agaciro Development Fund, 2021).

Partnerships

African governments should partner with international organizations, civil society, and the private sector to leverage diaspora resources. These partnerships can facilitate access to funding, technical expertise, and global networks.

Real-Life Example: The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has partnered with several African governments to implement diaspora engagement programs, including skills transfer initiatives, diaspora investment programs, and diaspora volunteering schemes (IOM, 2021).

Youth Engagement

Special attention should be paid to engaging the youth in the diaspora. They are the future and can drive innovation and change. This can be done through the establishment of youth diaspora networks, youth mentorship programs, and youth diaspora summits.

Real-Life Example: TheAfrican Union’s Youth Envoy has launched several initiatives aimed at engaging African youths in the diaspora, including theAfrican Youth FrontAgainst Corona and theAfrican Youth Charter Hustlers initiative (African Union Youth Envoy, 2021).

Pan-African Collaboration

Initiatives should be fostered betweenAfricans on the continent and people ofAfrican descent in the Caribbean, theAmericas, and elsewhere, leveraging their shared heritage and unique strengths. This can be done through the establishment of pan-African networks, summits, collaboration, and partnership.

Real-Life Example: The Pan-Afrikan Society Community Forum, a global pan-African network, brings together Africans from the continent and the diaspora to discuss issues affecting Africa and its diaspora. The forum also serves as a platform for pan-African collaboration and networking (Pan-Afrikan Society Community Forum, 2021).

Effects of the National Council for Black Studies

Black andAfricana Studies have greatly influenced discussions of theAfrican diaspora and their contributions toAfrica’s development. These disciplines highlight the historical and contemporary connections betweenAfricans on the continent and those in the diaspora, emphasizing the importance of pan-Africanism and the shared experiences of people ofAfrican descent. In addition, these studies challenge Eurocentric narratives that often overlook the global impact ofAfricans and the diaspora, providing a more accurate and inclusive understanding of their role in shaping the world.

Problems and Solutions

Although the potential of the globalAfrican diaspora is immense, several obstacles hinder their engagement with the continent.

Lack of Trust: Many people in the diaspora are wary of engaging withAfrican governments due to concerns about corruption, bureaucracy, and political instability. To build trust,African governments must demonstrate a commitment to good governance, transparency, and accountability. They must also create safe and secure environments for diaspora engagement.

Lack of Information: Many people in the diaspora are unaware of the opportunities available on the continent. To address this,African governments must invest in diaspora outreach and communication strategies. This can include the establishment of diaspora portals, newsletters, and engagement campaigns, and open high-value project bids to include businesses owned and operated by people in theAfrican diaspora.

Lack of Coordination: Diaspora engagement efforts are often fragmented and uncoordinated, leading to duplication of efforts and wastage of resources. To address this,African governments must make more efforts to establish coordination mechanisms, such as diaspora departments in government ministries that handle diaspora-related activities.

Lack of Capacity: Many African governments lack the capacity to effectively engage with the diaspora. To address this, governments must invest in capacity building, including training for government officials on diaspora engagement, establish diaspora departments, and form partnerships with international organizations and civil society.

Conclusion

The problems facing the globalAfrican diaspora and those on the continent are complex and interconnected, and so are the solutions. By working together,Africans and people ofAfrican descent can turn these challenges into opportunities for mutual growth and development. They can build bridges that span miles, connecting hearts, minds, and resources.

The globalAfrican diaspora is not just a collection of individuals scattered around the globe; it is a powerful force forAfrican development. However, harnessing that power requires concerted effort, strategic planning, and a commitment to collaboration. It requires bridging divides, fostering unity, and leveraging the diverse strengths and resources ofAfricans everywhere. TheAfrican Union has declared the diaspora Africa’s “sixth region.” It is time to make this declaration a reality, to integrate the diaspora into the fabric ofAfrica’s growth, bridge the divide, and harness its global power for the benefit of all Africans, regardless of where they reside. Together, they can write a new narrative forAfrica, one not defined by deficits but by potential, progress, and community. The future ofAfrica is bright, and the globalAfrican diaspora has a crucial role to play in shaping this future. By partnering withAfrican countries for research, business, medical exchange, and student exchange, the diaspora can contribute toAfrica’s

transformation and benefit from the continent’s growth. Together,Africans and people ofAfrican descent can build a prosperous and unitedAfrica, where every individual has an opportunity to thrive and succeed.

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Reimagining the Southwest Borderlands: Black Sovereignty and Endurance in New Mexico

by

Charles E. Becknell, Jr., Ph.D. Department of Curriculum and Instruction

New Mexico State University

The American Southwest Borderlands, marked by fluid boundaries and proximity to Mexico, carry profound legacies of colonialism, migration, and cultural exchange. In this intricate landscape, New Mexico occupies a space where First Nations, Hispanic, and African American histories converge, complicating narratives of race and identity. For Black communities in New Mexico, navigating this layered social and cultural terrain has required extraordinary resilience and creativity. Often marginalized by a tricultural framework prioritizing First Nations, Hispanic, and Anglo narratives, African-descended peoples have carved out a legacy of defiance, illuminating the intersectional richness of Blackness in the Southwest Borderlands and asserting their place in the state’s complex historical tapestry.

At the intersection of systemic oppression and cultural creativity, Black communities in New Mexico forged strategies of endurance and liberation that reflect their unique position and connection to broader African diasporic struggles. These efforts include building cross-cultural solidarities with First Nations and Hispanic communities, reclaiming visibility through art and

activism, and defying the erasure of Black narratives in local and national discourses. However, these alliances have not been without tensions, as historical and contemporary racial, economic, and political dynamics have sometimes complicated coalition-building efforts. In a contemporary climate of resurgent reactionism characterized by anti-Black policies, cultural erasure, and attacks on racial justice initiatives these strategies gain a heightened urgency, exemplifying how Black communities confront and dismantle systems of oppression.

This essay examines Black sovereignty in New Mexico, illuminating localized resistance strategies that have fortified these communities across generations. Addressing the region’s distinct challenges and opportunities underscores the importance of culturally grounded methodologies in Africana Studies to propel racial justice and systemic transformation. Connecting the experiences of Black communities in the Borderlands to global African diasporic struggles, this essay asserts that Africana Studies is an indispensable framework for reclaiming history, catalyzing the liberation of Black communities, and driving the creation of a radically equitable future.

Black Communities in New Mexico: Historical Context in a Borderland State

From Spanish colonization to the present day, Black individuals and communities have played a vital role in shaping the Southwest Borderlands while enduring systemic exclusion and violent dehumanization. Their resilience and ingenuity have persisted in a region defined by entrenched racial hierarchies, cultural complexity, and geopolitical tensions. At the same time, the term “Black,” once weaponized by colonial powers, has been reclaimed by African and diasporic peoples as a powerful assertion of identity and agency, underscoring their resistance and transformative contributions to the region.

The history of African-descended peoples in New Mexico begins in the sixteenth century, when enslaved Africans were forcibly brought to the region under Spanish colonial rule. This legacy, defined by complex migration, conquest, and defiance, is deeply embedded in ancient and

modern histories. While the African presence in the Americas is broadly linked to plate tectonics and human migration over millennia, this analysis centers on the modern era, beginning with the Moorish conquest of Spain, which profoundly influenced Iberian culture, laying the foundations of the Spanish expeditions that later transported African laborers, scouts, and soldiers to the Americas (Clark, 1992).

The Black experience in the Americas during the Spanish colonial period intersected with the genocidal campaigns against First Nations peoples of North America. Estevanico (Clark, 1992, p. 81), an enslaved African guide, embodied this duality as both an agent and an object of Spanish expansion, revealing the contradictions of his social position. Similarly, Isabel de Olvera, a free “mulatta” from New Spain, navigated the rigid colonial caste system that shaped what is now New Mexico. Their experiences highlight the indispensable roles of African-descended peoples: serving as scouts, enduring as soldiers, and suffering exploitation through debt peonage and indentured servitude (Montejano, 1987). These histories underscore Black resistance, autonomy, and the complex intersection of identities within Borderlands history.

The nineteenth century brought seismic political and social transformations to the Borderlands, shaped by Mexico’s War of Independence (1810–21), the Texas Revolution (1835–36), and the U.S.–Mexico War (1846–48). These conflicts devastated Indigenous peoples and redefined territorial boundaries, governance, and racial hierarchies in the region. Meanwhile, the Haitian Revolution (1804) influenced global ideas about race and freedom, contributing to shifting power dynamics on Mexico’s northern frontier. As racial classifications evolved, many First Nations peoples were forcibly reclassified as “Negroes,” positioning Blackness as the antithesis of American Whiteness.

Despite this racial erasure, African-descended communities established essential institutions, including the Buffalo Soldier regiments. Units like those at Fort Huachuca later served

as prototypes for the modern Border Patrol. But while these contributions showcased Black resilience, they also reinforced rigid racial binaries of Black/White and citizen/non-citizen, deepening the exclusionary hierarchies that shaped American identity. By the time of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), Black communities were advocating for land, education, and economic security while resisting segregation and systemic barriers. They laid the foundations for future struggles against racial oppression and inequality through institution building and collective advocacy.

The demographics of the Borderlands compelled cross-cultural exchanges between Black, Indigenous, and Mexican communities shaped by shared oppression, systemic racism, and traditions. Intermarriage frequently produced Afro-Indigenous descendants who negotiated complex identities within a rigidly racialized society (Cohen, 2020). However, colonial racial hierarchies also reinforced intra-group divisions, with colorism and proximity to White power structures often deepening social and economic disparities. As a result, Black communities in the region have historically had to navigate both solidarity and exclusion within broader marginalized groups (Horne, 2022).

In the early twentieth century, the Great Migration brought a small but influential wave of African Americans to the Southwest seeking economic opportunities and refuge from Jim Crow violence. In New Mexico, Black migrants established communities like Blackdom the state’s only incorporated all-Black town (Nelson & Ruffin, 2023) along with businesses, churches, and social organizations essential to their survival and progress. However, entrenched racial hierarchies in the Borderlands restricted their political representation and access to opportunities available to other marginalized groups. This enduring legacy continues to shape the experiences of Black communities in New Mexico.

Contemporary Challenges and Reactionary Backlash

Black communities in New Mexico face entrenched systemic racism and a resurgence of

reactionary ideologies, amplified by sociocultural dynamics that erase Blackness from narratives prioritizing Indigenous, Hispanic, and Anglo histories. At times, this erasure is compounded by internal biases within marginalized communities, where anti-Black sentiment and economic competition have challenged the sustainability of cross-racial alliances. Since the 1920s, New Mexico’s tripartite cultural framework centered on Hispanic, Indigenous, and Anglo coexistence has excluded African-descended peoples, erased their contributions, and deepened disparities in education, housing, and employment.

Black New Mexicans experience disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, and housing instability (New Mexico Department of Health, 2019; Economic Policy Institute, 2024; National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2024). Meanwhile, reactionary movements like anti-critical race theory and anti-DEI campaigns have deepened this marginalization by suppressing discussions of race, African American history, and equity. These injustices demand urgent action to address systemic inequities and restore Black perspectives to the region’s cultural and historical narratives.

Beyond economic exclusion, systemic policing and racial profiling disproportionately target Black residents, particularly in Albuquerque (Police Scorecard, 2021). The intersection of anti-Blackness and xenophobia subjects African-descended immigrants to compounded racial and immigration-related discrimination. Efforts to suppress racial justice as seen in school board debates (Associated Press, 2021), the silencing of Black voices in policymaking, and inadequate protections against profiling (ACLU, 2012) demand urgent resistance. Addressing these injustices requires bold, localized, and transnational strategies that center Black experiences, challenge reactionary narratives, and restore Black agency in New Mexico’s cultural and political landscapes.

Autonomy and the Africana Studies Framework in New Mexico

Africana Studies employs seven conceptual categories for examining the histories and contributions of Black and African-descended people from 1500 to the present, highlighting their defiance and ingenuity in resisting forced migration, enslavement, and colonialism. These categories social structures, governance, ways of knowing, science and technology, movement and memory, cultural meaning-making, and liberation (Carr, 2024) offer a framework for understanding how Black communities have forged influential societies and sustained cultural legacies. Through this lens, Africana Studies transcends surface inquiry to reveal how Africandescended people have confronted, dismantled, and reshaped oppressive systems while influencing global culture.

The resilience and creativity central to Africana Studies are powerfully reflected in the lived experiences of Black communities in New Mexico. Despite systemic barriers, they have asserted their presence through defiance, endurance, and cultural expression. Black artists, for instance, fuse African diasporic histories with Southwestern iconography, amplifying marginalized voices and challenging the erasure of Black contributions in the state’s cultural narrative (City of Albuquerque, 2021).

Black churches, grassroots organizations, and educators have been central to fostering Black autonomy in New Mexico. Historically, Black churches served as hubs for community mobilization and cultural preservation, and they now lead efforts against voter suppression and economic inequity. Africana Studies educators at New Mexico State University and the University of New Mexico continue to advance Black perspectives in social justice discourses. This foundation of advocacy and leadership highlights the need for systemic strategies, with policy frameworks and empowerment initiatives being essential for advancing Black sovereignty in New Mexico.

Strategic Policy Frameworks and Empowerment Initiatives

Bold policy initiatives and transformative educational reforms are critical to advancing Black sovereignty in the Southwest Borderlands state of New Mexico.

1. Revolutionizing Education: New Mexico must integrate Africana Studies across the K–20 continuum to contest the erasure of Black histories. Curriculums must highlight precolonial African civilizations’ political, economic, and cultural achievements, providing context beyond enslavement. It should also explore the struggles and triumphs of Black communities, the enduring legacy of Black sovereignty, and their ongoing impact. Teacher training must address race, ethnicity, and culture to equip educators to dismantle systemic inequities.

2. Transformative Economic Justice Efforts: Confronting inequities in housing and employment is vital. Policies that advance affordable housing and equitable economic development in historically Black communities can counteract cultural erasure and socioeconomic exclusion.

3. Transformative Environmental Justice Initiatives: Black communities face systemic environmental injustices, including disproportionate water scarcity and pollution exposure. Strategic alliances with Indigenous and Latinx activists can intensify demands for clean water access, sustainable land stewardship, and corporate accountability. However, these coalitions must also address historical tensions and disparities in resource distribution, ensuring that Black voices are equitably included in environmental justice movements.

4. Technological Empowerment for Community Building: Harnessing digital platforms to unite Black residents across rural and urban areas of New Mexico is pivotal to driving community organization and resource sharing. These initiatives must focus on

expanding affordable broadband access in historically underserved regions.

Insights for Global Black Liberation

The experiences of Black communities in the Borderlands state of New Mexico, viewed through a hemispheric framework (Hooker, 2017), reveal the interconnected nature of racial struggles across the Americas. Localized resistance, cross-border alliances, and cultural innovation underscore how seemingly isolated efforts can contribute to a broader hemispheric liberation network. Afro-Indigenous coalitions, for instance, exemplify transformative collaboration, tackling environmental racism and land dispossession while paralleling movements in Brazil, where AfroBrazilian and Indigenous coalitions fight deforestation and advocate for land sovereignty. Nevertheless, as in the Southwest Borderlands, these partnerships face challenges, as colonial histories of racial stratification have sometimes led to tensions over identity, political power, and economic access. Hooker’s framework highlights how localized struggles, shaped by shared colonial legacies, fuel transnational liberation efforts.

The marginalization of Blackness within New Mexico’s dominant tricultural narrative underscores the importance of these insights. In a state where Hispanic, Indigenous, and Anglo identities dominate, Black communities face systemic erasure. But through activism and cultural production, they can confront exclusion and reclaim their place in the region’s history, paralleling efforts in Colombia and the Dominican Republic, where Blackness is similarly suppressed within narratives of multiculturalism. Cross-cultural alliances further amplify these efforts, as AfroIndigenous partnerships in New Mexico, such as AfroMundo (n.d.), address challenges of colonialism, environmental destruction, and economic exploitation, aligning with hemispheric trends of marginalized groups uniting to confront systemic inequities.

Cultural innovation and education play decisive roles in this resistance. Black artists, writers, and musicians in the Borderland state of New Mexico blend Afrocentric and regional

influences to assert identity and challenge marginalization, connecting to diasporic cultural traditions. Similarly, Africana Studies in New Mexico links local Black histories to broader diasporic narratives, fostering hemispheric consciousness and collective sovereignty. These resistance, solidarity, cultural innovation, and education strategies illuminate how Black communities in the Borderlands contribute to a shared diasporic vision, offering pathways toward liberation across the Americas.

Conclusion

Black communities in New Mexico’s Borderlands exemplify the transformative power of localized defiance and collective sovereignty. Their histories of resilience, cultural innovation, and cross-cultural alliances confront erasure and illuminate pathways for justice that extend beyond regional boundaries. While these alliances have been vital to advancing racial justice, they have also been shaped by historical and contemporary tensions, as marginalized communities navigate economic, political, and cultural complexities. Viewed through a hemispheric lens (Hooker, 2017), these struggles reveal the interconnectedness of racial subjugation and liberation across the Americas, offering strategies that transcend borders. By reclaiming narratives, building coalitions, and advancing education and cultural production, these communities model ways to dismantle systemic inequities and assert Africana sovereignty in the modern world. The Borderlands affirms that Black liberation is both local and global rooted in specific histories, and yet deeply entwined in shared diasporic struggles. Recognizing both the possibilities and the challenges of solidarity, New Mexico’s Black communities compel us to envision and strive for a world where justice, mutual recognition, and liberation are universal realities.

References

AfroMundo. (n.d.). AfroMundo: Fostering civic engagement and solidarity through arts and humanities. https://www.afromundo.org

American Civil Liberties Union. (2012). New Mexico law enforcement agencies racially profiling for profit. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/new-mexico-law-enforcement-agenciesracially-profiling-profit

Associated Press. (2021) New Mexico debates critical race theory in education. https://apnews.com/article/new-mexico-race-and-ethnicity-educationf6f7e66a656f884535e5314a699a29f3

Carr, G. E. K. (2024). Introduction to Africana Studies: Towards a freedom course design. Freedom: A Journal of Research in Africana Studies, pp. 68–69

City of Albuquerque. (2021). City honors MLK Jr. with new public art mural downtown https://www.cabq.gov/artsculture/news/city-honors-mlk-jr-with-new-public-art-muraldowntown

Clarke, J. H. (1992). Christopher Columbus and the African holocaust: Slavery and the rise of European capitalism. Eworld Inc.

Cohen, T. W. (2020). Finding Afro-Mexico: Race and nation after the revolution. Cambridge University Press.

Economic Policy Institute. (2024). State unemployment by race and ethnicity https://www.epi.org/indicators/state-unemployment-race-ethnicity/

Hooker, J. (2017). Theorizing race in the Americas: Douglass, Sarmiento, Du Bois, and Vasconcelos. Oxford University Press.

Horne, G. (2022). The counter-revolution of 1836: Texas slavery & Jim Crow and the roots of American fascism. International Publishers.

Montejano, D. (1987). Anglos and Mexicans in the making of Texas, 1836–1986. University of Texas Press.

National Alliance to End Homelessness. (2024). New Mexico fact sheet: 2023 Point-in-Time Count data https://endhomelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/NM-fact-sheet-2023-PITData.pdf

Nelson, T. E., & Ruffin, H. G. (2023). Blackdom, New Mexico: The significance of the Afrofrontier, 1900–1930. Texas Tech University Press.

New Mexico Department of Health. (2019) Population demographics: Poverty by race and ethnicity. https://ibis.doh.nm.gov/indicator/view/PopDemoPov.RacEth.html

Police Scorecard. (2021). Albuquerque police department statistics. from https://policescorecard.org/nm/police-department/albuquerque

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Melissa Speight Vaughn, Ph.D., African Research Collaborative, Washington, DC

Black/Africana Studies Research for Youth Agency: HeKA and YPAR-E Ethical Research by &

Joyce Elaine King, Ph.D. Department of Educational Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta

This paper reports the results of two Black/Africana Studies research innovations designed to facilitate youth-led social change. HeKA (Heritage Knowledge in Action) is a Black/Africana Studies youth human subjects ethical leadership training module, and YPAR-E is a youth participatory action research and evaluation experience. Both experiences equipped Black youth leaders with knowledge and competencies to act as ethical co-investigators, community-minded co-researchers, and program evaluators, leading, protecting, and defending their heritage and communities.

Drawing from Black Studies scholarship (Hilliard, 1997a; Karenga, 2002; King & Maiga, 2018; Nobles, 2006; Sesanti, 2021), HeKA, an asynchronous module that consists of five ageappropriate interactive online lessons, critiques the way that dominant research agendas and certification agencies (e.g., CITI Human Subjects Research Training) act as research gatekeepers by maintaining hierarchies of knowledge and epistemological silos that largely exclude youth and

Black and Indigenous peoples from active research agency (Goss & Patel, 2021; Speight Vaughn & Mdakane, 2019). Within the module, youth mastered principles of ethical research, assessed research risks, and constructed a code of ethical research to guide them in their investigations. Completion of the online HeKA module served as a prerequisite to participating in the YPAR-E module.

YPAR-E expands the critical and agentic possibilities of youth participatory action research (YPAR; Mirra & Garcia, 2015) to include evaluation (Attipoe-Dorcoo & Martinez-Rubin, 2024; Flores, 2008) of the very institutions that dehumanize and disempower Black people globally. By focusing on ethical research skill development (Lake & Wendland, 2018; Sesanti, 2021), youth become active agents in research in service to the community. Situated within a broader international youth civic leadership collaborative project, this study underscores the importance of youth perspectives and agency in education research and evaluation.

Historical Context: Preserving and Reclaiming African Heritage

Over a century ago, Woodson asserted that the U.S. educational system actively miseducates Black people with a Eurocentric curriculum that perpetuates inferiority, controls Black minds, and limits Black excellence (Woodson, 1936). However, the systematic erasure and distortion of African histories and identities profoundly impacts communities across the Black world. Hilliard (1997b) explained that miseducation perpetuates generational trauma and suppresses cultural consciousness. As anti-Black culture wars rage in education, youth are caught in the crossfire of book bans, censorship legislation, and restrictive anti-Black educational policies.

Research-based educational programs like HeKA and YPAR-E counter these forces by equipping youth with tools to investigate their histories, document community narratives, and develop valuesbased solutions to contemporary challenges. By engaging youth in experiences focused on cultural

preservation, intergenerational learning, and community empowerment, these programs provide Black youth with the skills and knowledge to generate ethically informed transformative impacts.

Theoretical Framework: Principles of Ma’at, Black/Africana Studies Research, and African Ethics

This work is theoretically grounded in the virtues of Ma’at that align with African ethical imperatives for Black/Africana Studies research (McDougal, 2014). This theoretical framework holds a higher standard than the three human subjects research principles espoused by The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research (1979). HeKA’s youth human subjects ethical research module was guided by the Ma’atian virtues of order and truth (respect for persons); justice, propriety, compassion, and reciprocity (beneficence); harmony; and balance (Karenga, 2004). Ma’at guides us in conducting ethical research, and Black/Africana Studies research demonstrates the expected outcomes and responsibilities of research that is accountable to the Black community. In Black/Africana Studies research, justice requires that we return what we learn to the Black community; we do not extract information from participants without working in partnership with them to explore and create a better world for them and our people (King, 2017).

YPAR-E (Youth Participatory Action Research and Evaluation) emphasizes tenets of African community-based research methodology (Ibhakewanlan & McGrath, 2015). This youthled research for social change was conducted within the context of the larger community-based civic leadership project. Youth approached the research relationally, understanding themselves as individuals within a community of people who were learning together (Menkiti, 1979). From an African perspective, research investigations are intimately and socially connected to the community (Semali & Kincheloe, 1999). Research is validated by its use for the whole as opposed to the individual, thus connecting local contexts to global issues. Given this understanding, we

argue that at the core, HeKA and YPAR-E are Black/Africana Studies research methods informed by Ma’atian virtues.

Methods

We introduced HeKA and YPAR-E in Phase 2, the second year of the larger youth civic leadership project. HeKA Black/Africana Studies human subjects research training focused on certifying youth as co-investigators in community-based research. YPAR-E research investigated the possible benefits and outcomes of the Phase 1 activities the youth experienced.

We recruited and obtained consent for youth participants from Phase 1 of the civic leadership project to participate in the Phase 2 IRB research study. YPAR-E research investigated the possible outcomes and benefits of Phase 1 of the project. Youth participated in five one-hour participatory action research and evaluation meetings with a research advisor. In these sessions, they used oral history research methods to investigate community-based challenges and solutions. Youth completed learning activities in preparation for data collection and analysis of a peer, adult, or elder interview; analyzed the interview transcript; and summarized their results.

Findings

The HeKA and YPAR-E modules fostered the development of youth researcher skills for investigating solutions to community-based challenges. Research findings include these key beneficial outcomes:

1. Research Skills as Agency: Through HeKA and YPAR-E, youth participants gained expertise in oral history methods, data collection, and analysis, building their agency as researchers. Youth created research codes of conduct demonstrating integration and understanding of ethical principles of research. They also applied these skills in the research and evaluation experiences that involved identifying and addressing community

challenges including cultural preservation, intergenerational activism, food insecurity, community violence, reparations, and Black female identity activism in the U.S. and Brazil.

2. Empowerment and Confidence: Youth self-assessment statements described the “liberating” benefits and outcomes of Phase 1 of the civic leadership learning they experienced. Youth noted the valuable skills and opportunities gained through interviews with peers, Jegnas, and elders. Two data collection experiences are notable: Interviewing an elder about her father’s research on the history of Liberia and interviewing an elder about her reflections on an online conversation among Black girls in the U.S. and Brazil.

According to the youth, they gained confidence and a sense of agency through their HeKA Black/Africana Studies human subjects research training and their YPAR-E participatory action research and evaluation experiences.

3. Cultural Preservation: Initiatives like the Liberia Project and interviews with African women healers emphasized the importance of documenting and preserving Africana histories and traditions, fostering a sense of pride and identity among youth participants.

Discussion

Programs like HeKA and YPAR-E underscore the transformative power of youth-led social change research in addressing systemic inequalities, fostering youth agency, and advancing the foundational goals of Black/Africana Studies.

Discussion: Innovations and Impact

HeKA and YPAR-E highlight the power of oral history and intergenerational learning in Black/Africana Studies research experiences that facilitate youth agency, preparing them to reclaim heritage knowledge and cultural narratives to promote community-based social change. By documenting the experiences of Diaspora Black women and girls, activists, and elders, participants contributed to a richer understanding of diverse Africana histories and identities.

Empowering Underrepresented Communities

Youth’s research projects that addressed food deserts, community violence prevention and resistance, and generational trauma illustrate how participatory action research and evaluation can empower underrepresented communities, enabling youth leaders to address systemic inequalities. By fostering agency and confidence, these programs allowed youth to connect local challenges to regional and global issues and debates, strengthening their agency as collective, ethically informed advocates for meaningful change.

Advancing Black/Africana Studies

The work of HeKA and YPAR-E aligns with the foundational goals of Black/Africana Studies, reaffirming its relevance as a discipline that empowers individuals and communities to critique dominant research agendas, challenge systemic injustices, and advocate for social change.

Scholarly Significance and Future Directions

HeKA and YPAR-E modules discussed in this report exemplify the transformative potential of African-centered education and research. By equipping youth with ethical research skills, fostering intergenerational reciprocal learning, and addressing critical community issues, these innovative modules provide a foundation for advancing equity, justice, and cultural preservation.

Future research will explore the scalability of these modules, particularly their potential to address emerging challenges such as artificial intelligence and environmental justice. Additionally, efforts should be made to document the long-term effects of these initiatives on participants and their communities. As Black/Africana Studies continues to evolve, programs like HeKA and YPAR-E will play a vital role in advancing the discipline’s mission and fostering transformative change across the African world.

References

Attipoe-Dorcoo, S. & Martinez-Rubin, N. (2024). Critically defining I.M.P.A.C.T. for culturally responsive and equitable evaluation. In A. C. Adedoyin, N. N. Amutah-Onukagha, & C. D. Jones (Eds.), Culturally responsive and equitable evaluation: Visions and voices of emerging scholars, 44–53. Cognella Academic Publishing.

Flores, K. S. (2008). Youth participatory evaluation: Strategies for engaging young people. JosseyBass.

Goss, A., & Patel, L. (2021). Cross-talkin’: Black parents and youths’ resistance, education, and action. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 36(5), 832–52.

https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2021.1942290

Hilliard, A. G. (1997a). The maroon within us: Selected essays on African American community socialization. Black Classic Press.

Hilliard, A. G. (1997b). SBA: The reawakening of the African mind. Makare Publishing Company.

Ibhakewanlan, J.-O., & McGrath, S. (2015). Toward an African community-based research (ACBR) methodology. Sage Open, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244015613106

Karenga, M. (2002). Introduction to Black Studies (4th ed.). University of Sankore Press.

Karenga, M. (2004). Maat: The moral ideal in ancient Egypt. Routledge.

King, J. E. (2017). Education research in the Black liberation tradition: Return what you learn to the people. Journal of Negro Education, 86(2), 95–114. https://doi.org/10.7709/jnegroeducation.86.2.0095

King, J. E., & Maïga, H. O. (2018). Teaching African language for historical consciousness: Recovering group memory and identity. In J. King & E. Swartz (Eds.), Heritage knowledge in the curriculum: Retrieving an African episteme (pp. 56–78). Routledge.

Lake, D. L., & Wendland, J. (2018). Practical, epistemological, and ethical challenges of

participatory action research: A cross-disciplinary review of the literature. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 22(3), 11–42.

McDougal, S. (2014). Research methods in Africana Studies. Peter Lang.

Menkiti, I. A. (1979). Person and community in African traditional thought. In R. A. Wright (Ed.), African philosophy: An introduction (pp. 171–81). Washington, DC: University Press of America.

Mirra, N., & Garcia, A. (2015). Youth participatory action research as critical pedagogy. Review of Educational Research, 85(2), 239-272.

Nobles, W. W. (2006). Seeking the Sakhu: Foundational writings for an African psychology. Third World Press.

Semali, L., & Kincheloe, J. (1999). What is indigenous knowledge? Voices from the academy Falmer Press.

Sesanti, S. (2021). Decolonized and Afrocentric education: For centering African women in remembering, re-membering, and the African renaissance. Journal of Black Studies, 50(5). https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934719847382

Speight Vaughn, M., & Mdakane, M. (2019). Indigenous knowledge research ethics. In J. de Beer (Ed.), The decolonization of the curriculum project: The affordances of indigenous knowledge for self-directed learning (pp. 319–46). Cape Town, SA: AOSIS Publishing.

Woodson, C. G. (1936). The miseducation of the Negro. Associated Publishers.

Asheville, Reparations & Black Studies: A Path Forward

by

Miciah Z. Yehudah, Ph.D. Dean of Inclusive Excellence

Warren Wilson College, Swannanoa, NC

In 2020, following the reckoning that accompanied the George Floyd murder and the global pandemic, cities and states across the United States began to make promises to Black communities, chief among them promises by certain municipalities to pay reparations to Black people harmed by decades or centuries of targeted policies, practices, and procedures. After Evanston, Illinois, Asheville in North Carolina was the second municipality in the country to take up this charge. What follows in this essay, after a brief explanation of the reparations in Asheville, is my own experience as a resident of Buncombe County, NC, my involvement as commissioner on the Asheville and Buncombe County’s Community Reparation Commission, and my observations as a community-driven Black Studies specialist participant observant. This work provides not only a historical account but an experiential moment in one Black community, and an exploration of how Black Studies can support such scenarios in local areas near its higher educational institutions (Ledbetter & Yehudah, 2022). Reparations are an ongoing issue, but the way Black Studies addresses local reparations movements is a new one. Though this essay pertains to the Black Community in Asheville, it may also be relevant to other municipalities in the country and

internationally addressing reparations for previous or current Black residents.

Once Africans were tilling the soil of North America as exploited laborers and innovators, conversations about redress were prompted. We know of the valiant efforts of Martin Delaney and his nation-within-a-nation idea, Callie House and her audacity to bring the matter to Congress, and James Forman, whose Black Manifesto set down actual figures for settlement. I recall learning specifically about how in 1952, Queen Mother Moore founded the Reparations Committee of Descendants of United States Slaves (1955), and how years later the one-time member of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and pioneering founder of the Universal Association of Ethiopian Women argued that “reparations” was the battle cry for the economic and social freedom of descendants of enslaved Africans (Moore, 1962), even submitting a claim for 500 trillion dollars to the State of California on behalf of enslaved Africans. Despite her death in 1997, her consistent efforts through organizations she worked with or founded to forward reparations claims have continued to mobilize the masses towards the repairs she imagined. Since then, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), a group she cofounded in 1995, has advocated for reparations.

Even as a youngster, I recall marching with relatives in the Dixons and Fairweather family as African scouts, building familiarity with the chants and activities of the New Republic of Africa. As a doctoral candidate at Temple University, I often shared space at community initiatives and actions with a very active N’COBRA member who had an office just a few blocks from Gladfelter Hall in North Philadelphia.

Over the years, I watched others join the advocacy efforts. My faculty advisor at Temple, Muhammad Ahmad (Maxwell Stanford, Jr.), continually raised the issue of reparations in his history courses, speaking about the lifelong efforts of Queen Mother Moore and her comrades to advance it. The Revolutionary Action Movement he founded attempted to keep that issue from

being ignored. I also recall my father and my elders accompanying Queen Mother Moore to the National Democratic Convention in San Francisco as part of Jesse Jackson’s quest for the nomination in 1988. That trip happened because my father’s spiritual teacher, Mother Wisdom, had a longstanding relationship with the Ethiopic order, and they were carrying out a favor in support of Queen Mother Moore, who had once sat under her tutelage.

I recall folks speaking about H.R. 40, a Congressional Act introduced by Rep. John Conyers in 1989 proposing a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans. Although Conyers raised it annually, it never took hold until the racial reckoning triggered by the killing of George Floyd. The events of 2015 sparked a lot of activity in Asheville, including days of protests downtown (Blake & Burgess, 2020), an agreement to take down a longstanding Confederate monument, and eventually a unanimous vote by City Council to extend reparations to past and present Black residents. The impact of 2015 was felt in Asheville and all of Western Carolina. But as always, a wave of consciousness was already in motion. The George Floyd moment was another moment in a long list of harms inflicted on Black people. Black people in Asheville experienced their own George Floyd moments prior to 2015.

Reparations in Asheville NC

Origins

In 2015 Keith Young, a fiery, unapologetic young Black Ashevillian, won a city council race and turned city politics on its head advocating for wholesale changes in the city, from housing opportunities for Black residents to an inaugural office of equity and inclusion. Young had found that the city was saying it was doing the work, but there was no evidence of it. Housing programs were claiming to meet the needs of the Black community, but the numbers did not align with the declarations. The Black community was disillusioned.

On the heels of the reintroduction of H. R. 40 legislation by Sheila Jackson Lee and others,

and a few weeks before the congressional panel on reparations held on Juneteenth 2020, the citizens protested, and Young worked behind the scenes with other community stakeholders to ensure that reparations were embedded in the advocacy areas placed before City Council. On July 3, the Buncombe County health board declared racism a public health crisis (Wicker, 2020), and eleven days later the Asheville City Council unanimously passed the resolution (Asheville City Council, 2020) establishing a reparations commission to “investigate racial harms and make recommendations” (Mizelle, 2020). Rob Thomas, another leader in Asheville’s Black community and a colleague of Young’s, argued in an interview with the BBC that the request was basic: to finally get people of Asheville in seats of power “to do what is right” (BBC, 2020).

Asheville, a city in Western North Carolina where approximately 12% of the 93,000 residents identify as Black, has a unique history. This Appalachian town was long thought not to have enslaved Africans due to its lack of flatlands suitable for typical Southern plantations. But uncovered documents, including deeds and histories of the city and county’s founders, revealed that many of the landowners had either gained or expanded their wealth through the use of enslaved Africans for everything from harvesting and forestry to the engineering and construction of a variety of hotels and business buildings and eventually, as convicts, the railroad. Jim Crow segregation furthered the separation and unjust enrichment of White owners, while the urban renewal of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s removed Black people from the few lands they owned and forced their relocation to what would come to be public housing (if they remained), or elsewhere across the region and country (if they chose to leave). Currently, White liberals and retirees flock to the city for indulgence, travel, and retirement, while Black residents are subjected to menial jobs and the same opportunity-less neighborhoods they were forced into in the urban renewal. Asheville uses words of equity but has found it difficult to carry through on its rhetoric. Reparations, as envisioned by Young and City Council, were pushed to balance the playing field once and for all.

The Founding of the CRC

When I was asked to join the Community Reparations Commission (CRC), I hesitated because I was not born in Asheville or Buncombe County. I have deep family ties to the area, but I always thought folks who lived in the area and were most active there should be representing these efforts before anyone else. But as I considered the offer, I realized that I was being asked because of my experience in Black Studies, and the more I considered, the more I began to take it as a professional obligation. I also began to realize the reality that Black people everywhere were displaced, and to those active local residents who requested my presence on the CRC, my personal experience mattered whether I’d had ties to the place for 200 years or just five. They felt that my outlook, my experience, and my expertise mattered. After trying and failing to have someone else take the seat, I agreed to apply to the commission. In December 2021, I learned that I’d been accepted for a seat on the city of Asheville and Buncombe County’s Community Reparations Commission.

The 25-member commission would 15 seats appointed by Black legacy neighborhoods and public housing communities. Each community would be allotted two seats. I was appointed as a representative for the historic Burton St. community. The city of Asheville and Buncombe County, which also agreed to reparations later in August, would each appoint five representatives to the commission. In addition, several alternates were appointed in the case of turnover (Miller, 2022).

The charge of the CRC was to create short-, medium-, and long-term recommendations for City Council. The goal was to use reparations to address inequity among Black residents. The city manager hired a project manager to facilitate the commission’s work. This was a controversial move, as the newly formed Equity and Inclusion Office still lacked staff (the entire unit disbanded, citing blockage from the city manager), and the contract went to an organization that was not local. The Black community’s concerns may have been warranted, as the firm pulled out of the

reparations process less than a year into the CRC’s operations. Just before the CRC was seated, the city manager announced the hiring of a director for the office, and the equity department began its work alongside the project manager (Honosky 2021).

The firm organized meetings, sent out agendas, and hired facilitators for the meetings for the five impact focus areas. We appreciated the organizational leadership of the firm, but we quickly learned that because it was hired by the city, it served as an arm of the city and sought continually to control the core of the project, steering conversations, controlling and dictating meeting agendas, imposing boundaries on commissioners (stating that reparations could not include cash payments), and setting rules for meetings that were almost more harmful than helpful. The CRC appointed leaders in Dr. Dwight Mullins and Ms. Dewana Little, but even they ran into bumpers when they asked for control of meeting agendas and advocacy for the CRC.

There was an early effort led by three community organizations Black Asheville Demands, the Racial Justice Coalition (under leadership of Rob Thomas), and Just Us to push the city to research reparations and engage young people in the process, and the city responded in June 2021 by hosting listening sessions as it forged ahead with the CRC. Unfortunately, the request for research was never realized, and the burden of finding evidence to support the reparations proposals was placed on CRC members: some retirees, three or four academics, and an overwhelming majority of folks who were successful in work across Asheville and Buncombe County, and had their hands full with their own obligations (Durr, 2021). CRC members were provided with a monthly $150 stipend to assist with travel and childcare, even though they were doing work that even a full-time researcher would request additional support for.

Meetings

The CRC had monthly two-hour meetings, typically on Monday evenings, and twicemonthly impact focus area (IFA) meetings of about the same length. For the first six months, IFAs

rarely met due to the project management team working behind the scenes to determine which IFA facilitators that they would appoint. The facilitators tended to be local people of various racial backgrounds who were willing to assist in the process. Once the meetings started, each facilitator handled their meeting differently, with little apparent guidance from project management. Some steered the process, while others steered the topics and approaches. Each method had its pros and cons. The larger, monthly meeting was presided over by Dr. Mullen or Ms. Little and the project manager.

When there were difficulties in gaining consensus, the project management team and the city/county collaborative would hold a retreat. These covered topics such as defining reparations, reviewing IFA recommendations, addressing city/county accountability (once reparation recommendations were submitted), and Black community healing.

There were also several attempts to gain community buy-in. One was a youth film project conducted by a local activist and media personality. The youth interviewed several CRC members and highlighted several aspects of the reparations experience. Co-chair Little also spearheaded a canvassing effort to inform community members that the reparations process was underway and how they could weigh in on it. Despite two years of bureaucracy, through its IFA meetings and work by individual commissioners, the CRC garnered enough input to submit its recommendations to City Council and the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners.

Accomplishments

One early accomplishment of the CRC was drafting the Stop The Harm statement (CRC, 2022) which formally addressed the idea that reparations could never be successfully provided if the parties perpetuating harms continued to do so. The statement also led to an audit of city and county services. The results largely mirrored the CRC’s recommendations, including the importance of data collection (to situate claims about practices being equitable and inclusive) and

the creation of entities such as a Black Chamber of Commerce to ensure Black participation in economic development opportunities.

At the end of the process, the CRC drafted and proposed 39 recommendations across its five impact focus areas. The highlights included a recommendation drafted with local activist Priscilla on urban renewal (CRC, 2024a) which called for Asheville to compensate past Black residents and businesspeople for their displacement to the amount of $148,000; an economic development center and campus in the Black community for education and business opportunities; and an early education commitment (CRC, 2023) addressing everything from childcare costs to the funding of wraparound services to families; organizational support for businesses that provide health support for Black elders; and a truth and reconciliation taskforce (CRC, 2024b) that would provide additional time to address the full scope of the original resolution and the city and county’s acknowledgment of the harms of enslavement, Jim crow policies and practices, railroad convict labor, the impact of urban renewal on other Black communities in the city and county, and more contemporary issues such as the war on drugs and growing gentrification.

Young continued to lead, reminding fellow CRC members of the reasons for the original resolution, but others also exhibited strong leadership. DeWayne Barton, the leader of the Burton St. Community, continued to push back on assumptions and structures did not make sense for either the CRC or the community that they represented. He championed economic opportunities and was a leading member of the Economic Development IFA. Cici Weston was a consistent voice on early childcare, reminding CRC members about the youths and families who supported them. Chris Gordon, also a member of the education IFA with Mrs. Weston, contributed his expertise from years of teaching at Asheville High School. Dr. Ameiris Lavender, who was not a CRC member but an IFA facilitator, did a great job preparing her IFA (education) for each meeting and for presentations at the CRC meetings. Kim Jones of the economic development IFA was keen on

addressing the racial economic gap and used her skills in finances to lead the group. Elders such as Norma Baynes, Bobbette Mays, the late Bernard Oliphant, and Roy Harris provided valuable information about the generation gaps and the historically perpetrated injuries. Rob Thomas, leader of the RJC, continually challenged city and county staff to do right with the process. I believe that his efforts were important for raising awareness of the bureaucratic challenges the CRC faced, and that he faced backlash from Black conservatives due to his fearlessness.

Challenges

No obstacle loomed larger than the bureaucracy. My mother, who spent years in city government, told me that any time a municipality wants to kill an initiative they create a commission. I laughed when she said it, but as a CRC member I saw that how the CRC was structured created barriers to participation. I give the benefit of the doubt to the well-meaning city and county staff members who committed to the process, but behind the scenes some wanted to drag the process out and blame CRC members for any work not completed.

The structuring of the CRC around a vague idea of reparations in part led to a standoff over what reparations encompassed. The city and county declared that they would pay reparations, but also suggested that this would not involve cash payments. As a result, much of what the CRC developed were community projects and initiatives that supported its Black constituents rather than a plan that compensated Black people present or past for injuries inflicted by the city and county. The impossibility of conducting a full study of reparations before the seating of the CRC made it extremely difficult for the commission to address the full scope of the resolution. This is why the Truth and Reconciliation Taskforce was proposed as part of the reparation recommendations.

The question of conflicts of interest was never addressed. Several highly successful Black business owners and entrepreneurs were asked to sign waivers that restricted them from benefiting from reparations recommendations, but several commissioners, especially Mr. Barton, questioned

that logic, as they too were Black people who had suffered from city and county harms.

Some internal challenges also emerged. One was acknowledging the displacement and relocation of Black people in the region and city. This, coupled with a few CRC members focused on individualized possessive accumulation, led to some interesting debates over who was from Asheville and who was not. This was in fact a moot point, as every member of the CRC was required to live in the area. Everyone on the commission was in fact a resident of Asheville or Buncombe County.

Another internal obstacle was the CRCs struggle to overcome restrictions of bureaucracy. The CRC succeeded despite the red tape, but was drained by struggles over everything from control of meeting agendas to the dates and times of special sessions. There was plenty of turnover in the last year of the work. Although the work still continues, the CRC will have to replace commissioners who dropped out of the ranks due to lack of interest or commitment. As stated previously, it was difficult to stay involved in the process to speak publicly of issues that people in the Black community do not even speak of internally very often. Having to address past harms several times a month was also deflating.

In general, less community input was gathered than expected. The city and county led a program in the name of community engagement, which was well attended but mainly for local White businesspeople. Several members of the CRC, me included, requested to hold our monthly meetings in Black communities on a rotating basis, but we were rejected by city and county staff citing lack of access to technology. The IFAs led several successful community engagement programs seeking feedback on reparations proposals and informing neighborhoods of the CRC’s efforts on the impact focus areas.

From the beginning, community activists continually questioned the city and county on the reparations process, including why community members were relegated to speaking in just the five

minutes allowed for public comment at the end of the meetings, and sometimes not at all during the more frequent IFA meetings. Others, such as Libby Kyles and Rob Thomas, spoke about lack of transparency, arguing that the selection of the TEQuity LLC as the reparations manager should not be paid for out of the reparations funding, and that the firm should not have been contracted for the process in any case (Penter, 2021). “When Reparations Meets Bureaucracy” (Newsome, 2021) documented some of the inactivity and foot-dragging tactics used by the city government to stall the reparations process.

Some members of the commission soon realized that the city and county were attempting to avoid acknowledging the resolution, including the apologies made by the city and the county and the promise to address the harms of slavery, redlining, and urban renew programs. The focus of the CRC for a good year and a half was the harms of modernity. Because no compensation was provided for the hours of research that went into creating proposals, many commissioners felt that the burden of that work fell on them and balked at the prospect of serving as de facto city/county historians and researchers without suitable acknowledgment or compensation.

Where Disciplinary Black Studies Enters

Throughout this process, I kept telling myself that if we in Black Studies properly studied reparations when it was introduced by Queen Mother Moore in the 1950s through to the current moment, we would have been much better prepared to handle all the obstacles now before us. But I realized that the terrain of a local municipal approach was something our disciplinary forbearers had not imagined. The focus of efforts and research had always been federal. Despite this new terrain, there is a path forward and several points of interest.

The first question I asked myself was where the local reparations experts came from in Black Studies. Several schools in the area boasted of having Africana Studies programs. What kept them from participating in the process? Dr. Mullen, an emeritus professor of political science at the

University of North Carolina at Asheville was heavily engaged and invested in the process, and although he was not an Africana Studies faculty member, he basically did the work of one. His State of Black Asheville (2017) research, which featured his students’ research efforts, actually served as a motivating factor for the establishment of the CRC and the five impact focus areas. What was missing was local and national historical data. William Darity and N’COBRA were invited and spoke with the CRC on separate occasions, but ongoing collaboration was nonexistent, at least officially. Behind the scenes, we sought out connections with other organizations doing such work, but this was difficult to do with limited time and resources.

Something Black Studies could also have contributed was a Black political agenda, via a public policy approach that entailed a reparations program. In other words, what would Black Studies have to say about the way folks were organizing around reparations, and what approaches would it suggest as the most sustainable? A plethora of organizations have been formed in the past five years specifically to address reparations. What does Black Studies say about those organizations and the individuals involved in them?

Black Studies could also offer specialists with experience in public service who understand the bureaucratic process. Political negotiations could be draining if the members of the committee were not trained in navigate that scene effectively. Training community members in public service, political stamina, and propaganda would have been well warranted. Mitigating the harm of the process would also have served the CRC well. Despite government efforts to localize reparations, the process, ideas, and structures are probably the best and most authentic when they are mainly grassroots efforts.

Black Studies can follow the lead of Dr. Mullen by creating special projects in student courses that require the collection of data on Black experiences in the region or municipality. In sspring 2023, I created and taught a course on Queen Mother Moore and Black advocacy since the

twentieth century, and required students’ terminal projects to be on the reparations process in Asheville and Buncombe County. Students had to attend meetings and interview participants, then present a topic that centered the experience of the participants. Their efforts not only generated primary source material but provided the students with hands-on experience working with and in Black communities, and not in a parasitic way. Master’s and doctoral theses and dissertations on topics relevant to Black communities could be another way to accept candidates into programs.

The Sankofic Imperative

Scholars in Black Studies, the discipline in its entirety, and contemporary reparations activists will benefit tremendously by heeding the advice of Black Studies’ intellectual giants. The late Ron Walters (2008), who served as a Black Studies specialist in political science, is a figure to be studied as a purveyor of data-informed concepts and strategies to be examined and applied in the reparations movement locally, nationally, and internationally. His concept of memory justice can guide research and education on the experiences of people of African descent in the United States, as reparations must navigate what he called the “politics of memory.” Walters asserted that Black power in the United States was tied to the fight for reparations.

Maulana Karenga’s (2006) guidance to engage in serudj ta must also serve as a foundational component of reparations work, entailing both a self-healing of Africana people and a simultaneous display and modeling of an example for how the world might heal through such reparative work. This methodology is key to the mission of reparations and the regaining of Africana agency. His six essential aspects of a reparation program (public dialog, public admission, public apology, public recognition, compensation, and preventative measures against recurrence) should serve as non-negotiable values of any reparations program. Like Walters, Karenga stresses the importance of action and struggle for collective outcomes that serve our communities.

Robert C. Smith (2015), using the phrasing of W.E. B. DuBois, asserted that reparations

programs should “ask for the moon” and disburse their efforts widely and often. The way it is broadcast is as important as the struggle itself. Charles Ogletree (2003) suggested that a successful program must reject any notion mainstream notion that the present conditions of Black people in the United States are a mistake or coincidence. Finally, Charles Henry (2014) declared that reparations commissions must not compromise on achieving justice, allowing reparative justice to prevail over any notion of retributive justice, weigh the difference between individual reconciliation and national reconciliation, and continue to put land redistribution at the heart of any reparations program.

Conclusion

When Hurricane Helene made its way through western North Carolina, Asheville and Buncombe County were devastated. A long road to recovery awaits. There is a sense from Asheville’s Black community that reparations proposals will be put on the back burner while recovery takes precedence. Members of the CRC are hoping that this fear is unfounded, especially as the same neighborhoods were affected by the hurricane and have had to deal with new the consequences of living in zones that might not be deemed priorities.

The world still awaits Asheville and Buncombe County’s response to the 39 reparations proposals. Will they keep their word, or will they forget the promises made years ago, like so many other municipalities have since the movement spurred by the George Floyd killing? The hope is that the municipalities follow through on their promises and work with Black communities to begin establishing genuine equity and a balanced playing field among the citizenry. Ignoring the Black question renders all other efforts in the name of equity and inclusion inauthentic.

References

Asheville City Council. (2020). Resolution supporting community reparations for Black Asheville. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WKialVISWzu72mhasyy9SslDbVGMSj5U/view

Barrows, K. (2020, July 14). Asheville city council passes reparations for Black residents. WLOS ABC 13 News. https://wlos.com/news/local/reparations-unanimously-pass-vote-on-firm-toinvestigate-apds-actions-on-hold

BBC News. (2020, July 16). North Carolina’s Asheville unanimously approves reparations for slavery. BBC.Com https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53435311

Blake, C., & Burgess, J. (2020, June 6). Asheville’s 7th day, biggest protest “This is a lifelong commitment.” USA Today.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2020/06/06/ashevilles-7th-largest-day-protestthis-lifelong-commitment/3167750001/

Community Reparations Commission for the City of Asheville and Buncombe County. (2022, October). Stop the harm: The cessation, assurances and guarantees of non-repetition of institutional processes that lead to racially disparate outcomes. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fch4UrjolknhiGiysZRCA2riJVBWGfGL/view

Community Reparations Commission for the City of Asheville and Buncombe County. (2024a, January 29). Settlement of urban renewal injuries (property values lost) reparations proposal. https://drive.google.com/file/d/13ufHIjS5DAkuJLY1_YtYJvw70t93g-Ej/view

Community Reparations Commission for the City of Asheville and Buncombe County. (2023, January 12). Early care and education reparations proposal. https://drive.google.com/file/d/14mLrpW67X1znf1xpLge-2oi9lvGAea7Z/view

Community Reparations Commission for the City of Asheville and Buncombe County. (2024b, April 23). Truth and reconciliation taskforce reparations proposal.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iIqDkudx3_Lo2c7Z3fVUBgoQb2Go3YkosoPofcTXDo/edit?tab=t.0

Donnelly-DeRoven. (2021, June 2). Asheville’s Black lives matter protests: What’s changed a year later? Asheville Citizen Times

Durr, B. (2021, February 2). Reparations, six months later: So far, empty promises. Asheville Watchdog. https://avlwatchdog.org/reparations-six-months-later-so-far-empty-promises/

Henry, C. (2014). Reparations, citizenship, and the politics of identity. In R. Smith, C. Johnson & R. Newby (Eds.), What has this got to do with the liberation of Black people? The impact of Ronald W. Walters on African American thought and leadership (pp. 333–50). SUNY Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781438450933-017

Honosky, S. (2021, Dec 2). New Asheville director of equity & inclusion to lead reparations, bring on new staff. Asheville Citizen Times https://www.citizentimes.com/story/news/local/2021/12/02/asheville-director-equity-and-inclusion-leadingreparations-project/8826804002/

Karenga, M. (2006, June 20). Reaffirming the rightfulness of reparations: Repairing ourselves and the world. Los Angeles Sentinel, p. A7.

Ledbetter, C., Jr., & Yehudah, M. Z. (2022). Black Studies departments and community relevancy: An exploratory assessment. National Council for Black Studies https://issuu.com/ncbsonline/docs/ncbs_annual_report_2nd_edit/s/15415531

Midkiffe, S. (2020, July 15). A North Carolina city made the historic move to pay Black residents reparations. Refinery 29. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/07/9916255/ashevillenorth-carolina-reparations-city-council-vote

Miller, K. (2022, March 8). Announcement of new city of Asheville reparations commission members. City of Asheville. https://www.ashevillenc.gov/news/announcement-of-new-city-

of-asheville-reparations-commission-members/

Mizelle, S. (2020, July 15). North Carolina city votes to approve reparations for Black residents. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/15/us/north-carolina-asheville-reparations/index.html

Moore, A. (1962). Why reparations? Reparations is the battle cry for the economic and social freedom of more than 25 million descendants of American slaves. Los Angeles, CA: Reparations Committee Inc.

Mullen, A. K. (2022, October 19). How Audley Moore created a blueprint for Black reparations.

Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2022/10/how-audley-moore-created-ablueprint-for-black-reparations

Newsome, M. (2021, October 7). When reparations meet bureaucracy. The Assembly. https://www.theassemblync.com/politics/when-reparations-meet-bureaucracy/

Ogletree, C. J. Jr. (2003). The current reparations debate. U.C. Davis Law Review, 36(5), 1051–72.

Penter, C. (2021, October 5). Community activists question city of Asheville’s reparation process. WLOS ABC 13 News. https://wlos.com/news/local/community-activists-questions-city-ofashevilles-reparation-process

Romo, V. (2020, July 15). Asheville, NC, approves steps toward reparations for Black residents. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racialjustice/2020/07/15/891700076/asheville-n-c-approves-steps-toward-reparations-for-blackresidents

Smith, R. (2018). Asking for the moon: Black power and reparations. In Ronald W. Walters and the Fight for Black Power, 1969–2010 (pp. 169–93). SUNY Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781438468686-013

State of Black Asheville. (2017). Report. https://www.stateofblackasheville.com/

Walters, R. W. (2008). The price of racial reconciliation. University of Michigan Press.

https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.135227

Wicker, M. (2020, July 3). Buncombe health board declares racism a public health crisis. Asheville

Citizen Times. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2020/07/03/buncombe-health-

board-declares-racism-public-health-crisis/3281492001/

Beyond Extraction: Community Ethics and Institutional Memory in Black Studies; A Case Study of Brown University’s Changing Relationships with Providence’s Black Community

by

Melaine Ferdinand-King Ph.D. Candidate Department of Africana Studies Brown University

The establishment of Black Studies departments in American universities during the late 1960s and early 70s emerged from a dual commitment to rigorous academic scholarship and active community engagement (Biondi, 2012). This innovative approach challenged traditional academic models by asserting that the study of Black life, history, and culture must include direct involvement with Black communities. The founding architects of these departments recognized that genuine intellectual inquiry into Black experiences could not be divorced from the material conditions and lived realities of Black communities, leading to the development of programs that combined theoretical analysis with practical application through community service initiatives.

The integration of community involvement into Black Studies’ academic framework served multiple purposes: it provided students with firsthand experience applying their theoretical knowledge, created meaningful partnerships between universities and Black communities, and fulfilled the movement’s broader mission of social transformation. Programs like San Francisco

State’s Black Studies department pioneered this approach by establishing community outreach centers, Black student or culture centers, educational initiatives for local schools, and mentorship programs (San Francisco State University, 2024). This model demonstrated how academic institutions could serve as resources for community development while simultaneously enriching scholarly understanding through direct engagement with the communities and movements being studied.

Black Studies: A History of Scholarship and Service

The field of Africana Studies has faced continuous scrutiny and debate since its founding at San Francisco State College in 1968. As an academic discipline that emerged from demands for both scholarly representation and community engagement, it encountered significant resistance and questioning from its inception. Academic institutions and scholars contested nearly every aspect of the field, from its academic validity and core curriculum to its staffing decisions and target demographics. Additional scholarly discourse arose regarding the geographical scope of study, the role of gender analysis within the discipline, and how the field should position itself in relation to the African American community at large (Jones & Muhammad, 2010, 55). Through all these challenges, a fundamental question remained: how can the discipline maintain its foundational commitment to community engagement while navigating the institutional demands of academia?

Africana Studies emerged as a field dedicated to both expanding representation within academia and fostering meaningful connections with communities beyond the university walls (Jones & Muhammed, 2010, 56). In 1969, Michael Thelwell, a founding faculty member of the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of MassachusettsAmherst, wrote

It is important that we emphasize the two equally important considerations which are basic to the concept of Black Studies. The first requires an autonomous interdisciplinary entity,

capable of coordinating its curriculum and traditional disciplines, to ensure an historical, substantive progression and organic coherence in its offerings. The second function, which is no less crucial, requires this entity be sufficiently flexible to innovate programs which involve students in field study and social action projects in Black communities. (Thelwell, 1969)

The twenty-first century has witnessed a worrying shift in many Black Studies programs away from their foundational commitment to community engagement. This transformation reflects broader changes in academic culture that increasingly prioritize traditional metrics of scholarly production peer-reviewed publications, theoretical sophistication, and disciplinary specialization over community-based work and public scholarship. Some scholars and administrators have explicitly argued that Black Studies needs to distance itself from its activist roots to gain “legitimacy” within the academy, suggesting that community engagement detracts from academic rigor rather than enhancing it. This shift represents a significant departure from the field’s original mission, which understood scholarly rigor and community engagement to be mutually reinforcing rather than competing priorities. The growing pressure to produce traditionally recognized academic output has led some programs to reduce or eliminate community-based requirements for faculty and students, while others have reimagined community engagement as an optional “service” component rather than a central aspect of Black Studies methodology. This transformation raises critical questions about the field’s relationship to its founding principles and its ability to serve as a bridge between academic institutions and Black communities.

The tension between “serious” scholarship and community engagement reflects broader debates about the purpose and value of Black Studies in contemporary academia. Although increased emphasis on scholarly publication has certainly contributed to the field’s theoretical

sophistication, critics argue that this has come at the cost of meaningful community impact and social transformation, the very goals that inspired the field’s creation. This shift may ultimately undermine Black Studies’ historic position as an academic discipline explicitly committed to both intellectual advancement and social change.

The challenges facing Black Studies also reflect tensions in academia over the value and purpose of a humanities education. As universities increasingly adopt market-driven metrics and corporate management models, Black Studies programs face intensified pressure to justify their existence through quantifiable outputs and “practical” career outcomes. This pressure is compounded by bad-faith attacks that deliberately mischaracterize Black Studies as merely diversity training or “grievance studies,” rather than recognizing its rigorous intellectual traditions and methodological innovations.

The characterization of Black Studies as simply a subset of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming represents a fundamental misunderstanding, or a deliberate misrepresentation, of the field’s scholarly depth and intellectual heritage. This reductionist view ignores Black Studies’ crucial contributions to historical analysis, cultural criticism, political theory, and social science methodology. It also overlooks the ways Black Studies has consistently challenged and expanded traditional academic paradigms through its interdisciplinary approach and its integration of community knowledge with scholarly research. These challenges present Black Studies with a critical decision point: how to defend its academic legitimacy without abandoning its foundational commitment to social transformation and community engagement.

Brown University and Black Studies

Brown University, founded in 1764 as the College of Rhode Island, has a complex historical relationship with slavery that mirrors the broader American colonial experience. The institution’s early funding and construction relied significantly on the labor of enslaved people and

wealth generated through the transatlantic slave trade, with many of its founding trustees and benefactors being prominent traders of African people in colonial Rhode Island. In 2003, Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, the first African-American president of an Ivy League institution, commissioned the groundbreaking Slavery and Justice Report to investigate and publicly acknowledge the university’s historical ties to slavery. This three-year study and its associated programming revealed deep connections between the university’s development and the transatlantic slave trade, documenting how the Brown family and other benefactors accumulated their wealth through slavery-related enterprises (Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, 2006). This initiative, housed in the campus’s Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, made Brown one of the first major American universities to comprehensively examine and publicly acknowledge its historical involvement with slavery and its troublesome relationship with Rhode Island’s Afrodiasporic communities. The inaugural report’s publication in 2006 led to several concrete actions, including the establishment of a memorial on campus, the creation of various academic initiatives focused on studying slavery’s legacy, and a second edition, published in 2021. The university also strengthened its commitment to diversity and inclusion in its admissions and hiring practices as a direct response to these historical findings.

The establishment of Brown’s Africana Studies department, which emerged from this historical context, represents a significant milestone in the university’s journey toward addressing its past. The department’s origins can be traced back to 1968, when African American students staged a walkout to demand greater representation and academic recognition of Black experiences and perspectives (1968 Walkout, n.d.). Their activism led to the creation of the Afro-American Studies Program, which later evolved into the Department of Africana Studies. This department has since become a leading learning site for the study of African and African diasporic peoples, cultures, and histories. Over the decades, it has attracted renowned scholars and produced

interdisciplinary research in areas ranging from slavery studies to contemporary work on AfricanAmerican and Caribbean culture. The department’s scholarship has been particularly instrumental in helping the university community understand and address the lasting impacts of historical injustices.

Case Study: The Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre at Brown University and the RPM Method

As a doctoral student in the Department of Africana Studies at Brown, I served as an early archivist for the development of the Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives in 2021–22, an ongoing, unfinished project to be housed in the John Hay Library. Rites and Reason Theatre, founded at Brown in 1970, is a pioneering institution in Black theater and academic research.

Under the visionary leadership of George Houston Bass, Rhett S. Jones, and subsequent directors, the theater established itself as one of the only Black theaters in an Ivy League institution, and now one of the oldest continuously operating ones. Its founding coincided with the 1969 creation of Black Studies at Brown University and with the Black arts movement, and it produced works by Black artists and directors such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Gayl Jones, Adrienne Kennedy, and Elmo Terry-Morgan. Rites and Reason is particularly special for its dual function as a professional theater company and an academic laboratory, as it maintains strong ties with Providence’s Black community while advancing scholarly research. Rites and Reason’s initial innovative practices exemplify a much-needed course of action for contemporary Black Studies programs struggling to maintain their community-oriented origins. Its unique research-to-performance method (RPM) distinctly bridges rigorous academic study with community building and artistic expression.

According to archival records of the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University, the RPM is

a rational and systematic process that organizes teams of artists, scholars and researchers in the scholarly and creative development of new plays. RPM teams engage the Southeastern New England community through all stages of the play development process from concept, to readings, to workshops, and finally to main stage productions.

The Rites and Reason RPM method encourages the development of innovative theatrical forms rooted in cultural traditions and expressions. Within the African cultural model, art is a creative manifestation of culture. As such Rites and Reason trains writers, directors, scholars, and actors in the process of identifying specific cultural traditions, rituals, and lore – and translating them into theatrical forms. (Notes for The RPM Presentation, 2004)

In action, the RPM model took the shape of several in-house projects and productions along with broader campus involvement with the Black Chorus of Brown University, Black Spectrum Jazz Ensemble, African Dancers and Drummers, the Langston Hughes Review, and the Creative Writing Program. Perhaps most impressively, RPM was designed to reach and positively affect non-institutionally affiliated members of the Providence community.

RPM in Practice: The Providence Garden Blues

While in the archives, I uncovered the missing second act of the currently unreleased Providence Garden Blues, an experimental, Afrosurrealist play written by George Houston Bass as part of a study of gentrification and the Black experience in early twentieth-century Providence. The play was described by Bass as a “surrealistic interpretation of the historical continuum of racism” (McCuigan, n.d.). In 1974, Rhett Jones, then chairman of the Afro-American Studies Program (now Africana Studies), trained a group of Brown University students in interviewing techniques and directed their research into the experience of Black Rhode Islanders during 1920s–1940s. Through conversations with older residents both White and Black, Jones and his students

documented a series of oral histories and created a narrative of historical generalizations from the mass of personal recollections (Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities, 1975). More than fifty hours of interviews were conducted with more than eighty Black and White senior citizens of Providence by fifteen students at Brown, who used the opportunity as a group independent study project (Brown University News Bureau, 1975). Following the completion of the independent study, George Bass produced The Providence Garden Blues as an “internalization and shaping” of the oral history research rather than an adaptation of it (Brown University News Bureau, 1975, 1). Bass asserted that the play was an “aesthetic interpretation of the issues and ideas which were revealed during the study.” The concept was “spectacle as creative reference” (Brown University News Bureau, 1975, p. 2). The production was sponsored in part by the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities, the cast was filled through open auditions, and showings were offered to the community free of charge. The play was considered highly successful, with an attendance of 1300+ people over the course of six performances in 1975 (Senack, 1975).

Community Forums

In addition to the RPM example of The Providence Garden Blues, faculty members of Black Studies at Brown were also members and hosts of public conversations such as the Providence City Spirit Forum and Rites and Reason Forums. The Spirit Forum was a 1970s project of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, the Mayor’s Office, the Providence School Department, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The objective was to “investigate and broaden the role of the arts in the Providence” (Isham, 1976). This experiment provided six hundred Providence fourth-graders and twenty classroom teachers with opportunities to interact with sixteen artists in dance, music, graphic design, photography, video, poetry, urban planning, and architecture to become more aware of the city of Providence, with a broader question of “How can the arts become a tool for urban revitalization?” (Isham, 1976).

As early as 1987, the Department of Afro-American Studies and Rites and Reason presented forums of their own, including their popular Folkthought series: public post-play discussions with cast members and production teams held after every Sunday matinee. Throughout the 1990s, the department also held community forums on important issues such as “Racial Violence: An American Anxiety,” “The Handicap of Hate,” and “Black Male/Female Relationships in the Workplace.” One consistent theme in the Folkthought and community forum sessions was the tension between individualism and collectivism in the Black experience as well as the larger American experience (Bass & Jones, n.d.). In a report on the methodological processes at Rites and Reason and the Afro-American Studies Program, Bass and Jones asserted that the scholars in the department “share a concern with scholars who have worked in the method because they feel a sense of responsibility beyond themselves” (Bass & Jones, n.d.)

This shared sense of responsibility echoed throughout Providence in large-scale collective formats revealed in their work in prisons and churches, and in proposals and programs from past endeavors.

Figure 1. Flowchart of the university-community structure of the Afro-American Studies Program and the Rites and Reason Theatre in the archival notes of George Houston Bass. (n.d.) Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives, A2023.046, John Hay Library, Brown University.

Afro Arts & the University–Community Cultural Arts Project

In February 1973, the Afro Arts Center at 60 Portland Street, South Providence was damaged by firebombing (Bass, 1973). George Bass, Erroll Hunt, Rhett Jones, and other members of the Afro-American Studies Program at Brown were key constituents in the realization of a University–Community Cultural Arts Project that intended to use the facility to implement its programming. Despite the loss of a venue, the organizers continued to propose a project in which students, faculty, and staff of Brown University would “work with persons of the Providence community and other local colleges and universities to create and produce cultural arts experiences

of particular interest to people in the Black community,” with a principal objective of celebrating and uplifting the Black community and providing “an environment in which Black people may realize their own potential as creators” (Jones et al., 1973, 1). The space was proposed to support several special projects, including a Black film series, music and performance festivals, community youth troupes, visiting exhibitions, a folklore collection and library, writing workshops, and studio classes in the fine arts, photography, film, and video tape production. The Afro Arts Center was meant to provide communal resources for members of the Providence community and recommended Brown University as its main fiscal agent: “The university is the intellectual leader of the community,” the organizers wrote, “and as such has a responsibility to involve itself with the problems of the people. In doing so, the university does not only become a major resource center for the community but also creates a model for its students that will encourage them to assume responsible leadership roles as intelligent and concerned citizens of a community” (Jones et al., 1973, 1).

Providence Festival I

While the University–Community Cultural Arts Project remained unrealized, Providence Festival I: Jamm in the Key Z emerged as a significant cultural intervention in Rhode Island’s artistic landscape. This nine-part summer festival, predating the contemporary PVDFEST, manifested as a collaborative endeavor among Black performing ensembles using diverse community resources to celebrate street theatre and Black musical traditions. Taking place from July 24 to August 1, 1976, under the leadership of George Bass (producing director), Dr. Rhett Jones (chief research consultant), and Ricardo Pitts-Wiley (associate director) the latter cofounders of both the Performing Arts Theatre of Rhode Island and Mixed Magic Theatre, currently operational in Pawtucket the festival represented a significant confluence of academic and community-based artistic practice. The initiative garnered substantial support from Brown

University’s Afro-American Studies faculty and prominent Black community organizations, including Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and the Urban League of Rhode Island. The festival’s theoretical framework encompassed critical themes in Black cultural studies: “Africa in the Old World,” “The Uses of Myth and Legend in Theatre and Performance,” “Developing America and the Afro-American Influence,” and “The Black Music Continuum,” demonstrating its engagement with community histories, academic research, and contemporary cultural production. Providence Festival I was engaged in the presentation of a “new myth” for African-Americans; it was to serve as the “beginning of a Mythic Cycle that ends, not in the destruction of the world as so many myths do but, instead, with a creation, a reunion, and the promise of a better future” (Providence Festival I program, 1976).

Figure 2. Providence Festival I: Jamm in the Key Z program book. (1976). Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives, A2023.046, John Hay Library, Brown

University.

Black Studies & Community Engagement Today: A Call to Action

The decline in engagement between Brown University’s Department of Africana Studies and Providence’s Black community since the 1990s marks a significant departure from the department’s founding principles. Where early faculty maintained a strong community presence through initiatives like Rites and Reason Theatre and local partnerships, contemporary involvement has diminished considerably. This shift reflects broader academic trends in which scholarly production takes precedence over community engagement, resulting in fewer sustained relationships between faculty, students, and residents. This deterioration has fostered community distrust of Brown’s faculty and students, with residents expressing concern about being treated as research subjects rather than partners in knowledge production. The growing isolation of Black academics from broader Black communities also creates a troubling disconnect that undermines both scholarship and community wellbeing. This distance deprives scholars of vital perspectives while restricting the flow of academic resources to communities that could benefit from them.

In his comprehensive early analysis of the field, Black Studies: Threat or Challenge, Nick Ford examined 200 Black Studies programs and found that the “vast majority” highlighted “the need to promote sympathetic interest and dedicated involvement in the improvement of the Black community (local, national, and worldwide) [over] any other single concern” (Ford, 1973, 57).

Despite the popular community service mission of Black Studies departments at large, however, contemporary research by Charles E. Jones and Nafeesa Muhammed revealed that of all the Ph.D. programs offered in Black Studies, only one, the African American and African Studies (AAAS) program at Michigan State University, included a community outreach component among its formal degree requirements (Jones & Muhammed, 2010, p. 62). Doctoral students in Michigan

State’s AAAS program have completed internships at various sites, including the Malcolm X Academy of the Detroit Public Schools, the “Sister to Sister” mentoring program at Otto Middle School in Lansing, Michigan, local schools in Jamaica, and the Presbyterian secondary school Osu in Accra, Ghana (Jones & Muhammed, 2010, p. 62).

Although not formal degree requirements, many Black Studies Ph.D. programs do sponsor community service initiatives and events. UC Berkeley’s African American Studies Department demonstrates this commitment through initiatives like “Poetry for the People,” which was launched in 1991 by the late June Jordan and continues as a fully accredited academic program focusing on the reading, writing, and teaching of poetry, while bridging the gap between the university and the larger community through work with youths, schools, and community organizations in the Bay Area (UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library Staff, 2020). The department’s Black Studies Collaboratory, launched in 2021, has further expanded these efforts by creating partnerships throughout the Bay Area and beyond, working with organizations like Cal Performances, Oakstop, Critical Resistance in Oakland, and the Ella Baker Center in Fruitvale, and extending as far as New York through collaborations with The Kitchen and The Park Avenue Armory (Phillips, 2022).

Other institutions have developed similar initiatives. Northwestern University’s Department of African American Studies offers an internship in African-American Studies for practical experience in community organizations, while Clark Atlanta University’s Ph.D. program requires students to complete a community-focused internship by their third year. Ohio State University’s Department of African American and African Studies operates the Community Extension Center in Mount Vernon, the predominantly Black neighborhood in Columbus, offering various educational programs there including computer literacy courses for seniors, youth math and science programs, and an upcoming Black Studies certificate. Similarly, Temple University’s Department of Africology and African American Studies hosts the Pan-African Studies Community Education

Program (PASCEP), a low-cost, noncredit adult education initiative founded in 1975 that provides community self-help courses ranging from American Sign Language to grant writing and estate planning.

The revitalization of community engagement within Black Studies requires reconceptualizing academic practice and institutional priorities. Scholars must actively resist the privatization of knowledge production and rebuild substantive, reciprocal relationships with Black communities. This transformation demands concrete mechanisms, including restructuring of graduate enrollment and tenure criteria to value community-engaged scholarship, establishing of sustainable community partnerships, development of pedagogical approaches that integrate local knowledge and needs, and securing of institutional commitment and funding for community engagement. By renewing our commitment to Black Studies’ original mission of combining rigorous scholarship with meaningful community engagement, the field can better fulfill its promise as both an academic discipline and a vehicle for social transformation. This reorientation is essential for both the intellectual vitality of Black Studies and its continued relevance in addressing contemporary challenges facing Black communities globally.

References

Bass, G. (1973, February 27). Letter to Mr. Wolk regarding university/community cultural arts project. Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives. A2023.046. John Hay Library, Brown University.

Bass, G. H., & Jones, R. S. (n.d.). Rites and Reason: A theatre that lets the people speak. Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives. A2023.046. John Hay Library, Brown University.

Biondi, M. (2012). The Black revolution on campus. University of California Press.

Brown University News Bureau. (1975, February). Press release to Roger Vaughan: The Providence Garden Blues. Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives. A2023.046. John Hay Library. Brown University.

Ford, N. A. (1973). Black Studies: Threat or challenge. Kennikat Press.

Flowchart of the university-community structure of the Afro-American Studies Program and the Rites and Reason Theatre in the archival notes of George Houston Bass. (n.d.). Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives. A2023.046. John Hay Library. Brown University.

Isham, J. (1976, August 2). Letter to George Bass. Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives. A2023.046. John Hay Library. Brown University.

Jones, C. E., and Muhammad, N. (2010). Town and gown: Reaffirming social responsibility in Africana studies. In J. R. Davidson (Ed.). African American Studies (pp. 55–75). Edinburgh University Press.

Jones, R., Hunt, E., & Bass, G. H. (1973, March 1). Proposal for university/community cultural arts project to be sponsored by Afro-American studies program Brown University. Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives. A2023.046. John Hay Library, Brown University.

McGuigan, C. (n.d.). Untitled news clipping on the Providence Garden Blues. Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives, A2023.046, John Hay Library, Brown University.

Notes for the RPM presentation. (2004, December 10). Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives (A2023.046). John Hay Library, Brown University.

Providence Festival I: Jamm in the Key Z program book. (1976). Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives, A2023.046, John Hay Library, Brown University.

Phillips, M. (2022, November 10). How the Black Studies collaboratory is reimagining Black studies through community engagement. Berkeley Letters & Science.

https://ls.berkeley.edu/news/how-black-studies-collaboratory-reimagining-black-studiesthrough-community-engagement

Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities. (1975, March). Experiment in public dialogue: Providence Garden Blues opens. Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives, A2023.046, John Hay Library, Brown University.

San Francisco State University. (n.d.). Center for history. https://equity.sfsu.edu/center-history.

Senack, M. (1975, April 10). Letter to Ruth Winograd. Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre Archives, A2023.046, John Hay Library, Brown University.

Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. (2006). Slavery and justice: Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. Brown University.

Thelwell, M. (1969). Massachusetts Review of Black Studies, 1.

UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library Staff. (2020). Finding aid for the poetry for the people program records, 1989–2014. Collection No. CES ARC 2018/1. UC Berkeley, Ethnic Studies Library.

1968 Walkout. (n.d.). Protest & Perspectives: Students at Brown 1960s-90s. Brown University Library. https://library.brown.edu/create/protest6090/1968-walkout/

Advancing Community Engaged Youth Activism, Transformative African-Centered Learning, and Black/Africana

Studies Research

Melissa Speight Vaughn, Ph.D., African Research Collaborative, Washington, DC

by &

Joyce Elaine King, Ph.D., Department of Educational Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta

This report highlights the Guardians of Heritage International Youth United Civic Leadership Collaborative (GoH), a community-based engaged research program that delivered critical cultural preservation services and culturally informed education to promote youth agency and community activism in two phases. Phase 1 focused on facilitating youth’s civic agency and leadership. Research during Phase 2 aimed to evaluate the benefits and outcomes of the GoH experience, utilizing youth participatory action research and Afrocentric research methods. This innovative, forward-thinking program engaged youth in collective study and analysis of current and future needs of Black communities globally and promoted civic responsibility for fostering social change.

The systemic challenges facing Africana communities necessitate innovative, culturally grounded approaches to youth civic engagement and leadership development. GoH, operating since June 2022, fosters youth agency, leadership, and cultural consciousness. Using African-

centered pedagogies, such as Dr. Joyce King’s From the Nile to the Niger to the Neighborhood (N3) framework (Vaughn et al., 2023) and the pedagogical aims of Black/Africana Studies, the GoH Collaborative integrates intergenerational knowledge-sharing, social problem-solving, and culturally informed digital creativity. This report evaluates GoH Phase 1 pedagogical outcomes and Phase 2 research findings.

Theoretical Guides

Black/Africana Studies scholarship and pedagogical aims rooted in community history and heritage, including resistance traditions such as maroonage across the Diaspora, guided the work of the GoH Collaborative (King, 2017; King & Maiga, 2018; Nobles, 2008; Nobles & Frederico, 2020; Speight Vaughn, 2020). Following the emergence of Dr. Joyce King’s N3 pedagogical framework, From the Nile to the Niger to the Neighborhood, for example, and drawing on Africancentered values reflected in Ma’at, the Nguzo Saba, and African language concepts, the GoH Collaborative supported youth in documenting, recording, and sharing community history inquiries through public digital education resources the youth produced. These transformative leadership experiences included the creation of social problem-solving mobile apps, the Talking Drum podcast, presentations in the interactive online Impact Festival, and other virtual conference presentations.

Phase 2 Methods

Phase 2, the research study, investigated cewandiyano nafaa (benefits of learning), a Songhoy language education concept. Before this study began, preparation for youth participatory action research and evaluation (YPAR-E) experiences included youth’s successful completion of an age-appropriate youth human subjects research training module (HeKA Heritage Knowledge in Action) informed by the Black/Africana Studies tradition of social science research (Pellerin, 2007) and research methods in Africana Studies (McDougal, 2017).

The study employed six research procedures: 1) methods of YPAR-E, 2) youth’s selfassessment of their own learning, 3) auto-Afronography (an African-centered research method), 4) visual methods, 5) participant observation, and 6) document analysis. Phase 2 built on GoH Phase 1 cultural immersion education activities as a foundation for identifying any benefits and outcomes of the Guardians of Heritage experience as manifestations of African-centered youth civic agency and leadership. The scholarship on student self-assessment of their own learning suggests that this practice aligns with both the ethos of agency in youth participatory action research and evaluation and the use of Black Studies as a deciphering praxis (e.g., mode of critical analysis). Student selfassessment occurs when learners evaluate their own performance, repositioning them as active agents in their learning (Boud & Falchidov, 2006; Kowalik, 2019). Narrative analysis was used to analyze meeting transcripts, educational materials, and participant reflections, which provides a comprehensive understanding of program outcomes.

Findings

The findings of the GoH program reveal a compelling narrative of critical agency, heritage knowledge learning and cultural preservation, and program evaluation driven by Black/Africana

Studies scholarship and African-centered pedagogies. By employing African-centered methodologies and pedagogical frameworks, the GoH collaborative created a cohesive story of collective agency and transformative learning. The narrative analysis below explores the interconnected themes and outcomes of the program.

Theme 1: Transformative African-Centered Learning and Heritage Knowledge

Phase 2 research findings emphasize the role of youth as active agents in their own learning and community transformation. For example, youth chose to name the program “Guardians of Heritage” and defined some of their desired outcomes at the outset. Youth actively selected their oral history projects and made critical decisions about interview questions and data analysis. For

example, one Guardian youth investigator who interviewed a Jegna (elder) in the program, concluded: “The benefits of the program were providing space for young people to express and facilitate their ideas regarding social justice, and encouraging critical, intergenerational discourse.”

African-centered learning engaged the youth in community-based heritage knowledge inquiries and research modules, which empowered youth to critically engage with community issues and devise creative, culturally appropriate innovations. Two Guardians identified community violence as a challenge in Black communities. Their interviews with family members about police violence uncovered previously untold family stories. These two Guardians collaboratively made critical decisions to organize a community webinar titled “Victory Over Violence.” In a reflective conversation, they both commented on the synchronicity of GoH activities in building knowledge and confidence, which made the webinar a tool for raising community awareness, empowering them to tackle systemic challenges through critical thinking and action-oriented research. This transformation reinforces the notion that education rooted in cultural values fosters agency and a sense of ownership in civic engagement processes.

Theme 2: Youth Agency and Culturally Informed Collective Problem-Solving

A dominant narrative emerging from the findings centers on the critical importance of cultural preservation in shaping identity and fostering cultural pride among youth. The digital artifacts podcasts, mobile apps, and other creative outputs serve as modern manifestations of ancient traditions of storytelling, intergenerational learning, and knowledge-sharing.

Projects such as the Talking Drum podcast reflect how youth harnessed technology culturally to document and share community histories within this program. This work not only preserved cultural narratives but also positioned youth as stewards of heritage, bridging generational gaps and countering the erasure of African histories of excellence. The process of engaging with heritage knowledge and experiencing historical consciousness transformed the

Guardians’ understanding of their identities, grounding them in the collective legacy of their communities.

Self-assessments revealed youth agency in communal thinking and effective collective problem-solving. Guardians used the GoH Academic and Cultural Excellence Performance Rubric as a tool to critically assess a product of their own learning. In Phase 2, the Rubric operationalized the African-centered ethically and culturally responsible criteria or standards that guided the Phase 1 GoH experiential curriculum. Communal thinking was evident in youth research activities and decision-making. To complete self-assessments, youth selected one of their products (from Phase 1) to assess their own learning. Guardians who built mobile apps for community well-being assessed their learning and evaluated the value of their project to the community. Ma’atian values of reciprocity, harmony, and truth were evident in the Guardians’ creative production. As one Guardian reflected:

The artifact that I selected for my self-assessment was my app, “Victory Over Violence ” It primarily addressed the issue of police brutality. I selected this artifact because I feel that police brutality is one of the biggest problems, so for me to create an app helping to solve it, will have a huge impact on our community.

Ma’atian character-building was evident in this Guardian’s reflection: It was difficult at times, but I got through it, and I am proud of what came out of it. It is definitely something that is needed, a long-standing problem, and so I felt an obligation to solve it. By adding the principles of Ma’at and Kwanzaa, it set the foundation for everything on the app. I also love how the information was not only from one source. I got it from many people, websites, videos, etc. I was even able to embed one of the top Black attorney databases into my app, to help anyone in need who needed to find one for their situation. While creating it, I tried to cover as many bases as I could.

Theme 3: Collective Social Problem-Solving

Through place-based social problem-solving activities, Guardians analyzed transcripts of oral history interviews with elders, parents, and peers to develop actionable solutions to challenges such as food insecurity and intergenerational trauma. The research findings in Phase 2 indicate that this collective social problem-solving approach fostered a sense of shared responsibility and solidarity. For example, participant observation data highlighted the important role of intergenerational dialogue in creating sustainable solutions rooted in local and global contexts of Black history “from the Nile to the Niger to the Neighborhood.” By situating research within the lived experiences of communities (e.g., in the U.S. and Brazil), the GoH Collaborative redefined problem-solving as a communal and culturally informed process.

Conclusion and Future Directions

Programs like GoH highlight the power of activating Black/Africana Studies scholarship and pedagogy for youth agency and community engagement. By equipping youth with critical research skills and a strong sense of Pan-African cultural identity, GoH prepared them to become transformative leaders and guardians of our heritage. This innovation aligns with the broader goals of Black/Africana Studies to advocate for systemic change and social justice.

The GoH program exemplifies the transformative potential of Black/Africana Studiesinformed pedagogies, methodologies, and youth-centric research. By fostering leadership through community-engaged cultural preservation and systemic change, it addresses the current and future needs of Black communities. The program’s emphasis on youth agency and intergenerational collaboration positions it as an innovative model for delivering critical services that advance community-engaged youth activism, transformative African-centered learning, and Black/Africana Studies research for equity and justice across the African world.

References

Boud, D. & N. Falchikov (2006). Aligning assessment with long‐term learning, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(4), 399–413.

King, J. E. (2017). Education research in the Black liberation tradition: Return what you learn to the people. Journal of Negro Education, 86(2), 95–114.

King, J. E., & Maïga, H. O. (2018). Teaching African language for historical consciousness: Recovering group memory and identity. In J. King & E. Swartz (Eds.) Heritage knowledge in the curriculum: Retrieving an African episteme (pp. 56–78). Routledge.

Kowalik, A. (2019). Student self-assessment: Reframing assessment as learning. Center for Teaching Excellence. https://cte.rice.edu/blog/2019/student-self-assessment

McDougal, S. (2017). Research methods in Africana Studies. Peter Lang.

Nobles, W. W. (2008). Per Aa Asa Hilliard: The great house of Black light for educational excellence. Review of Educational Research, 78(3), 727–47.

Nobles, V. L., & Federico, R. M. (2020). African tongues in our mouths: Their role in Africancentred psychology. Alternation, 27(1).

Pellerin, M. (2012). Benefits of Afrocentricity in exploring social phenomena: Understanding Afrocentricity as a social science research methodology. Journal of Pan-African Studies, 5(4), 149–60.

Speight Vaughn, M. (2020). Black epistemologies and blues methodology: Engaging liminal ontological space in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 26(8–9), 1090–1101.

Vaughn, M. S., King, J. E., Cardoso, I. A. (2023). Collaborer avec des jeunes et des familles noires aus Etats Unies et au Brésil: Patrimoine Africana et partenariat Communautaire pour la justice éducative. (in French, English, and Spanish). Revue Internationale de l’Éducation

Familiale, 51, 1-29. https://www.cairn.info/revue-la-revue-internationale-de-l-education-familiale.htm

Black to the Community: The Urgency of Community-Centered Black Studies

by

Bobby E. Davis Jr. Ph.D. Candidate

African American and African Diaspora Studies

Indiana University-Bloomington

Black Studies has always been deeply rooted in the Black community, serving as both a reflection of its struggles and a pathway toward empowerment. From its inception, the discipline has operated as a communal endeavor that transcends traditional academic boundaries. Its creation addressed the immediate need to validate Black identities and center African-descended people in their own narratives, but Black Studies also established a foundation for broader social justice work. This dual mission to analyze and address systemic inequities while equipping Black communities with the tools for empowerment has always extended beyond the academy.

In contemporary contexts, however, systemic barriers to Black Studies have intensified. Political efforts such as the rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and policies that restrict the teaching of Black history in K–12 schools, reflect the ongoing cycle of racial progress and regression. These actions mirror historical efforts to stifle Black empowerment. The cyclical nature of these struggles underscores the importance of supporting the existing structures and creating spaces outside of academia to sustain Black Studies and its mission, translating its principles into practical strategies for liberation.

The Cyclical Struggle Toward Liberation

W. E. B. Du Bois encapsulated the cyclical nature of racial struggles in America when he posed the question, “What are we to do about this Negro problem?” (Du Bois, 1903). For Du Bois, this rhetorical question revealed the systemic racism and societal barriers that shaped the postReconstruction United States. Initially, however, the question reflected the dominant perspective of White Americans in the aftermath of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, the Thirteenth Amendment of 1865, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. White Americans framed the “Negro problem” as a dilemma: how to prevent Black people from integrating into a society that was deliberately constructed to exclude them.

This exclusionary mindset culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1883 decision to invalidate the Civil Rights Act of 1875 through civil rights cases. The court ruled that Congress lacked the authority under the Fourteenth Amendment to regulate private acts of discrimination, effectively dismantling the act’s protections. This decision represented a significant retreat from the federal government’s civil rights commitments during Reconstruction, laying the groundwork for the institutionalization of Jim Crow laws. These laws formalized racial segregation and systemic discrimination across the South, disenfranchising and oppressing Black people for generations.

While White Americans used the question “What are we to do about this Negro problem?” to frame Black people as a social issue to be controlled, Du Bois subverted the question to expose the oppressive systems of White supremacism that perpetuated inequality. By shifting the focus from Black people as the “problem” to the structural forces maintaining racial hierarchies, Du Bois illuminated the need for resistance against these cycles of progress and regression.

Derrick Bell’s theory of racial realism (1992) supports Du Bois’s critique by further illustrating the cyclical nature of racial struggles in America. Bell observed, “Legal rights are

gained, then lost, then gained again in response to economic and political developments over which Blacks exercise little or no control” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2005). This insight underscores how racial progress is often temporary, as periods of advancement are frequently followed by reactionary efforts to restore systemic inequities. Du Bois and Bell both confronted a sobering reality: the fight for liberation is not linear but cyclical, requiring persistent resistance to a system of oppression that evolves to maintain its dominance.

Audre Lorde reinforced this idea with her critique of systemic tools. She famously stated, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. These tools may help us win temporary victories, but they will never allow us to bring about genuine change” (Lorde, 1984).

Lorde’s assertion highlights the limitations of working within systems of oppression to achieve true liberation, emphasizing the need to develop alternative approaches.

This cyclical struggle continues today, particularly as contemporary policies and political rhetoric seek to erase Black history from K–12 curriculums and restrict the teaching of Black Studies at both the secondary and college levels. These efforts mirror the historical backlash Du Bois critiqued, with policies aimed at excluding diverse narratives and suppressing the discussion systemic inequality. The 2024 president-elect’s initiatives represent a direct challenge to frameworks that foster inclusion and critical dialogue, contributing to an environment of ideological dominance. This raises a pressing question for the current era: What are we to do about this White supremacist problem?

In the face of these recurring cycles of progress and regression, we should question whether the struggle for liberation is worth continuing. Bell addresses this dilemma through his story of Mrs. McDonald, a woman who resisted oppression not out of a belief that she would win but as an act of triumph in itself. Bell writes that her “courage and determination” served as weapons of selfexpression, transcending the oppressor’s tools and systems (Delgado & Stefancic, 2005). In this

framework, liberation is not solely about achieving success within the oppressor’s structures but about the refusal to accept subjugation regardless of the likelihood of victory. The act of resisting, Bell suggests, is itself a form of liberation.

These perspectives collectively emphasize the need for alternative spaces where Black people can reclaim their histories, affirm their identities, and mobilize for systemic change. While traditional institutions increasingly suppress critical discussions of race and inequality, communitybased organizations and grassroots efforts can provide the necessary platforms to bridge academic theory with activism. These spaces are vital for fostering collective empowerment and ensuring that the fight for justice and equity continues even in the face of systemic opposition. Communitybased institutions provide these spaces, bridging the gap between academic theory and grassroots activism.

Community-Based Black Studies in Action

Support for Black Studies outside of academic institutions is increasingly essential in today’s sociopolitical climate, where education on Black history and systemic issues faces mounting challenges from restrictive policies. These policies often undermine the ability of traditional academic spaces to educate and mobilize Black communities effectively. To resist these systems of oppression, it is imperative to explore strategies that operate outside the constraints of institutional frameworks. Many institutions across the United States already embody the principles of Black Studies, functioning as community-based frameworks for education and empowerment. The following examples represent just a fraction of the movement, but they underscore the importance of looking beyond traditional academic spaces to sustain and expand the mission of Black Studies as a tool for collective liberation.

The Highlander Research and Education Center

The Highlander Research and Education Center is a historic hub for grassroots organizing,

bridging the Civil Rights Movement’s legacy with contemporary struggles for justice. Through workshops and leadership training, Highlander equips activists with the tools to address systemic inequities at their roots. Unlike academic programs, which often prioritize theory over action, Highlander’s praxis-oriented approach ensures that education directly informs social change. For example, its emphasis on collective action and coalition-building reflects Black Studies’ foundational principle of communal empowerment. Highlander’s ability to connect historical struggles with contemporary challenges makes it a vital resource for dismantling systemic oppression.

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

In contrast to Highlander’s activist focus, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture plays a pivotal role in preserving and disseminating Black history, serving as a critical resource for communities seeking to reclaim their identities and understand their heritage. As part of the New York Public Library system, the Schomburg Center ensures broad access to its extensive archives and educational programs, making vital historical and cultural knowledge available to a diverse community. By bridging the gap between past struggles and contemporary challenges, the center equips individuals with the knowledge necessary for empowerment and transformation.

This mission aligns with Carter G. Woodson’s assertion that “Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history” (Woodson, 1933). Woodson’s sentiment captures the transformative potential of institutions like the Schomburg Center, which preserves the achievements and experiences of African-descended peoples to inspire pride and resilience. Molefi Kete Asante reinforced this idea, stating, “If you do not understand yourself in the context of your history, you cannot mobilize yourself to change your reality” (Asante, 2006). Asante’s perspective underscores

the importance of the Schomburg Center’s role in equipping communities with the historical and cultural tools necessary to confront systemic inequities.

While the Schomburg Center prioritizes intellectual preservation, it complements activistfocused institutions like the Highlander Research and Education Center, demonstrating how the preservation of history and active engagement with systemic change collectively empower Black communities. In recent years, the center has been guided by Black Studies scholars Joy Bivins and her predecessor, poet Kevin Young, whose leadership has amplified its mission by intertwining academic rigor with artistic and cultural expression. This dynamic leadership has expanded the Schomburg Center’s reach, ensuring it remains a vital force for education and advocacy while continuing to answer the question, what does it mean for Black Studies to create knowledge that is both accessible and transformative for the communities it serves?

Children Defense Funds (CDF) Freedom Schools

Freedom schools, an initiative of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), bring Black Studies principles directly to younger generations, addressing the educational inequities that disproportionately impact Black children. By focusing on literacy, leadership development, and civic engagement, freedom schools work to disrupt cycles of oppression while empowering youths to advocate for systemic change. Unlike institutions such as the Schomburg Center or the Highlander Research and Education Center, which primarily target adults and community leaders, freedom schools engage younger populations, emphasizing the value of intergenerational education. This strategy ensures that the fight for liberation continues sustainably across generations. By addressing educational disparities through intentional investments and culturally affirming curriculums, freedom schools reflect Black Studies’ commitment to both immediate action and long-term transformation. Their mission directly supports the call for aligning educational actions with community-driven equity goals, illustrating the critical role of such

programs in building a more just and inclusive society.

The Kheprw Institute

The Kheprw Institute (KI) embodies a transformative approach to Black liberation, centering on economic self-determination and community-driven solutions. According to its mission, KI aims to create a “more just, equitable, human-centered world” by empowering youths and young adults to become leaders, critical thinkers, and agents of change (Kheprw Institute, n.d.). Rooted in the belief that people are the most valuable assets in any community, KI fosters programs that address systemic inequities and cultivate talents often undervalued in marginalized populations. Since its inception, KI has evolved from a single after-school program serving five Black male students to an organization reaching more than 200 individuals through initiatives like urban agriculture, eSTEAM (entrepreneurship, science, technology, engineering, art, and math), and social enterprises (Kheprw Institute, n.d.). Programs like the Community Controlled Food Initiative (CCFI) and critical dialogue forums bring together diverse groups to address local challenges, encouraging open discussions that build relationships and community engagement. KI also takes a firm stance against structural and physical violence, actively advocating for systemic change through community empowerment. In response to state violence and inequities in Indianapolis, the organization has publicly addressed cases of police brutality and racial injustice while calling for honest, solution-driven conversations about equity and systemic transformation. KI’s work fosters individual and collective growth, empowering communities to develop grassroots solutions for lasting change. By addressing real-world challenges while empowering individuals to thrive, its programs emphasize practical engagement with issues like environmental justice and economic inequality. Unlike freedom schools, which center on youths, or Schomburg, which focuses on cultural preservation, KI engages entire communities in the process of transformation, making it a model for grassroots empowerment.

Urban League and Black Organizing Project

The Urban League and Black Organizing Project (BOP) illustrate the diversity of strategies in community-based Black Studies. The Urban League operates on a national scale, offering programs that promote workforce development and economic mobility for Black families. By contrast, BOP focuses on local activism, such as its successful campaign to remove police from Oakland schools. These differing approaches highlight the adaptability of Black Studies principles, demonstrating that liberation can be pursued through both systemic interventions and grassroots efforts.

Expanding the Reach of Black Studies

Community-based institutions like those discussed above provide critical spaces for mobilizing Black communities. By preserving history, fostering leadership, and addressing systemic barriers, these programs translate the theoretical foundations of Black Studies into usable strategies for liberation. They also challenge the exclusionary nature of traditional education systems, ensuring that Black knowledge and narratives remain integral to the broader fight for justice.

As legislative efforts increasingly restrict the teaching of Black history in K–12 schools and higher education, the role of community-based institutions becomes more critical. Black Studies is inherently a community-centered discipline, rooted in the belief that education should serve and empower the people it represents. To carry out this mission, Black Studies must continue to support existing spaces and create new ones, ensuring its accessibility to those most affected by systemic inequities. Due to the current political climate, racial and economic barriers may further limit Black people’s access to higher education, making it essential for the discipline to expand beyond academic institutions. By doing so, Black Studies can remain accessible and relevant, addressing the pressing needs of Black communities and preserving its role as a vehicle for

empowerment and liberation.

Conclusion

Black Studies has always been a discipline rooted in resistance and empowerment, addressing systemic oppression while fostering pathways toward liberation. Its communitycentered approach emphasizes not only the preservation of Black history and culture but the practical development of strategies for systemic resistance. The discipline’s unique focus on liberation demands that it actively respond to evolving political and social challenges, especially those aimed at undermining progress and suppressing critical discussions of race and equity.

In light of recent escalating challenges, Black Studies must increase its support for existing efforts and reimagine or create new spaces to meet the demands of the Black community at this moment. Legislative restrictions targeting Black history and education underscore the urgent need for the discipline to return to its roots in the community. As Molefi Asante aptly stated, “We know who we are and what we are supposed to do to the degree to which we know our history” (Asante, 2006). This understanding of self rooted in history is not only empowering but is essential for collective mobilization against systemic injustice.

Black Studies must also continue to position itself as an active force in combatting violence, both structural and physical, against Black communities. This involves leveraging its critical frameworks to interrogate and dismantle systems of oppression while equipping communities with the tools to advocate for transformative change. The discipline must also champion strategies that include coalition building, intergenerational education, and grassroots organizing to foster resilience and solidarity in Black communities. Institutions like the Highlander Research and Education Center embody these principles by equipping activists with the tools to address systemic inequities through workshops and leadership training, ensuring that education translates into direct action. Similarly, the Kheprw Institute advances economic self-determination

through initiatives like the Community Controlled Food Initiative (CCFI) and eSTEAM programs while actively combating structural violence and systemic inequities through advocacy and community-driven solutions. Freedom schools extend this commitment to younger generations, integrating literacy, leadership development, and civic engagement to disrupt educational inequities and cultivate future advocates for justice. These organizations illustrate how Black Studies principles have been mobilized beyond the academy, continue to be instrumental in community engagement, and can be further expanded to cultivate new spaces and strategies for lasting, community-centered transformation.

If access to Black Studies within academia continues to erode, the discipline must find alternative ways to thrive. This means prioritizing accessibility, fostering connections between scholars and community leaders, and encouraging interdisciplinary collaborations that amplify its reach and impact. As Bell (2005) and Lorde (1984) suggested, the fight for liberation requires persistence, creativity, and a willingness to embrace alternative approaches. By strengthening its support for existing institutions and creating more accessible spaces for education, Black Studies can continue to serve as a vital resource for learning and empowerment. It must reaffirm its role as a powerful tool for systemic resistance, ensuring that Black communities have the knowledge, resources, and solidarity to confront both present and future challenges.

In conclusion, Black Studies is not merely an academic discipline but a living, dynamic force for justice and liberation. Its enduring relevance lies in its capacity to respond to the needs of Black communities, providing both a historical foundation and practical strategies for addressing violence and systemic inequities. By doubling down on its commitment to community engagement, Black Studies can continue to be a beacon of hope and empowerment in an era of uncertainty and struggle.

References

Asante, M. K. (2006). Afrocentricity: The theory of social change. African American Images. Bell, D. (1992). Racial realism. Connecticut Law Review, 24(2), 363–80.

Black Organizing Project. (n.d.). Our work. https://blackorganizingproject.org/ Children’s Defense Fund. (n.d.). Freedom schools program.

https://www.childrensdefense.org/programs/freedom-schools/

Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (Eds.). (2005). The Derrick Bell reader. New York University Press.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of Black folk. A. C. McClurg & Co.

Highlander Research and Education Center. (n.d.). Our mission and history.

https://highlandercenter.org/

Kheprw Institute. (n.d.). About us. https://kheprw.org/about-us/ Lorde, A. (1984). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. In Sister outsider: Essays and speeches (pp. 110–114). Crossing Press.

New York Public Library. (n.d.). Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

https://www.nypl.org/locations/schomburg

National Urban League. (n.d.). Project Ready. https://nul.org/

THE STATE OF BLACK/AFRICANA STUDIES

The State of Black Studies Programs in the United States: Institutional Pressures and Paths to Success

by

Katrinell M. Davis, Ph.D. Department of Sociology and African American Studies

Florida State University

Black Studies departments, also known as African American or Africana Studies programs, are essential to cultivating a comprehension of our country’s racial past and present. Emerging during the Civil Rights era, Black Studies programs fill critical gaps in higher education by exploring the experiences of the African diaspora (Aldridge & Young, 2000; Karenga, 2010). Operating as centers, programs, and departments, they address social inequities (Biondi, 2012), but they now face severe challenges, particularly in states like Florida, that threaten their survival. This essay examines Florida State University’s situation, highlighting Black Studies’ resilience and potential for growth. It argues that long-term success relies on institutional recognition and sustained support. By showcasing innovative strategies and collaboration, the discussion demonstrates how these programs can thrive as essential drivers of academic diversity and progress.

Institutional Obstacles

Various institutional issues make it difficult for Black Studies programs to thrive. These

range from performance measures that overlook minors to inadequate staffing and dwindling resources. Programs also encounter resistance stemming from opposition to diversity and inclusion initiatives. Overall, these obstacles limit Black Studies programs’ ability to engage and support students effectively, posing a risk to their longevity.

Performance Metrics

Success metrics are crucial to assessing academic programs, but when narrowly applied to justify retrenchment (Pierson, 1994), they often delegitimize Black Studies and put programs at risk of termination. Many universities measure success by focusing on graduates with primary and secondary majors, overlooking minors and cross-listed courses. This limited view undermines Black Studies programs by diminishing their perceived contributions and restricting resource allocation, ultimately limiting their growth and their ability to address critical issues like racial inequality and social justice.

To ensure long-term sustainability, many Black Studies programs have established interdisciplinary collaborations. For instance, UCLA partners with its Fielding School of Public Health to offer courses and research on racial health disparities, attracting students from pre-med, social sciences, and public policy (Davis, 2019). Similarly, the University of Michigan’s Department of Afroamerican and African Studies (DAAS) has expanded its visibility, course offerings, and enrollment through strategic investments in faculty hiring and partnerships with departments like law and public policy. These examples demonstrate how interdisciplinary collaboration enhances program relevance and institutional support.

Black Studies graduates often pursue careers in public service, education, and community engagement, fields that despite their broad societal impact are undervalued by traditional university metrics focused on high-income outcomes (Smith, 2023). This disconnect reveals a systemic flaw in higher education’s tendency to prioritize economic success over contributions to public welfare

and civic engagement.

To bridge this gap, institutions must redefine success metrics to include the broader societal value of Black Studies graduates. Some institutions are addressing this disconnect by aligning Black Studies programs with high-demand fields. Unit-level initiatives, such as programming that integrates practical skills with critical inquiry, help students navigate professional opportunities and structural challenges. For instance, training in policy analysis, health advocacy, and nonprofit management prepares students to lead purpose-driven lives while contributing meaningfully across sectors.

Programs like the IBM-HBCU Quantum Center and the UNCF Career Pathways Initiative illustrate this alignment. The IBM-HBCU Quantum Center supports STEM career development by funding student and faculty research, while the UNCF initiative improves career readiness by bridging educational experiences with labor market demands. By integrating interdisciplinary learning, practical skills, and institutional investment, Black Studies programs can sustain their impact, expand students’ opportunities, and secure their role as vital contributors to academic and social progress.

Staffing and Resources

Inadequate staffing exacerbates challenges for Black Studies programs by limiting their ability to meet institutional demands and ensure sustainability. Many programs operate with few tenure-track faculty members, relying on overburdened staff who must juggle teaching, advising, and administrative duties. This strain hinders course expansion and program development.

Meanwhile, dependence on joint appointments and adjunct instructors leads to inconsistent course availability and continuity. Without sufficient administrative support and staff to manage the unit’s affairs, faculty members must take on tasks like student advising and event planning, diverting attention from research and curriculum growth. As Bonilla-Silva (2019) highlighted, this

resource shortage creates a vicious cycle, further marginalizing these programs within academia.

Social and Cultural Influences

Compounding these internal challenges are external social and political pressures, where ideological battles influence the teaching and perception of Black Studies. Conservative political measures pose challenges for Black Studies programs by restricting what can be taught about systemic racism, White supremacism, and privilege (Florida Legislature, 2022; Texas Legislature, 2023). Regulatory measures have led to self-censorship by faculty, injuring the quality of coursework addressing social issues such as racism. This in turn discourages students’ engagement with racial theories and pursuit of the field due to existing controversies.

Various states across the U.S. have enacted policies that threaten Black Studies and the critical analyses of social issues (Harper & Simmons, 2022; Johnson & Williams, 2020). In 2021, Idaho’s governor signed a law restricting the teaching of critical race theory, barring educators from requiring students to “adhere to” ideas holding groups accountable for past actions. Conservative lawmakers argued that it prevented White students from being indoctrinated with guilt (Ridler, 2021). More than sixty similar bills have passed nationwide, limiting K–12 curriculums on gender identity, race, and LGBTQ topics (Natanson, 2023), reflecting broader efforts to control educational discourse.

Florida State University’s African American Studies Program

The challenges faced by Black Studies across the country are reflected in the history of Florida State University’s African American Studies (AFA) program. A curriculum in Black Studies was first introduced in 1969 (Florida Flambeau, 1969), and the program was formally established between 1977 and 1978. With a mission centered on promoting research and addressing systemic inequities, the AFA program faced significant obstacles to gaining full institutional integration and securing adequate resources (Davis, 2019).

The program’s creation was driven by national advocacy for Black Studies, which was catalyzed by the Civil Rights Movement and demands for inclusivity and representation in higher education. On FSU’s campus, this push was led by the Black Student Union, which called for courses that reflected the lived experiences and histories of Black students. Their persistent efforts led to the development of the program, making it an essential response to the growing demand for meaningful academic engagement with issues of race, culture, and social justice.

In its early years, this minor-serving unit offered twenty-one interdisciplinary courses and operated on a yearly budget of $45,000 under the leadership of Dr. William R. Jones (Palcic, 1979). Central to its legacy was the 1977 founding of a periodical, The Black Voice, which bridged FSU and FAMU and extended into Tallahassee’s greater Black community by sharing course materials, current events, and creative work. Under Jones, the curriculum laid the groundwork for a bachelor’s degree program in African American Studies during the tenure of Dr. Patrick L. Mason, who directed the program from 2001 to 2022. The program prioritized retention and pipeline support through initiatives like the Black Graduate Student Orientation, which from 1989 to 2009 matched students with mentors and provided resources for navigating the ups and downs of graduate school.

Despite the program’s substantial legacy and impact, its potential for expansion has been hindered by its primary focus on serving minors. In addition, the university’s inconsistent practices in tracking minor participation have complicated efforts to measure representation. Although some colleges require students to formally declare their minors, many do not, leading to significant variation in how minors are recorded on transcripts and, consequently, how their impact is assessed.

Adding to this, Florida’s public university programs face intense scrutiny under performance metrics set by the Florida Board of Governors (BOG). According to BOG Regulation

8.015, academic programs must undergo comprehensive reviews every seven years to evaluate enrollment, graduation rates, and alignment with institutional missions (Florida Board of Governors, 2015). Programs that fail to meet thresholds risk consolidation or discontinuation.

These metrics, however, do not capture the full scope of Black Studies and similar programs’ contributions, particularly their ability to attract students through minors and electives. The institution’s singular focus on majors and its overlooking of the influence of minors has led to an underestimation of the program’s importance, creating a disparity between its actual contributions and its perceived value.

This underestimation was further compounded by internal challenges within Florida State University’s African American Studies program. Following the retirement of Dr. Jones in 1999, the program endured prolonged periods without full-time faculty members apart from the director. For more than a decade, it relied on limited financial support and one or two adjunct instructors to deliver courses. This placed significant strain on leadership and reduced the program’s ability to attract and retain students. The lack of a stable faculty base restricted its capacity to offer a diverse range of courses an essential aspect of its interdisciplinary mission and diminished its visibility and appeal within the university.

Florida’s political climate exacerbated these problems, fostering an environment that became increasingly hostile toward Black Studies and related programs. For example, the Stop W.O.K.E. Act (Florida Legislature, 2022) limited discussions of systemic racism and other critical topics; this compelled faculty members to walk a tightrope between self-censorship and the threat of censure and retaliation. These constraints could compromise the quality of these programs and make prospective faculty members less likely to participate or remain involved.

Other proposed regulations such as HB 999, which seeks to curtail DEI initiatives have worsened the threats to academic freedom, further deterring faculty participation. The recent policy

evolution has affected FSU’s AFA program, specifically regarding course offerings. In a November 2024 meeting, the FSU Board of Trustees sanctioned the elimination of 432 courses from the general education curriculum. These included AFA 3101, Theories of African American Studies, which was redesigned to fulfill state-mandated writing requirements to increase enrollment (Jean, 2024). After an assessment required by the Florida BOG and conducted in accordance with state laws focusing on improving education standards, several courses, such as AFA 3101, were deemed “too limited, in focus” to comply with the revised general education criteria (Jean, 2024).

The elimination of these classes created difficulties for AFA and similar programs and departments. Although students can take these courses as electives, their absence from the core curriculum might make them less noticeable and accessible. This situation highlights the obstacles Black Studies programs face in adjusting to changing regulations while upholding their essential position in higher education.

The battle to secure African American Studies courses in Florida’s general education curriculum reflects a larger struggle to preserve Black Studies amid structural efforts to marginalize it. The BOG exerts control over course approvals while advancing efficiency metrics tied to enrollment, graduation rates, and job readiness, undermining fields that challenge dominant narratives and promote critical engagement with race and social justice. The BOG’s rigid standards and lack of accessible documentation create institutional paralysis, preventing timely responses to sustain programs. Cumulatively, these structural, political, and financial challenges hinder the revitalization of Black Studies and similarly situated programs.

Proactive unit-level efforts, like the survey created by FSU’s African American Studies Program to track majors and minors, have shown promise. By increasing direct student contact by 400%, this initiative demonstrated the importance of internal solutions. However, such efforts must

be complemented by broader institutional changes, including consistent funding, full-time staff, and a commitment to interdisciplinary faculty hiring and collaborations. Programs must bridge academic objectives with practical skills to equip students for diverse career paths. Without this dual approach combining creative program leadership and institutional support FSU’s AFA program and Black Studies programs across the nation will face ongoing threats, limiting their ability to fulfill their mission of fostering critical inquiry and societal progress.

Trends across the Country

Federal directives have worsened these challenges. On January 27, 2025, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President Donald Trump temporarily paused federal financial assistance, targeting initiatives labeled as promoting “Marxist equity” or “woke gender ideology.” Although the move was rescinded shortly after, it highlighted the vulnerability of Black Studies programs and centers to political intervention.

Centers like UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, which rely on external grants and partnerships, also face heightened risks from shifting political priorities. Without stable funding, their ability to sustain long-term projects and community-based initiatives is jeopardized. This precarious environment underscores the need for diversified funding and institutional support to protect their role in advancing scholarship and social change. This conflict reflects a broader effort targeting social science research that exposes systemic inequality. Similar challenges affect institutions across the country, from Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America to Princeton’s Center for African American Studies, where the cyclical nature of grant funding and economic pressures create ongoing instability. The impact extends beyond individual institutions, as these centers typically operate on 3- to 5-year grant cycles while attempting to maintain long-term research initiatives and community engagement programs. Their vulnerability is particularly acute during economic downturns, when universities

face pressure to reduce costs, potentially compromising these centers’ crucial work in documenting and addressing systemic inequalities through scholarly research and community partnerships.

Conclusion

Black Studies programs offer a nuanced approach to critically exploring and understanding culture. However, we must acknowledge that misaligned performance measurements, lack of resources, and political pressures undermine these programs. The exclusion of minors from assessments and conservative viewpoints on DEI can also demonstrably impede these programs’ success.

Black Studies programs face overlapping institutional, political, and social challenges but continue to demonstrate resilience through service learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and community engagement. They foster critical thought and prepare students to address complex societal challenges, making their contributions indispensable. However, universities must revise performance metrics to include minors and cross-department collaborations.

Institutional leaders, program directors, and faculty members must collaborate to ensure Black Studies programs are seen as essential, not peripheral. Faculty should develop interdisciplinary courses and work with departments like health policy and law to align Black Studies with high-demand fields, while leaders secure sustainable funding through grants and partnerships. Faculty should also advocate for their programs through public engagement, highlighting students’ successes and building community-based projects (Williams & Jackson, 2020; Robinson, 2019). Mentorship programs and research opportunities can further attract and retain students, showcasing their value to the university’s mission.

The current crisis of legitimacy facing the field of Black Studies demands a unified, strategic response that transcends administrative hurdles. We cannot work in silos or rely on reactive efforts. Instead, we must deliver a coordinated and deliberate effort to challenge systemic

barriers. This involves confronting efficiency metrics that marginalize programs and fostering inter-institutional support. By organizing collectively and showing up for each other, Black Studies programs can overcome these challenges, ensuring their long-term impact and continued contributions to academic diversity and social progress.

References

Aldridge, D. P., & Young, C. E. (Eds.). (2000). Out of the revolution: The development of Africana Studies. Lexington Books.

Anderson, C. (2018). White rage: The unspoken truth of our racial divide. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Biondi, M. (2012). The Black revolution on campus. University of California Press.

Bonilla-Silva, E. (2019). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States (5th ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.

Daniels, A. M., & Miller, T. P. (2021). Equity in institutional metrics and the future of Black Studies. NCBS Annual Conference Proceedings.

Davis, A. Y. (2019). Freedom is a constant struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations of a movement. Haymarket Books.

Florida Legislature. (2022). Stop W.O.K.E. Act (HB 7). Tallahassee, FL. https://www.flsenate.gov/

Harper, S. R., & Simmons, I. (2022). Racial equity in higher education: Progress and setbacks in the Trump era. Educational Researcher, 51(3), 147–56.

IBM. (2021). IBM establishes the first IBM-HBCU Quantum Center to foster a diverse STEM workforce.

Jean, T. (2024, Nov. 22). FSU board OKs removal of over 400 courses from general education offerings after review. Tallahassee Democrat

Johnson, A. B., & Williams, D. (2020). Structural barriers and resilience: A national review of Black Studies programs. Journal of Black Studies, 51(7), 667–92.

Karenga, M. (2010). Introduction to Black Studies (4th ed.). University of Sankore Press.

Meier, A.; Rudwick, E. (1986). Black history and the historical profession, 1915–1980. University of Illinois Press.

Morgan, H. (2024). Ethnic studies programs in America: Exploring the past to understand today’s

debates. Policy Futures in Education, 22(7), 1469–91

Natanson, H. (2023, March 17). Few legal challenges to laws limiting lessons on race, gender. Washington Post.

Palcic, J. (2010). The history of the Black student union at Florida State University, 1968–1978 (Doctoral dissertation, Florida State University).

Pierson, P. (1994). Dismantling the welfare state? Reagan, Thatcher, and the politics of retrenchment. Cambridge University Press.

Ridler K. (2021, April 28). Idaho governor signs “nondiscrimination” education bill. AP News.

Robinson, N. M. (2019). The role of public advocacy in Black Studies programs. NCBS Special Reports.

Smith, A. (2023). The attack on academic freedom in the United States: Conservative policies and their impact on higher education. Journal of Academic Freedom, 14(1), 112–25.

Southern Education Foundation. (2022). Miles to go: The state of education for Black students in America. https://southerneducation.org

Texas Legislature. (2023). House Bill 999. https://capitol.texas.gov/

United Negro College Fund. (2015). UNCF career pathways initiative (CPI): Improving career outcomes for Black students through sustainable programming.

Williams, C. L., & Jackson, B. A. (2020). Interdisciplinary approaches in Black Studies: Bridging academia and community. NCBS Journal of Africana Studies, 15(2), 45–62.

The Enemy Within: Africana Studies in the Age of Impostors

by

Mark Christian, Ph.D. Department of Africana Studies

City University of New York – Lehman

In the second edition of his noted Introduction of Black Studies, Maulana Karenga has a chapter titled “Challenges and Possibilities” to Black Studies – many departments or programs today are also named synonymously asAfricana Studies (Karenga, 1993, pp. 467-501;Aldridge & Young, 2003). In this important section, there is an emphasis on the types of administrators that proliferate the discipline. To note, the second edition was published in 1993, the year I received my master’s degree in Black Studies from Ohio State. Since 1993, Dr. Karenga has published two more editions up to 2010. Therefore, at 2025 we are now over three decades removed from the time he wrote about his concerns and possibilities within the discipline ofAfricana/Black Studies. This is important to emphasize at the outset because we still endure problematic administrators, and it is over fifty-five years since the first department of Black Studies emerged in 1968 at San Francisco State College (now university) under the leadership of the great and late Nathan Hare. Dr. Karenga is one of the pioneers of Black Studies, along with numerous other scholars such as

Dr. John Henrik Clark, Dr. Charshee McIntyre, Dr. Molefi K.Asante, Dr. William E. Nelson Jr., Dr. Shirley Weber, Dr. James Turner, Dr. William Little, Dr. DeloresAldridge, Dr. James B. Stewart and Dr. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey who would become the first President of the National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) in 1976 – to name but a few of the pioneering Black Studies scholars.

In reference to the “Challenges and Possibilities” in the discipline, Karenga was quite prescient in acknowledging there being “ProblematicAdministrators in Black Studies” that can and often do wreak havoc to the discipline. He outlined four types of administrators who can be found as chairs, coordinators, or directors of departments and programs. They are as follows: 1) the pragmatists; 2) the Continental and CaribbeanAfricans; 3) the integrationists; and 4) the opportunists. These types could be deemed having certain philosophical attributes that are detrimental to the efficacious development of the discipline for a number of reasons. For brevity, the pragmatist is someone who does not adhere to the philosophy and practice of selfdetermination and advocating knowledge that is both relevant and empowering to the Black communities it served. In other words, the pragmatist played lip service to the aim of developing a bona fide discipline with its own methods and analysis beyond that of Eurocentric canons (Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva, 2008; McDougal, 2014).

TheAfrican continental and Caribbean administrators, not all but many, would not fully embrace the day-to-day struggle ofAfricanAmerican liberation. Having no desire to institutionally “rock the boat” in colleges and universities, they could actually do more harm than good acting as a buffer between a Dean, Provost or even President when it comes to gaining the demands Black Studies advocates were making. Most often, theAfrican continental or Caribbean administrators would placate, even ingratiate, themselves to the power structure of the institution, rather than forcing the demands for Black Studies to be met. To put this another way, often there was an unsavory divide betweenAfricanAmericans and theirAfrican continental and Caribbean

brothers and sisters. Moreover, frequently the Eurocentric, former-colonial, education they had received put them at odds with the critical philosophy of Black Studies intellectuals in North America (Asante, 1999). Of course, this was not the case for all, but it was a significant issue in the 1970s, and it still is today in the 2020s, thwarting positive and self-determined Black Studies development.

Moving to the “integrationist” type of problematic Black Studies administrator, he or she would ordinarily seek refuge within existing Eurocentric canons of knowledge and not have an interest in the political, nor philosophical, aspect of struggle that Black Studies represented –especially the push forAfrican centered perspectives. For the integrationist, grounded in Eurocentric thought and knowledge, it was very difficult for him or her to comprehend the politics of Blackness. They were more interested in the economic benefits a position in Black Studies offered, rather than building a viable department that offered a cultural nationalist frame of reference. The integrationist would baulk against any form of intellectual independence and not grasp the philosophy in how and why Black Studies was required for the liberation of Black minds in colleges and universities across the United States (Asante & Karenga 2006). In other words, the foundation of Black Studies was never built on a firm institutional setting, it would instead be a constant struggle for acceptance, resources, and viable recognition. Therefore, in order for a house to be built to last, it must first have a solid foundation, and the house of Black Studies was thwarted from the beginning. The authentic pioneers of the discipline should be lauded for their persistence and insistence in building it up regardless of the many obstacles put in their collective path.

The final type of Black Studies administrator put forward by Karenga is the “academic opportunist” – who entered Black Studies only for personal gain rather than to empower the discipline and its philosophy. This type of professional proliferates the discipline to this day and

does much damage to its positive development. Most opportunists emerge from other areas of knowledge like English orAnthropology with no philosophical grounding, nor qualifications, in Black Studies other than maybe having taught a course on say Toni Morrison (English) or having spent a summer studying inAfrica (Anthropology). Moreover, they are often very weak scholars who have no viable output in terms of research and publishing. Ironically, these are the “scholars” who tend to be lauded by Deans, yet closer scrutiny of their academic profiles would reveal inadequate scholarly talent. Overall, the “academic opportunist” has little interest in Black Studies other than for personal gain and self-interest. Crucially, having no academic credentials worthy of being an authentic Black Studies scholar, the opportunist is detrimental to the discipline (Karenga, 1993, 472).

What could be deemed another academic opportunist type in the 2020s, usually has a strong allegiance to Women’s Studies and shows mere contempt for anything that speaks to Black masculinity. They pontificate about omnipresent misogyny yet never acknowledge the growing Black heterosexual male misandry that currently thrives in academia via the Black Eurocentricfeminist paradigm. Rarely do these Black women feminists embrace, for example, the intellectual contribution of Clenora Hudson Weems’ Africana Womanism (Hudson-Weems, 2020), or Patricia Reid-Merritt’s Sister Power (2002) to Women Studies; or the work of Black Studies scholars who have provided other scholarly insights beyond that of Eurocentric frames of reference (Ani, 1994; Asante, 1999). Instead, they prefer to laud the queer-ism ofAudre Lorde orAngela Davis, who is steeped in the Herbert Marcuse/Frankfurt school of Marxist liberation. Moreover, before the reader points the finger, the NCBS has always been a safe place for Black women, indeed the first President was one, and at least forty-percent of President’s have been women since 1976 to 2025. Yet, to be sure, there is a growing tension within and beyond Black Studies departments between Black feminists and their Black heterosexual male intellectual counterparts. This tension is what

could be deemed an internal cultural-counter-hegemonic clash of ideas that stems from Eurocentric intellectual pathology (Black feminist theorists) andAfrican liberation advocates (authentic Black Studies theorists) – or impostors versus genuine Black Studies scholars (Asante, 1999; Brown 2007; Curry 2017; Karenga 1993).

Gender relations between Black men and women may be a controversial point, but it is as relevant today as it was yesterday. In this sense, Robert Staples’1970s response to “Angry Black Feminists” should be re-read by neophyte scholars in Black Studies, even though it is closing in on half-a-century since first published (Staples, 1979). Presently, we are living in a climate whereby any Black heterosexual male who attempts a critical response to Black feminism is summarily deemed a misogynist and this is becoming increasingly inane (Curry, 2017). Academia should be a place whereby ideas can be discussed and critiqued, not shot down as “misogynistic” the moment a man offers constructive criticism of Black feminism. Certainly, Black Studies did not emerge to empower tension between Black men and women (and all the other gender-types today). On the contrary, it was about providing broad and multiple ways in comprehending the global experience regarding peoples ofAfrican heritage. Today, most departments appear to have a narrow focus on gender related matters. They may well have a place in explaining White patriarchy, but there should not be such a monopoly on intellectual output that implicitly denigrates what it is to be a Black male and heterosexual in racialized societies based on hierarchy (Curry, 2017; Kunjufu, 1990). Yet the problematic administrators continue to peddle in divide and conquer tactics to impede the authentic Black Studies scholar (Christian, 2012).

Instead of Karenga’s model of the four-types of problematic administrators, it could be more simplified by stating there were and are impostors that joined Black Studies, who in retrospect had no place in the discipline. That is a correct assessment from the past and it is certainly similar for many departments and programs today. Some scholars in Black Studies will

be more diplomatic and state there are schools of thought that cater for different ideas and perspectives within Black Studies (Christian, 2006). To some extent it is viable to consider there are in fact different ways to express Blackness. However, the notion of an impostor having a scholarly position in a department or program is more critical and a different issue. It is someone who does not belong in the discipline, period. It is someone who has no grounding in the political reality of how and why Black Studies emerged. Such an impostor is therefore akin to a Black Panther Party informant – present only to harm and destroy the essence of Black Studies in higher education. Some of these impostors do not share any aspect ofAfrican heritage, they merely teach a course or two that offers a Black theme or interest. The impostor stifles the Black Studies environment, engages in divide and conquer tactics to put members of Black faculty against each other. It is an insidious presence that rarely bodes well for the department or program in question. But more than this, the impostor does all she can to impede those who are authentically connected to the discipline. The impostor is threatened by the sheer intellect and determination of those Black Studies scholars who have embraced its very essence. Impostors come in all shapes and sizes, all shades too. At the heart of this problem is the impostor’s ahistorical outlook and intellectual ignorance of Black mental liberation. In turn, the impostor harbors deep resentment toward those who have been productive in Black Studies research. Who have been focused, and able to have stood in the discipline against all odds, who “Keep on, Keepin’on” as Curtis Mayfield taught with his soulful lyrics and music of resistance.

As a Black Studies scholar, I have always endeavored to write right; to speak truth to power; to be of service to myAncestors. This short essay may therefore come across as evocative and heartfelt, but it is because there is a dire need to comprehend the seriousness of the impostors that masquerade as Black Studies advocates, while deceiving the discipline and hampering its development. This observation stems from over three decades of experience in the discipline.

What is stated concerning the impostors is based on having observed them at close quarters in different institutions across the breadth of my career essentially in Black Studies. As Karenga has noted concerning opportunists, “… they were appointed and promoted on levels and with a facility no other department would have allowed. In addition, they received increases in rank and step, not for theoretical production or professional achievement, but for non-problematic management of what was considered a pseudo-academic nuisance unscheduled for long endurance” (1993, 472).

To put this another way for the 2020s, there have been appointments made to departments and programs of Black Studies by unscrupulous Deans, involving problematic promotions, in order to keep a lid on any form of cultural nationalism developing. It is skullduggery and shenanigans, aimed essentially at stifling positive intellectual growth and mental liberation for the students that engage with Black Studies.

In retrospect, considering my thirty-plus years in academia within Black Studies, the most courageous scholars have emanated from the pioneers of the discipline. That should not surprise anyone, they were forged in struggle and the need to speak truth to power. My generation of Black Studies scholars came after them. The pioneers called my generational cohort, “The New Jack Scholars” after that movie of a similar title with Wesley Snipes and company. Some of my cohorts have since the 1990s made brilliant scholarly contributions to Black Studies: TroyAllen, James Conyers, Christel Temple, Martell Teasley, Greg Carr, Jerome Schiele, Mario Beatty, Richard Cooper, David Canton, Niyi Coker, Judson Jeffries, Siri Briggs-Brown, and Reiland Rabaka – to name a few. This was the age ofAfrocentric thought being discussed all over the world. We were attuned to Spike Lee’s Malcolm X biopic of 1992; and collectively as youngAfrican centered scholars we knew, “we’ve got to fight the powers that be” in the 1990s and beyond. Indeed, a major “power fight” will likely be against the vicious assault on civil rights gains via the proposed right-wing Project 2025 (NAACP, 2024).

During the 1990s there was an enthusiasm for knowledge and research, I recall back then Black Studies academic conferences in the UK often supported by Black British grassroots organizations and attended by thousands. It was in Manchester, England, the place where the 1945 PanAfrican Conference was held and led by W.E.B. Du Bois and others, whereby in April 1994 I first met Dr.Asante. Let it be noted, I have been fortunate to meet many brilliant Black Studies scholar-activists during my lifetime, but none were as gracious to me as him. This is probably because in my introduction I mentioned my mentor, Dr. Nelson, so he immediately knew I had been well-schooled in Black Studies at Ohio State. But more than this, Dr.Asante has been a courageous soul and steadfast in his love ofAfrican peoples all over the globe. He has also been maligned for this effort in undermining the fallacy of Eurocentric domination in the academy (Asante, 1999). This is an inevitable consequence if one remains in the discipline of Black Studies: being undermined, discredited, uncredited, and miscredited by those who want to maintain the status quo via the impostors and their supporters in academia.

Some impostors have a trite rejoinder to authentic Black Studies scholars: “you are living in the past, it’s not the 1970s anymore,” they state. Perhaps the best response to this humbug is to retort: “correct, it is not the 1970s, it is indeed the 2020s, or the George Floyd era, of police brutality that Marvin Gaye reminded us about in the 1970s. It is the 2020s of voter suppression, that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought against during his day on Earth before being brutally assassinated inApril 1968. It is the 2020s of scarce resources and a lack of cooperative economics within Black communities, which Minister Malcolm X acknowledged when espousing the imperative need for Black unity without conformity. It is the 2020s of unscrupulous politicians aiming to quellAfricanAmerican history in schools, in libraries, and in colleges and universities. Indeed, it is not the 1970s, it is for certain the 2020s.” Accordingly, one could contend that the

present time is worse than the past due to the insidious ways in which the system employs nefarious tactics, with the aid of impostors, to silence or cancel out legitimate voices of protest.

Given that the NCBS is celebrating its 50th year in existence, and Minister Malcolm X’s 100th birth date celebration (1925-2025), it would be apt to recall his notion, and before him Marcus Garvey, of the “wolf and fox” analogy in relation to academia (X, 1987; Garvey, 1986). To paraphrase, the wolf is akin to the White supremacist, the vicious racist who does not hide his enmity toward people of color; while the fox is like the White liberal who prefers order over conflict, reform over revolution, is more underhand and nebulous in his or her support for Black liberation. Apparently, it is contended that academia is an area of social interaction whereby Black academics survive mainly within the scope of White liberals. Yet this has always been a dubious claim because the mainstream education system is at best a bastion of White thought and the dissemination of ideas that ripple down into the broader racialized society. As Malcolm X stated in regard to the White liberal, “… he grins with his teeth, and his mouth has always been full of tricks and lies of ‘equality’and ‘integration’” (X, 1987, 377). The NCBS will need to comprehend the “wolf and fox” analogy more carefully in 2025 – particularly as the presidential election outcome indicates that people of color will most likely be dealing with the wolf more readily than the fox.

In this regard, there needs to be a vigorous emphasis from the NCBS on the tremendous amount of Black Studies scholarship that has been produced over the last fifty-plus years. Too often our collective works are confined to a small audience due to a lack of dissemination on behalf of conferences, publishers, libraries and bookstores. The importance of Black Studies scholarship beyond impostors cannot be overstated. Indeed, we cannot rely on “white logic” or “white methods” for mental liberation (Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva, 2008; McDougal, 2014). Moreover, today younger scholars are more distracted by cyberspace and a myriad of apps that do not apply directly to Black Studies knowledge. It is, in a real sense, “the best of times, and the

worst of times, an age of wisdom and an age of foolishness” – to paraphrase Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (1994, 13).

Regardless of the time and place, Black Studies must find ways to deal with the impediments, the chicanery, that the new cultural hegemony will no doubt administer. Let us not be naïve to think there will ever be a time whenAfrican peoples will be free to think for themselves without there being a struggle – as Frederick Douglass eloquently warned. We may be somewhat “integrated” into the system of higher education, but we are certainly not “equal” –especially in regard to Black Studies and it getting a fair chance to survive in a philosophical sense – to be free from a mainlyAnglo-Saxon mindset will be an ongoing struggle (Christian, 2012, pp. 125-52; Hare, 1991).

Hence, a reality check, there is a growing enemy withinAfricana/Black Studies – impostors prevail in various guises, supported by administrations to neutralize authentic Black Studies scholars. The strategies are similar to those employed in the era of the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement by unprincipled agents of repression: discredit and marginalize anything remotely too empowering to people ofAfrican heritage, in all their social and cultural complexities. As the National Council for Black Studies celebrates its half-century existence in an unfavorable academic climate, let there be an awareness of the past, present, and future struggle to keep academic excellence and social responsibility at the core of its mission. It is certainly difficult to keep a close academic scrutiny on those impostors who infiltrateAfricana Studies departments and programs. Yet it is also imperative to raise this issue as a legitimate concern so that the future of Black Studies remains optimal. After all, we are in this area of knowledge to combat the myriads of “white lies” that proliferate the Western world (Berger, 1999). The main issue for the National Council for Black Studies is to comprehend the problem in order to avoid the

continued presence of academic impostors withinAfricana/Black Studies departments and programs – the enemy within.

References

Aldridge, D. P., & Young, C. (Eds.). (2003). Out of the revolution: The development of Africana Studies. New York: Lexington Books.

Ani, M. (1994). Yurugu: An African-centered critique of European cultural thought and behavior. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

Asante, M. K. (1999). The painful demise of Eurocentrism. Trenton, NJ:Africa World Press.

Asante, M. K., & Mazama,A. (Eds.). (2005). Encyclopedia of Black Studies Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Berger, M. (1999). White lies: Race and the myth of Whiteness. New York: Farrar, Strous & Giroux.

Brown, C. (2007). Dude, where’s my Black Studies department? The disappearance of Black Americans from our universities. Berkeley, CA: NorthAtlantic Books.

Christian, M. (Ed). (2012). Integrated but unequal: Black faculty in predominately White space. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.

Christian, M. (2006). Philosophy and practice for Black Studies: The case of researching White supremacy. In M. K.Asante and M. Karenga (Eds.), Handbook of Black Studies (pp. 76–88). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Curry, T. J. (2017). The man-not: Race, class, genre, and the dilemmas of Black manhood. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Dickens, C. (1994). A tale of two cities. New York: Penguin.

Garvey, M. (1986). The philosophy & opinions of Marcus Garvey. Dover, MA: Majority Press. Hare, N. (1991). The Black Anglo-Saxons. Chicago, IL: Third World Press.

Hudson-Weems, C. (2020). Africana womanism: Reclaiming ourselves (5th ed.). New York: Routledge.

Karenga, M. (1993). Introduction to Black Studies (2nd ed.). LosAngeles, CA: University of Sankore Press.

Kunjufu, J. (1990). Countering the conspiracy to destroy Black boys, Vol. III. Chicago, IL:African American Images.

McDougal III, S. (2014). Research methods in Africana Studies New York: Peter Lang. NationalAssociation for theAdvancement of Colored People. (2024). Addressing the Disastrous Impacts of Project 2025 on the Black Community. https://naacp.org/resources/addressingdisastrous-impacts-project-2025-black-community

Reid-Merritt, P. (2002). Sister power: 7 pathways to a satisfying life for soulful Black women. New York: Wiley.

Staples, R. (1979). The myth of Black macho: Aresponse to angry Black feminists. Black Scholar, 10(6), 24–33.

X, Malcolm, & Haley,A. (1987). The autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Penguin.

Zuberi, T., & Bonilla-Silva, E. (Eds.). (2008). White logic, White methods: Racism and methodology. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

In Defense of Historical Knowledge: A Legacy for Re-Elevation and Advancement

by

Kersuze Simeon-Jones, Ph.D.

School

of Interdisciplinary Global Studies

University of South Florida, Tampa

The objective of the essay, or overview, is twofold. One, it underscores the forebearers’ the forefathers’and foremothers’ propositions and prospections for the rehabilitation, reelevation, and collective advancement ofAfrican descendants. Comprehensive education was uniformly and consistently identified as the foundational element without which solidarity among African descendants would be impossible. The precision on “re-elevation” serves as a reminder of Africa’s past, of the ancient and pioneering civilizations throughout the continent, and of its ancient position of distinction among the continents (Simeon-Jones, 2024, p. 2). Two, with the writings of influential predecessor thinkers of theAfrican diaspora, the essay highlights critical historical contexts for the current social and economic circumstances ofAfrican descendants. Extracting from the analyses in The Intellectual Roots of Contemporary Black Thought: Nascent Political Philosophies and Black Femalehood and the Principles of Existence in Practice, this overview underlines a few impediments to the advancement ofAfrican descendants. With direct and primary-sources excerpts, The Intellectual Roots of Contemporary Black Thought traces and examines the history of modern Black liberation discourse from the late 1700s onward for

freedom and for educational and psychological rehabilitation, and the longstanding advocacy for economic and overall social advancement. Black Femalehood and the Principles of Existence examines myriad philosophies of life and everyday praxis for survival, re-elevation, and preparation for posterity expressed by women of African descent throughout the centuries. Both texts impress the crucial significance that predecessor thinkers and activists placed on individual and collective social responsibility. Moreover, these predecessors’publications form the foundation of knowledge forAfricana Studies. Both works bring to the fore original texts that have been in relative obscurity; they have taken up analyses that direct readers to the primary sources. To that extent, the monographs have been expressly pedagogical.

In a comparable though much abbreviated approach, the present essay, which highlights a few pertinent prescriptions and observations of caution articulated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is offered as an intellectual service to the discipline of Black Studies (Africana Studies, African diaspora studies). It commemorates the National Council for Black Studies’fifty years of commitment to education. It is aimed at contributing to the historical consciousness of students, scholars, and general readers. There cannot be meaningful and viable agency without a solid grounding in history; that includes knowledge of the schemes that have maintainedAfricans and their descendants, as of 2025, in various forms of enslavement. The 1914 tenet of the Universal Negro ImprovementAssociation (“One God. One aim. One destiny.”) remains pertinent to Black consciousness for progress. Echoing and reframing the Universal Negro Improvement Association’s precept, in addition to the undeniable “One God,” it is: One collective Black history (as the umbrella of the various national and community Black histories), one aim, one destiny. What is the longstanding aim? What is the understood destiny for which Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro ImprovementAssociation resolutely advocated? It is the reclamation of the race’s destiny (or autonomy over its human and social destiny) by directing it away from the protracted

path of collective subjugation and destitution. Such re-direction can only succeed whenAfrican descendants have the structure and conditions to study the factual history of their predecessors: their strengths, their challenges, their accomplishments, as well as their shortcomings, in order to avoid the behaviors and frames of mind that have not and could not have brought about farreaching social and economic change (Simeon-Jones, 2020, pp. 135–41).

It is precisely because of the transformative aim of Black Studies, with its method of interrelated world history grounded in national, transnational, and international strategies and interconnections, that it has been under attack from its inception. Moreover, the two foundational objectives of the discipline have been curbed and debased from its inception. These objectives have remained, one, the recalibration and liberation of the mind through factual and multidimensional education, and two, laying bare the roots and following the trajectory of economic destitution in Africa and the diaspora. However, as basic literacy was fatally forbidden toAfrican descendants during chattel slavery, historical contents came to be falsified and obstructed thereafter to ensure multi-faceted enslavement, more specifically psychological and economic enslavement. The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, The Mis-Education of the Negro, and The African Origin of Civilization (among other works) admonishedAfrican descendants against becoming their “own worst enemy” as a result of “ill-fed” brains which decreases “mental power,” raceesteem, and integrity (Simeon-Jones, 2020, 106–112).Agency lies in historical knowledge and understanding, for any conscientious intellectual would concede that comprehensive knowledge is empowerment, and understanding is freedom.

The Role of Black Studies in Transmitting Historical Records and Developing New Vistas

With the formation of the discipline, through records of past centuries up to the 1960s and beyond, scholars and students have investigated national and diasporic frameworks on reparation, re-elevation, and the solidarity necessary for sustained advancement that can counteract the forces

of regression. By 1829, David Walker had imploredAfricanAmericans in particular, andAfrican descendants in general, to read the history of the race and its position in world history, from ancient times to the contemporary era. More than general history, he entreatedAfricanAmericans to exhaustively learn their own national history and the histories of other Black communities and nations. InArticle II, “Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Ignorance,” of his Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America, Walker urged “Remember the divisions and consequent sufferings of Carthage and of Hayti. Read the history particularly of Hayti” (Walker, 1830, 23). In a similar context, the U.N.I.A.’s 1920 Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World accorded significant attention to education: “We demand that instructions given to Negro children in schools include the subject of ‘Negro History,’to their own benefit” (Garvey, 1925, p. 142). “[We] protest against the system of education in any country where Negroes are denied the same privileges and advantages as other races. . . . We demand the right of unlimited and unprejudiced education for ourselves and our posterity forever” (Garvey, 1925, p. 139). Lastly, in 1965 Malcolm X argued,

If the entireAmerican population were properly educated by properly educated, I mean given a true picture of the history and contributions of the Black man I think many Whites would be less racist in their feelings. . . .Also, the feeling of inferiority that the Black man has would be replaced by a balanced knowledge of himself. (Malcolm X, 1989, 196, emphasis added)

Let us expand this to say, if the global population were “properly educated” on the history and contributions ofAfrican descendants, from ancientAfrica to the present, other races and cultures would be less racist against theAfricans and their descendants. An extensive

innumerable list of Black intellectuals, scholars in particular, from the late 1700s to today1, have provided the lived and researched contents for the discipline ofAfricana Studies. Equally important, they have unwaveringly reasoned across generations and geographic spaces that without the study of the contents, and the conscientious work to remedy the longstanding ills, the world will continue to operate in multi-layered disequilibrium economic, social, psychological, and political to the detriment of the masses ofAfrican descendants. For social (educational) oppression is the effect and manifestation of economic-material oppression. OurAfrican-descended predecessors did the work of unveiling the genesis of the nefarious economic and social stratagems that have imprisonedAfrican descendants. We, today’s scholars and activists, have been advancing the feats they started under unimaginable and abominable conditions. It must be reiterated that from the reflections of our forefathers and foremothers that have been transmitted through historical records and remain exceedingly pertinent in the twenty-first century, solidarity in the race’s general objective to redirect its human destiny remains vital. It was this principle that undergirded the pan-African practice and movement (since multi-ethnicAfrican solidarities formed in theAmericas, from the chattel slavery era onward), the Garvey movement, the Négritude movement with its Black internationalist precept, and the philosophies of Malcolm X (SimeonJones, 2010, pp. 22–24).AsAimé Césaire succinctly conveys in Présence Africaine’s 1956 issue on “The First World Congress of Negro Writers andArtists,” “[There] is a great wind of unity soughing in every Black land! For experience, earned in the hardest way, has taught us that we have one weapon, just one that’s fit for use, but is powerful: the weapon of Unity” (Césaire, 1956, 9, emphasis added).

If in 1829 and 1830 Walker called attention to Carthage and Hayti, and in 1862 Edward Blyden called attention to the political disempowerment of Liberia and Haiti, it is because they

1 Olaudah Equiano’s 1789 autobiography as a reference.

grasped the common position ofAfrican descendants in the established global order. The difficult conditions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are aggravated in the twenty-first. An example is the systemic and cumulative ruination of the Black republic of theAmericas, Haiti, epitomizing the exacerbating deterioration of global Black communities. The extensive use of guns and drugs inundating such cities as Chicago, Detroit, and Newark in the United States, and subsequently throughout the Caribbean (in Jamaica and Haiti, for example) are evidence of the intensifying destructive impacts on Black communities.

With historical data, it is undeniable that the utter chaos of the twenty-first century adds new catastrophes to the long-existing global imbalance in resources. The idea that “‘[potentially] the colored people are strong although they are actually weak’points to the heart of the matter, for it zooms into the need for indispensable psychological recalibration that will facilitate the path to viable social change” (Simeon-Jones, 2020, 106). Once “properly educated” on their history and conditions, Carter G. Woodson asserted, “the Negro can do the so-called impossible . . . and thus help to govern rather than merely be governed” (Woodson, 1933, 103).

To emphasize solidary in strength and bring agency to fruition, throughout the late 1800s Blyden called for

[some] great centre of the race where our physical, pecuniary and intellectual strength may be collected. We need some spot whence such an influence may go forth on behalf of the race as shall be felt by the nations. We are so scattered and divided that we can do nothing . so long as we remain thus divided, we may expect impositions. (Blyden, 1862, 74–76)

With a positive outlook on current and future activism, the remote, online format of the twenty-first century (in addition to in-person interactions) can mitigate geographic divisions. The initiatives of national and international academic organizations have facilitated the re-emergent practice of intellectual and cultural pan-Africanism, and of social and political Black internationalism, thereby

facilitating agency amongAfrican descendants for increasing organized solidarity. In addition, perhaps we ought to reconceptualize and consider the model of the 1945 Global Pan-African Congress.

The Enduring Mindset of the Enslavers-Colonists

By the late 1780s, the enslavers-colonists occupying the continent ofAmerica further asserted and publicized their objective; they fortified their system for the perpetual enslavement of Africans and their descendants. Following the first mass rebellion ofAfricans in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), the Makandal Rebellion (circa 1750), and the many uprisings that followed before the historic 1791 Cérémonie du Bois Caïman, in 1789 as part of their correspondences on the fate of theAfricans, the “Commissioners of Proprietors ofAssets in the French Colonies of America, Residing in Bordeaux” wrote a letter to the French National Assembly. In that letter, the commercial enslavers stated,

The knowledge and the virtues that you have deployed have persuaded us, Our Lords, that you would never bear to sacrifice one hundred thousand French all of their fortune, all of their manufactures, the entire maritime, almost all the industry and all of the commerce of France, by manumitting the Blacks who cultivate the arid soil. . . .Your justice, Our Lords, is too well known for us to need to explain that our proprietorships on the Blacks are legal, and that we cannot be deprived of our properties without injustice or without reimbursement, not only of our negroes, but of our lands, livestock, houses, furniture, which loss would necessarily follow the manumission of the Blacks. There’s no need for us to make you further envisage the resultant inconveniences and the misfortune for all of France. (Simeon-Jones, 2023, p. 62, emphasis added)

In visceral anger, anxiety, and conviction to bolstering the chattel slavery system, similar sentiments were shared, and violent measures were enforced throughout the continent ofAmerica.

What is of consequence in this excerpt of politico-economic correspondences italicized are the concepts of “justice,” legality, and “inconveniences” to wealth. Regarding the slave ships, they claimed, “[The] commerce of the Blacks is the most essential branch of what is taking place in our colonies; it is the base; it utilizes, annually, approximately one hundred and forty ships built for that commerce and that cannot be used for another” (Simeon-Jones 2023, 63). With maniacal and demoniac belief in “just” and “legal” enslavement, clearly antithetical realities, and in response to the abolitionist movements, the enslavers further urged the NationalAssembly that the “Proclamation for the Rights of Man does not extend to the Blacks nor their descendants” (Simeon-Jones, 2023, p. 57).

It was in response to such global realities that by 1920, Marcus Garvey had drafted and promulgated the U.N.I.A.’s Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World. In 1925, Anna J. Cooper included the original documents of the enslavers-colonists (primary sources) as an appendix to her dissertation, L’Attitude de La France À l’Égard de L’esclavage Pendant La Révolution2 (1925). Cooper did not and could not engage with the sources, but she made them available for her contemporaries and future generations.3 In the chapter “Anna J. Cooper and the Tradition of Intellectual Activism: The Limitations of Production,” of Black Femalehood and the Principles of Existence in Practice, I translated excerpts from the original documents and engaged with their contents for the access of current and future generations of readers.

Aware of the lasting impacts of written words, in 1814 King Henri Christophe of Haiti observed, “[The enslavers-colonists] have taught us enough, more so in their writings than with the tortures that we have endured, that the only and solid guarantee to our political rights, to our very existence, is through the conservation of our independence” (Simeon-Jones, 2020, p. 20). This

2 The Attitude of France Towards Slavery During the Revolution.

3 The reasons Cooper could not engage are examined in Black Femalehood

should transcend political independence (or nominal political independence) to include independence in intelligent reasoning and critical thought.

In concert with their actions, the European and European-descended enslavers tactically left the repercussions of their words propagandized globally on the defamation of theAfricans and their descendants. Equally effective, and with economic, military, and political power, they obstructed theAfricans’work for the teaching and learning of their own historical trajectory. The understanding was that once the detailed history of theAfricans in theAmericas was unveiled, particularly their rebellions and publications from the mid-1750s to the early 1800s, it would become global knowledge that [the] incensed and vilifying publications of the enslavers and colonists were not because they believed theAfricans were “inferior”; it is rather because from the late 1700s to the early 1800s, they have read and witnessed irrefutable proofs of theAfricans’intelligence, intellectual abilities, military acumen, resolve, and endurance. (Simeon-Jones, 2020, 83–84)

This was a collective race defamation so deep and broad, for centuries and across continents, that ever since Black intellectuals have been engaged in the process of repairing and restoring. From the late 1960s onward, Africana Studies has undertaken the task of re-inserting the history ofAfrican descendants within world history. With the objective of restoring this expansive history, or histories,Anténor Firmin prefaced his De l’Égalité des Races Humaines: Anthropologie Positive4 by highlighting the significance of historical knowledge. Through reading, understanding, social examination, and self-examination, members of the race will be equipped to “wash the race from the unjust imputation that weighs on her for so long. . . . [This] Black Race so full of life force and abundant vitality! To help the [race] in its ascension, there will never be too many

4 On the Equality of the Human Races; Positivist Anthropology.

workers, or too much devotion” (Simeon-Jones, 2020, 9). Firmin’s 1885’s sentiment and engagement have resonated with generations of Black writers and activists. With the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary methods of Black Studies (Africana Studies,African diaspora studies), scholars continue to investigate all facets of our collective and national histories to illuminate the path forward. In this context, in Research Methods in Africana Studies, Professor McDougal III accomplished the encyclopedic task and service of compiling various methodologies, theories, and paradigms, for the pedagogical frameworks of the discipline.

References

Blyden, E. W. (1862). Liberia’s offering. JohnA. Gray.

Christophe, H. (1814). Manifeste du roi. Chez P. Roux.

Césaire,A. (1956). Letter to Maurice Thorez. Présence Africaine, new bimonthly series (8–10), 3–16.

Cooper,A. J. (1925). L’attitude de la France à l’égard de l’esclavage pendant la révolution [Doctoral dissertation, University of Paris].

Firmin,A. (1885). De l’égalité des races humaines. Librairie Cotillon.

Garvey, M. (1986). Philosophy and opinions of Marcus Garvey, compiled by Amy Jacques Garvey. Majority Press.

Simeon-Jones, K. (2010). Literary and sociopolitical movements of the Black diaspora in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Lexington Books.

Simeon-Jones, K. (2020). The intellectual roots of contemporary Black thought: Nascent political philosophies. Routledge.

Simeon-Jones, K. (2023). Black femalehood and the principles of existence in practice. Routledge.

Walker, D. (1830). Appeal, in four articles.Applewood Books.

Woodson, C. G. (2005). The mis-education of the negro.Association for the Study ofAfrican American Life and History.

X, M. (1989). Malcolm X speaks: Selected speeches and statements. Pathfinder.

Katherine

Olukemi Bankole Medina’s

New Paths through Thickets of Old Research

by

Molefi Kete Asante, Ph.D. Department of Africology

Temple University Philadelphia, PA

On October 20, 2024 our field, Africology, lost a stalwart defender of the discipline and the metatheory of Afrocentricity. Katherine Olukemi Bankole-Medina was born on June 7, 1960, and in her 64 years she never stopped thinking about how to make her discipline more mature in its structure, theory, and practice. She brought to the field of Africology a committed sense of historical consciousness that allowed her to revisit the records and writings used by those who do historical research. In effect, her purview as an Africana and history scholar was to re-examine American medical history, the science of medicine, African enslavement, the role of medicine as a branch of African persecution, and the discriminatory record of medical practitioners who carried out research and experimentation on Black people. Bankole was innovative in the way she added to African American intellectual history via video, glossaries, and scholarly texts. Tackling the issue of the medical treatment of enslaved Africans, Bankole became one of the earliest Africologists to see how racist policies, as Ibram Kendi would call them, were established in every sector of the American society to support the White supremacism.

As a distinguished scholar in Africana Studies, now often referred to as Africology, and

one of the early members of the Temple School of Afrocentricity, Bankole-Medina served in many capacities, eventually becoming a distinguished professor at Coppin State University in Baltimore. Her career was peppered with stints as full professor and chair of the History Department, distinguished faculty researcher, associate professor, director of the West Virginia University Center for Black Culture and Research, and coordinator of the Africana Studies Program. Her illustrious career as a scholar started with her teaching at the University of Virginia, Kean University, and Xavier University. She won awards for her scholarship and teaching from several professional organizations and led the Cheikh Anta Diop International Conference by becoming the chairperson of the Diopian Institute.

Often unassuming but critically important in the way she approached her subjects, Bankole-Medina emerged as the leading scholar in the field of slavery and medicine. In fact, it was her groundbreaking book Slavery and Medicine: Enslavement and Medical Practices in Antebellum Louisiana that thrust her to the top ranks of that field. Others have often used her work, and it has been the impetus for a significant turn toward uncovering the machinations behind slave medicine that helped to reveal the dangers that Black people, especially women, faced at the hands of White doctors. The book by noted attorney Fred Gray on the syphilis experimentations on Black men by White doctors falls into the same category pioneered in Africology by Professor Bankole-Medina.

Although Bankole-Medina came to dominate the study of enslavement and medicine, she was not content to deal only with that subject. Her paper “In the Age of Malcolm X: Social Conflict and the Critique of African American Identity Construction,” which appeared in James L. Conyers, Jr. and Andrew P. Smallwood’s Malcolm X: A Historical Reader, showed her ability to apply the same Afrocentric lens to questions of identity and conflict. Her objective was always to seek the nuance in a subject, to see from a Black perspective, and to announce herself as an

innovative thinker outside the traditional historical field. In this way, she sustained her position as one of the most useful thinkers in our discipline.

In addition to her books, Bankole-Medina published book reviews, including a review of slavery and botanical medicine for the Journal of Southern History, and adding to her work as historical consultant for Caminho De Sao Tome: A Documentary on Cape Verde, she published the chapter “Mulheres Africanas Nos Estados Unidos” in Afrocentricidade: Uma Abordagem Epistemologica Inovadora. She demonstrated the ability to write on various aspects of twentiethcentury African American history, as seen in her study of the life and legacy of Charles Hamilton Houston and other scholarly papers in a similar vein.

Bankole-Medina was the founding editor of Africalogical Perspectives, a scholarly journal, and senior editor of Women of African Descent and Justice in World Societies (with Abena Lewis-Mhoon and Stephanie Yarbough). A key aspects of her work is the currency of her topics. She was one of the principal historical voices on current issues in the African community. Thus Bankole-Medina authored the first book on the Baltimore Uprising: World to Come: The Baltimore Uprising Militant Racism and History. In addition, in 2016 she published SelfEmancipated and Unforgotten Women with Dr. Abena Lewis-Mhoon, and a paper in the prestigious journal Phillis (edited by Dr. Claudia Nelson) on the life and legacy of Fanny Jackson Coppin.

Highly regarded for her scholarship and innovation, Bankole-Medina received numerous awards and grants for research and scholarship. Take for example the fact that in 2009 she received the Distinguished Faculty Researcher Award at Coppin State, after having received in 2007 the WV Humanities Council Grant for her research on Africana Women. Earlier, at West Virginia University, Bankole-Medina was named the Judith Gold Stitzel Endowment Teacher for her research addressing instructional themes, gender, and enslavement. In 2004–05, she was

named Humanities Scholar for the West Virginia Humanities Grant Project “Segregation and Integration of High School Sports in West Virginia” (project coordinators Drs. Dana Brooks and Ronald Althouse).

The outstanding filmmaker Niyi Coker featured her in the documentary Black Studies USA, and she served as historical consultant and television show host for Dreamcatchers Productions and the Dolphi Media Group (2004–06). In 2003, she was recognized for her contributions to the state at the West Virginia Black Heritage Festival, and she received the “Living the Dream” award for scholarship, an honor from the state of West Virginia’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Commission. Twice cited among West Virginia’s most influential people, Dr. Bankole-Medina became moderator of History is a State of Mind, an independent and facilitated faculty discourse (blog and YouTube video podcast) on history, race, culture, and the African American experience. In 2016, she was awarded the Chester W. Gregory Colloquium Scholarship and Research Award for her “commitment to scholarly research and publication along with her efforts to promote History at Coppin State University,” and in 2017 she received the Keynote Speaker Excellence Award for the university’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Observance.

Bankole-Medina was a force in the field of African American culture and history for many years. Known for her ability to forge networks and create conceptual clarity, she positioned herself at the forefront of Africana Studies by virtue of zeal and intelligence. In addition to her extensive teaching in history and Africana, she became a highly regarded speaker at cultural and historical conferences and meetings. Among her major addresses were the Carter G. Woodson and African American History Month lectures on such topics as “The Historical Legacy of the Nadir and the Moral-Jurisprudential Principles of Charles Hamilton Houston,” “Evidence of Africans in the Vanguard of American Citizenship: The Primacy of the Fourteenth Amendment to

the Constitution,” and “Slavery and Antebellum Medicine: Historical Perspectives on the Study of the Science of Healing.”

With the flurry of activist scholarship and involvement in the field, one could wonder about Bankole-Medina’s community service, but this too was a part of her developmental mission. She promoted educational access, historical and cultural competency in Africana Studies, diversity, public health, race relations, labor studies, and social justice. Because of her interest in transforming women, she founded two Black women’s community associations in the 1980s and 1990s, and she later served as a consultant in conflict mediation with secondary school students and adults in the urban corridor (New Orleans, New Jersey, and Tennessee). I was always amazed at her energetic campaign to change the relationship of children to knowledge and culture by developing and supervising African heritage academies (Saturday schools) for K–12 youths. Furthermore, she grasped Afrocentricity as an instrument of liberation long before others and showed herself capable of defending our discipline in any arena.

Africology has needed two main avenues for growth: an activist cadre of scholars supporting the superstructure and machinery of the field; and the theoretical and philosophical structure and nature of the discipline. Bankole-Medina found her way on both avenues. Her service activities included chairing the 20th annual Cheikh Anta Diop International Conference plenary. She was one of six nationally recognized scholars appointed to the executive planning board of the Diopian Institute for Scholarly Advancement (DISA) in 2009, which assumed leadership for the Cheikh Anta Diop International Conference. She was named conference historian/archivist, and in 2016 she was named executive director. Dr. Bankole-Medina also edited the special edition of the scholarly journal Africalogical Perspectives commemorating the legacy of the Cheikh Anta Diop International Conference. In addition, she was a member of several national professional historical organizations. She was a life member of the Association

for the Study of African American Life and History, the Association of Black Women

Historians, and the African American Intellectual History Association. Bankole-Medina was also a founding member (with noted Cuban linguist and Latin American Studies scholar Caridad Morales- Nussa) of the Tau Epsilon Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority. She was named a fellow to the Molefi Kete Asante Institute in Philadelphia in 2011.

As significant as Bankole-Medina’s professional administration and other work was in the construction of the field of Africology, it is the pivotal nature of the conceptualization of her research and teaching that made her a force in Africology. She transformed every institution that engaged her because she was an excellent contester in the field, always looking to increase consciousness, increase faculty numbers, gain more spaces for students, and ensure our programs were properly funded. Beyond all the accolades, Kemi Bankole-Medina was an ethical person who loved her family and her community with a fierceness that must be a part of her eternal legacy. Hotep!

The Black Man from Slick, Oklahoma: Contributions of the Sociologist Nathan Hare to Black Studies and Ethnic Studies by

Sociology Department Contra Costa College

Slick, Oklahoma is a small town in the southwest part of the United States ofAmerica (USA). It is located 40 miles from Tulsa where the race riot occurred in 1921. The population of Slick was 422 in 1930 and 151 in 1950 (U.S. Census Bureau, 1952). Nathan Hare was born in Slick onApril 9, 1933, and graduated there from L’Ouverture High School during 1950 (Nathan Hare, personal communication, February 7, 2014). Thus, Slick produced one of the most renowned Black sociologists from the USAwho deserves to be remembered. Before he became an ancestor on June 10, 2024, Hare produced a record of great scholarship and other Black scholars can stand on his shoulders when analyzing social conditions (Cromartie, 2024). Sadly, a key problem in the USAis that the mass media tend to pay attention when great Black entertainers become ancestors but ignore or overlook great Black scholars when they become ancestors.

This essay will examine the contributions of the sociologist Nathan Hare to Black Studies and ethnic studies. Specifically, it will examine the vision and work contributions of Hare as a fountainhead and eminent scholar-activist of Black Studies and ethnic studies. This essay will

J. Vern Cromartie, Ed.D.

argue that it is imperative to counter the problem of the mass media promoting Black entertainers versus by giving due recognition to Black scholars, like Hare, who have become ancestors. The theoretical approach applied in this paper is theAfro-centric perspective expressed by Du Bois (1962). The research methodology for this study is the case study method. The research techniques involve content review of primary and secondary sources, and in-depth interviews with Hare.

Vision of Nathan Hare

As a Black man, Nathan Hare was well rounded and can be described as a visionary and Renaissance man. James P. Garrett (2024), who is also known as Jimmy Garrett, stated that Hare was “a great visionary.” He pointed out that Hare “risked his career and his life.” Likewise, Garrett said that Hare was the type of man who could handle himself in a college classroom as well as in a boxing ring. Hare believed that men and women should be able to live up to their intellectual and physical potential. On the one hand, Hare displayed that he could teach people like Kwame Ture (aka Stokley Carmichael) and Claude Brown. On the other hand, Hare displayed that he could defeat boxing opponents in the ring (Risen, 2024).

Before he arrived at San Francisco State, Hare demonstrated that he could teach with vision at Virginia State University and Howard University. Hare was admired by students at both institutions. However, despite his accomplishments as a scholar and prowess as a professional boxer, not everyone supported his dual careers. Akey person who fell in that category was the chairman of his Sociology Department at Howard University in 1963 who forced him to choose between a teaching career and boxing career. By that time, his boxing record was 22 and 6 losses as an amateur, and 2 wins and 1 lost as a professional (Manns, 1967; Risen, 2024).

Hare chose teaching and did not return to the ring until 1967 when he failed to be rehired at Howard University. That happened because of a letter Hare (1966) wrote to The Hilltop student newspaper criticizing an integrationist plan by President James Nabrit, Jr.; and his own on-campus activities with the Black Power Committee. He was slated to receive tenure in 1968 before Nabrit

dismissed him. Instead of attaining tenure at Howard University, Hare, in 1968, used his agency, persistence, and resiliency to boldly take on the responsibility at San Francisco State of serving as the first chairman of a Black Studies Department at a four-year college or university (Risen, 2024; “Black Power Professor,” 1967).

Contributions of Nathan Hare to Black Studies

In February 1968, Hare arrived at San Francisco State College (later San Francisco State University). According to Vice President Donald Garrity, he was officially hired at San Francisco State when President John Summerskill, “Appointed Dr. Nathan Hare to be Special Curriculum Supervisor at the rank of lecturer with pay based on academic rank of associate professor and with the assignment to ‘help design a curriculum of Black Studies” (Quoted in Orrick, 1969, p. 122). Garrity added: “Dr. Hare became a member of the staff of the vice president for academic affairs” (Quoted in Orrick, 1969, p. 122). Orrick reported that Hare “was hired by Summerskill at the advice of Garrett and over the objections of administration, staff, and some community people to coordinate the program” (p. 120). Hare was hired at San Francisco State after being recruited by James P. (Jimmy) Garrett (Rogers, 2009). The Black Studies Program was approved by the Academic Senate to become the Black Studies Department in September 1968 and implemented in September 1969. The implementation delay was caused, in part, by a campus-wide student strike that lasted from November 1968 to March 1969 (Orrick, 1969).

Hare came to San Francisco State with his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago and had previously taught at Howard University and Virginia State University. Robert Smith replaced John Summerskill and held the presidency of San Francisco State at the time the fledging Black Studies Department was initially founded in September 1968, and he hired Hare to be the chairman. Smith issued a report in November 1968 regarding Black Studies and ethnic studies wherein he noted that a “Black Studies Department has been authorized to be further

staffed as the program is approved at the College and in the Chancellor’s Office and as resources can be made available” (p. 1). By the time the Black Studies Department was implemented in September 1969, S.I. Hayakawa had replaced Smith as president. Later, it was Hayakawa who terminated Hare and replaced him with Robert Chrisman as the chairman (Nathan Hare, personal communication, February 7, 2014; Smith, 1968; Cromartie, 2017).

When he arrived at San Francisco State in February 1968, Hare found that the San Francisco State College Black Students Union (1968) had developed a full-fledged interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary curriculum. The classes were being offered in the Black Students Union’s Black Culture and Arts series under the aegis of the Experimental College and English Department, and a few other departments. The disciplines and fields of study included anthropology, dramatic arts, education, English, history, humanities, psychology, social science, and sociology. The classes were taught by Mary Lewis, John Shoka, Melvin Stuart, Abdul Karim, Harold Head, Sonia Sanchez, George Murray, Rolland Snellings, Christine Williams, Jimmy Garrett, D. Harrison, Lawrence Harrison, Daisy Dumas, Maruyama, Juan Martinez, and Jim Aliniece. Students were able to pick up pre-registration cards for the classes by going to the office of the Black Students Union. Some of the titles of the available classes were “Historical Development of Afroamerican Studies;” “Sociology of Black Oppression;” “Group Processes;” “Swahili;” and “Introduction to Avant Garde Jazz.”

According to the San Francisco State College Black Students Union (1968), the very first Black Studies course at San Francisco State was taught by Aubrey LaBrie, a Black man, during the Spring 1966 quarter. The title of the course was “Black Nationalism,” and it was offered “under the auspices of the General Education Elective Program (GEEP), a program for new and innovative classes in education” (p. 1). By the Fall 1966 quarter, under the leadership of James P. (Jimmy) Garrett, the Black Students Union initiated a Black Arts and Culture series under the aegis

of the Experimental College. Subsequently, Garrett took the initiative to bring Amiri Baraka (aka LeRoi Jones), Sonia Sanchez, Askia Muhammad Toure (aka Rolland Snellings), and others to San Francisco State to teach in the Black Arts and Culture series. Some of those people even managed to teach a few Black Studies courses in mainstream departments such as English. For example, Sonia Sanchez offered a course in that department dealing with Black literature.

After his arrival at San Francisco State, Hare found a campus embroiled in conflict. On the one hand, the Black Students Union and the Black Panther Party were pushing hard for a viable Black Studies Department. On the other hand, White conservative administrators, faculty, and students pushed back with blocking mechanisms, including his appointment. To address that social condition, on April 29, 1968, Hare (1969a) submitted his “A Conceptual Proposal for Black Studies” to college administration and Black Students Union. In his proposal, he outlined some core principles and key objectives for the Black Studies Department. One core principle and key objective was that the department would always strive to meet the needs of the Black community. Hare seemed to be drawing on the insight of Du Bois (1903) when he emphasized the need for Black students to recognize their responsibility and obligation to improve social conditions in the Black community.

In his proposal, Nathan Hare (1969a) detailed two pathways for a bachelor’s degree in Black Studies, namely a “Black arts concentration” and a “Behavioral and social sciences concentration.” The proposal was embraced by many Black people, including the Black Students Union on campus and the Black Panther Party in the community.However, it caused an alarm among many White administrators, faculty, and students. For example, Bunzel (1968), a White political science professor, felt the need to write an article wherein he discussed the way Hare was hired at San Francisco State and the proposal. Bunzel reported that the president of the college “appointed a man chosen by the Black Students’ Union to develop and coordinate a Black

Studies curriculum” (p. 23). He noted that the president made the appointment of Hare “without the knowledge of, or consultation with, the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Council of Academic Deans, or the faculty” (p. 23).

Although Hare did the best he could to bring his proposal to full fruition, the turmoil at San Francisco State could not be overcome. Barlow and Shapiro (1971) reported that, “By July of 1968, after six months of bargaining and nothing to show for it, Dr. Hare realized that there would be no Black Studies Department in the fall, assurances to the contrary notwithstanding” (p. 145).

Racial and ethnic conflict was present as a social force as was the five-month campus-wide strike.

Hare became a target with a bull’s eye on his head and Hayakawa pulled the trigger ending his career at San Francisco State and academia. As Garrett (2024) noted, Hare never received another job offer in academia as a chairman, director, tenure-track professor, or tenured professor.

After his departure from San Francisco State, Hare used his agency, persistence, and resiliency in a dynamic way. As was the case before he was hired at San Francisco State, Hare continued to publish many scholarly books and articles. Hare also co-founded The Black Scholar, which became a major scholarly journal in Black Studies. In addition, Hare co-founded with his wife Julia Hare, the Black Think Tank, a clearinghouse for research and publications on Black male and Black female relationships. The power couple also wrote some books together. Furthermore, Hare earned a second Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the California School for Professional Psychology and spent his remaining years as a private practice therapist (Hare, 2019; Cromartie, 2024).

Contributions of Nathan Hare to Ethnic Studies

Hare is a fountainhead of both Black Studies and ethnic studies. Regarding ethnic studies, it was Hare who coined the term during a session of the Academic Senate at San Francisco State in 1968. After another person suggested that the name of the new academic field of study should be

minority studies, Hare recommended that the name should be ethnic studies. Hare related that minority studies had a more negative connotation than ethnic studies. Hare’s recommendation was accepted by the Academic Senate and became the official descriptor for the Black Studies, Chicano studies, American Indian studies, and Asian American studies as collective endeavors in academia. As Jones (2024) pointed out, Hare rejected being called the “Father of Black Studies. However, Hare took pride in saying he coined the term ethnic studies. Furthermore, his ideas helped lead to the institution’s School of Ethnic Studies (Cromartie, 1993).

Summary and Conclusion

This essay examined the contributions of the sociologist Hare to Black Studies and ethnic studies. Specifically, it examined the vision and work contributions of Hare as a fountainhead and eminent scholar-activist of Black Studies and ethnic studies. This essay showed why it is imperative to counter the problem of the mass media over promoting Black entertainers versus giving due recognition to Black scholars, like Hare, who have become ancestors. Hare was placed at the center of the analysis by the utilization of theAfro-centric theoretical approach expressed by Du Bois (1962).

When he became an ancestor during June 2024 in a San Francisco hospital after a long illness, Hare left a compelling record as a scholar-activist. Hare paved the way for many department chairpersons to follow him at four-year colleges and universities. Although the record indicates that he was not the first chairman of a Black Studies Department in operation at a higher education institution, Hare left an indelible mark in academia. The first chairman of a Black Studies Department in operation at a higher education was William Haralson at Merritt College, a two-year college in Oakland, California (Cromartie, 2017).

Nevertheless, Hare was placed on a “Whitelist” and never received a tenure-track, tenured, or chairmanship position at any college or university after his removal from San Francisco State by Hayakawa. During the 1980s, San Francisco State almost offered him a tenure-track position but

the powers that be kept it from going through (Hare, 1989; T’Shaka, 2024). Although many decades have passed since he was fired at San Francisco State, Hare is remembered by many as a stalwart who paid a tremendous price to stand up for what he believed was right. His friends and associates felt a huge sense of loss after he became an ancestor. Many paid homage to Hare during his memorial service at Third Baptist Church in San Francisco on July 26, 2024, including his former student Sharon Jones (2024).

References

Barlow, W., & Shapiro, P. (1971). An end to silence: The San Francisco State College student movement in the ’60s. New York: Pegasus.

Black power professor with a punch. (1967). Hare (Nathan and Julia) Papers, series 5. Carton 12. Folders 1–9. Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.

Bunzel, J. (1968, fall). Black Studies at San Francisco State. Public Interest, 13, 22–38.

Cromartie, J. V. (1993). Attitudes of University of California and California State University tenured sociologists toward an ethnic studies general education requirement. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI.

Cromartie, J. V. (2017). Reappraisal of the Black Panther party, 1966–1971: Its contributions to the Black Studies movement at Merritt College and San Francisco State University. In Hawaii International Conferences, Hawaii International Conference on Education 2017 Proceedings (pp. 718–44). Honolulu: Hawaii International Conferences.

Cromartie, J. V. (2024). Nathan Hare: A selected bibliography. Jeremiah B. Sanderson Leadership Institute Occasional Paper No. 79. Pittsburg, CA: Jeremiah B. Sanderson Leadership Institute.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (1958). A vista of ninety years. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, MS 312, Series 1. Correspondence. Special Collections & University Archives, University Libraries, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Amherst, MA.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of Black folk. Chicago: Fawcett.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (1962, November 15). Proposed plans for an encyclopedia Africana. W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, MS 312, Series 1. Correspondence. Special Collections & University Archives, University Libraries, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Amherst, MA.

Garrett, J. P. (2024, July 26). Expression. Speech presented at the “In Loving Memory of Dr.

Nathan Hare, Memorial Services,” San Francisco, California.

Hare, N. (1966, September 14). War on Books. The Hilltop, 2.

Hare, N. (1969a). A conceptual proposal for Black Studies. In William H. Orrick, Jr., Shut It Down! A College in Crisis, San Francisco State College October, 1968–April, 1969: A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (pp. 159–167). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Hare, N. (1989). Hare’s hiring at San Francisco State, 1989. Hare (Nathan and Julia) Papers, BANC MSS 2014/173, Series 6, Carton 13, Folder 30-31, Box 1.

Hare, N. (2019). She always stood by me: In praise of Julia Hare. Oakland: Dennis Jeffrey.

Jones, S. (2024, July 26). Expression. Speech presented at the “In Loving Memory of Dr. Nathan Hare, Memorial Services,” San Francisco, California.

Manns, A. (1967, September 15). Court reinstates 4; Expelled student back for 1st term. The Hilltop, 3.

Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.

Orrick, W. H., Jr. (1969). Shut it down! A college in crisis, San Francisco State College October, 1968–April, 1969: A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence (pp. 159–167). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Risen, C. (2024, June 22). Nathan Hare, 91; Founded first Black Studies program. New York Times, Section B, 11.

Rogers, I. (2009, June). Remembering the Black campus movement: An oral history interview with James P. Garrett. Journal of Pan-African Studies, 2, 30–41.

San Francisco State College Black Students Union. (1968). Black Studies curriculum spring 1968 [Pamphlet]. S. F. State Strike Collection, UARC0037, “Black Student Union” Folder, Item 3, University Archives, J. Paul Leonard Library, San Francisco State University, San

Francisco, CA.

Smith, R. (1968, November 4). President’s Smith statement on Black and ethnic studies. On the record, 1–2.

T’Shaka, O. (2024, July 1). The passing of Dr. Nathan Hare, “a great one.” San Francisco State University College of Ethnic Studies https://ethnicstudies.sfsu.edu

U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1952). Census Population, 1950. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.

CONCLUSION

Conclusion

As we close this 2025 National Council of Black Studies Annual Report, we stand at a critical juncture for both Black Studies as a discipline and the broader struggle for the liberation of people of African descent worldwide. The essays collected here represent not merely scholarly contributions but urgent interventions in a moment of intensifying challenges and emerging possibilities that our challenges always come along with. Together, they weave a tapestry of analysis, critique, and vision that honors our intellectual traditions while charting pathways forward through increasingly complex terrain.

Several key themes emerge across these diverse contributions that point toward collective strategies for advancement and liberation. First, the necessity of historical consciousness runs like a thread through these works. These scholars demonstrate how rigorous historical inquiry reveals both the persistence of oppressive systems and the enduring resistance traditions that guide our present struggles. Second, they collectively affirm the power of culturally grounded methodologies and epistemologies. Our contributors demonstrate how African-centered ways of knowing provide essential tools for both scholarly inquiry and the practical work of liberation. These approaches stand in stark contrast to the Eurocentric and other anti-Black/African frameworks that have long dominated the academy, offering alternatives that center on African/Black experiences, selfdetermination, values, and knowledge systems. Third, the imperative of community engagement and reciprocity resonates throughout this collection. Our scholarship must continue to serve the concrete needs of Black communities while being enriched by community knowledge and priorities. Fourth, these essays collectively emphasize the importance of pan-African solidarity across geographical and cultural boundaries. By strengthening these transnational bonds, we enhance our collective capacity for transformative change. Finally, this issue underscores the urgent need to protect and strengthen Black Studies as an

institutional presence in the academy and in our communities. As the West African proverb warns, “If your house is burning, there is no time to go hunting”: we must address the immediate threats to our discipline before pursuing ancillary agendas. The report highlights the intensifying challenges facing Black Studies programs while offering strategic responses that can strengthen our institutional foundations against these attacks. As we confront the multiple crises of our time from ongoing state violence to environmental degradation, from technological surveillance to cultural erasure the insights gathered in this report provide both analytical frameworks and practical strategies for resistance and transformation. They remind us that the mission of Black Studies has always extended beyond the academy to encompass the broader struggle for Black liberation worldwide. The National Council of Black Studies reaffirms its commitment to supporting scholars, students, communities, and activists in this essential work. Drawing on the wisdom of our ancestors and the creativity of new generations, we continue to build intellectual and organizational infrastructure for the liberation we pursue. Despite the trials and moments of darkness, our collective efforts academic and activist, local and global, theoretical and practical are sure to bring forth the dawn of liberation.