2023 NCBS Annual Report

The Discipline

the African World 2023 Report:

and

An Annual Report on the State of Affairs for Africana Communities

From the National Council of Black Studies Annual Report Committee

Editor

Report Preparation Team

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 the official positions of the National Council of Black Studies.

Statement from the National Council for Black Studies President

by Valerie Grim, PhD Academic Excellence | Social Responsibility | Cultural Grounding

As the world moves forward in 2023, there is a great sense among many people, especially African Americans, that human beings and human life are not worth much, not valued in such a way that people who are presumed to be living in various marginalized spaces are important to the well-being and progress of society. From the perspective of some, much is to be desired in terms of fairness, equal access and opportunity, peace and justice for all, and unconditional love for every human being. Because of experiences and realities associated with the above thoughts, the National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) has always positioned itself to offer different points of view and paths forward to different, but not deficient intellectual and creative spaces. NCBS stands for justice for all and has been engaged in the struggle for intellectual justice and social inclusion for decades. Since 1975, historical records show that NCBS has been a vanguard for initializing ideas and practices that encouraged rights and opportunities for Blacks in the United States, continental Africa, and throughout the world. This organization, whose core values are academic excellence and social responsibility, has been action-oriented and has supported its members in their intersection of research, creative activity, pedagogy, and practice.

For a people who have spent centuries pushing back against every form of bigotry, NCBS hopes that its 2023 NCBS Annual Report will spur imagination and creativity in teaching, research, and community engagement. Ways of being and knowing that have evolved from practices that have sustained Africana/Black Studies are illuminated in this report. Among the

many objectives of this 2023 NCBS Annual Report is for its contents to help African-descended peoples better understand how to work together to build and broaden self-agency as communities labor to establish their own internal security.

This 2023 NCBS Annual Report is one of many ways that African-descended people are heard. The report, as a living idea, was created as a space where professors and teachers, scholars and activists, and creative persons and community-engaged practitioners offer insights with their words, their arts, and their writings. Content that evolved from these pages offers ideas and strategies useful in addressing Black world needs. This report contains many thought-provoking ideas and suggested practices that, when fully developed into utilization and practice, will challenge choking acts that are squeezing the life out of African Americans and Africans in the diaspora. This annual report calls us into action, to a reimagined, cultural, and grounded practice where African-descended peoples create, practice, and own simultaneously everything in which we are engaged. The outcome of such foundational thinking and practice cannot help but cause us to live from victory (not for victory), where our people are lifted out of every impoverished box, thereby springing them into a life of spiritual, mental, emotional, financial, communal wellbeing and health.

This 2023 NCBS Annual Report invites readers to think about big questions. There are questions that push us to think about the usefulness of digitization and digital humanities for African American creativity and entrepreneurship and futuristic imaginings regarding African self-inclusivity and self-help. Other questions this annual report raises concern the health, mental and physical, of African Americans, including how African diaspora communities are redefining Black beauty to feel better about themselves in such a way that love for self grows. Still other questions come into view when readers are faced with the reality of how a constructed idea of

Black beauty has influenced thoughts about Black criminality. While some have seen a constructed criminality of African Americans used as a reason to abuse them, others continue to point to such thoughts as a reason to call for justice for African-descended people. Still other issues raised in the report encouraged African Americans to experience the empowerment that emanates from cultural grounding and value gained from encountering ancestral wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. This kind of cultural grounding provides approaches to understanding the importance of accountability in assessing how African-descended people move forward in building community and relationships with each other that sustain Africans throughout the diaspora.

Our hope for the creation of each NCBS annual report is that it offers insight and provides ways to think about how to train and build the next and future Africana/Black Studies communities. We are pleased that in this iteration of the report, dialogues are provided that address the state of the discipline, achieving social responsibility through community engagement, and opportunities to consider how some public policies will impact African American families. In our effort to train and build, the NCBS annual report will continue to engage the thoughts of the youth, scholars, activists, creative artists, and community practitioners. We are all in the struggle for complete and total liberation together. The space provided by this report is an opportunity for us all to work together.

In each of the NCBS annual reports, the readers will be left with a quiet question that resonates large and deep in our thoughts and realities: Where are we now and where do we go from here? The content of the annual reports aims to address this question from disciplinary, scholarly, pedagogical, and community-practitioner perspectives. Whatever the diverse answers

we devise to the question above, the reality is that we must TRAVEL, must MOVE together to save and better ourselves.

Dr. Valerie Grim, President National Council for Black Studies

Overview

An Engaged Scholarship: Critical Intellectual Initiatives and Transformative Social Practice

by Maulana Karenga California State University, Long Beach

This issue of the 2023 NCBS Annual Report continues to offer a wide and inclusive range of the diverse approaches and concerns that constitute, shape, and drive the ongoing development and practice of Black/Africana Studies. The annual report strives to speak to an equally wide range of readers scholars, activists, professionals, researchers, students, and the general Black Studies reader focusing on current and continuing issues, questions, and challenges facing African Americans and the world African community as a whole. And it seeks to foreground and foster research, discourse, deep thinking, and transformative practice in the academy, community, society, and the world. Thus, it invites and affirms those seriously engaged in developing, posing, and discussing new and useful ways to understand and transform the life conditions and capacities of African peoples in the interest of achieving African and human good and the well-being of the world.

Frantz Fanon (1968, pp. 314–316) set for us the task of thinking globally, saying, “Let us reconsider the question of humankind,” and let us dare to reimagine and bring into being a new man and woman, and with other oppressed, struggling, and progressive people of the world, let us dare to “start a new history of humankind.” This points toward and reaffirms the importance of NCBS President Valerie Grim’s assertion that “This 2023 NCBS Annual Report invites readers to think about big questions” and to turn them into a transformative social practice. In

doing this, we must, as W. E. B. DuBois advises us, begin with ourselves as a foundational point and place of departure and then reach out and relate rightfully to others in the world. He (1973, p. 95) says, “Starting with present conditions and using the facts and knowledge of the present situation of [African Americans], the [Black] university expands toward the possession and the conquest of all knowledge.” In a word, this means using our own cultures and lives as a foundation and framework for understanding and engaging the world.

All the overarching categories of issues raised and engaged by the contributors to this issue represent “big questions,” critical current and continuing questions about how we live our lives, do our work, and wage our dual struggle to be ourselves and free ourselves. This is to say to be ourselves as African persons and peoples without penalty, punishment, or oppression in various savage and subtle ways and to free ourselves from all forms of domination, deprivation, and degradation.

These overarching categories under which the essays are written deal with big and critical questions of digital equity, health, crime and justice, culture, the state of Black/Africana Studies, community engagement, the voice of Black youth, and commentary on where we are and where we are to go. My contribution here is to reaffirm the criticality and current urgency of these categories and issues and to offer some commentary on their meaning for Black Studies activistscholars and African people as issues to study, understand, and engage in the most ethical, effective, and expansive ways.

Clearly, one of the most important issues facing African peoples in the world is the digitization of human life and human reality and the implications this poses for human wellbeing and human rights (Grimes, 2017; Powell, 2018). Thus, the issue of digital equity as a critical concern and point of focus speaks to more than digital access, possession of digital

devices, and digital literacy. Rather, it speaks to how we participate in ways that are dignityaffirming, life-enhancing, personally and collectively empowering, and contributive to the wellbeing of the world. Lacking these conditions, not only are Africans marginalized and excluded from the benefits of these technologies, but they also become willing or unwilling, conscious or unconscious instruments of others’ policies and practices. And therefore, they are not able to be self-conscious agents of their own agenda, of their own life and liberation, and of their own selfunderstanding and self-assertion in the world. Clearly, mastering knowledge and space in constantly developing technologies has implications not only for the present but also future, and Africana futurism and Black Studies can contribute definitively to opening up and securing adequate and generative space for Black people (Anderson and Jones, 2015). As James Stewart (2016, p. 68) maintains, following DuBois’s vision for 2150, if Afrofuturism and Black Studies ground themselves in “historical analyses and a detailed knowledge of contemporary technology trajectories and its implications,” it will be able to “play an important role in creating a brave, equity-affirming and sustainable new world for 2150 and beyond.” This is so, but it must also recognize and resist technology’s repressive and fantasy-producing application and pursue utopian and futuristic thought as a liberatory project, a criticism of the existing order as a distorted and deformed conception of the real and the possible. And thus, it must direct its musings and deep thinking toward reaffirming and reenforcing Black Studies’ central mission, phased in Kawaida terms as constantly achieving and enhancing African and human good and the well-being of the world.

The critical question of African people’s health and well-being are intimately and inseparably linked and related to the invaluable presence and performance of Black healthcare providers and the conception they and we have of what constitutes health and well-being (Byrd

& Clayton, 2002; Oladele et al., 2022). Here we understand health from a Kawaida philosophical framework (Karenga, 2008) in comprehensive and expansive ways. And thus, “We define health, wellness and well-being as the absence of disease, injury and impairment and the presence of physical, emotional, mental and socioeconomic conditions and capacities to live a good and meaningful life” (Karenga, 2022, p. C1). This includes also conditions and capacities to “fulfill our relational obligations and rightful expectations of our loved ones and respected others; develop our potential; and come into the fullness of ourselves.” It is in this context that we see health as a human right and pose an obligation to pursue it in righteous and relentless struggle. This unavoidably raises the question of healthcare and healthcare providers and how they and their patients are engaged and cared for as an ethical and people-serving practice. The question of our self-conception as persons and peoples is at the very core of the process and practice of being ourselves and freeing ourselves psychologically, culturally, and socially from bondage and oppression. Indeed, how we understand ourselves determines and often dictates how we assert ourselves in the world. W. E. B. DuBois (1973) called into question the racist problematization of Black people and the gross and grievous harm this has imposed on them in their striving to live a free, good, and meaningful life. And Haji Malcolm, in a 1962 speech in Los Angeles, condemned the pathological racist society that problematizes Black people and teaches them “to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet,” including the texture of their hair, their color, their nose and lips, and their own kind. Here, issues are raised and engaged about the self-determined standards around the beauty, good, and worth of the African body and the African person, and the issues of psychological health and well-being are engaged by necessity.

The question of crime and justice, or rather crime and injustice, endures as a current and ongoing critical question and challenge for Black people. It is rooted in the pathology of racism and racist oppression and reflected in police violence, mass incarceration, and institutional injustice at virtually every level of society (Alexander, 2012). Early in its history, U S society racialized crime and criminalized the Black race (McIntyre, 1984). Crime was defined as a Black problem and character trait, not an American problem and character trait, even when the criminality and crimes of Whites are massive, national, and international. There was then something definitionally developed as “Black crime” but no “White crime” and “Black on Black crime” but no “White on White crime” even though Whites are killed by other Whites in war and peace in the millions.

Thus, a racialized and racist vocabulary is constructed and provided for Blacks to engage in self-indictment and the conflation of victims with victimizers, diverting attention from the greater victimization by the dominant society, its ruling race/class and the average white Joe and Jane infected with the pathology of racism, a psychological disorder (Poussaint, 2002). In a word, such a racialization of crime suggests racial roots of crime rather than its social roots, i.e., societal conditions of oppression, but also social Darwinist, daily, and pervasive models of force, violence, and merciless assault on the vulnerable.

Another critical question engaged here is the use and misuse of the media, especially as a tool for spreading racist pathology and justifying oppression. But there’s also a need ever present for the development and support of a conscious and committed independent Black media. Ida B.

Wells-Barnett (2014, p. 12) taught the importance of the press or media in the Black liberation struggle, saying that “the ways to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” And she (1991, p. 42) argued that “the people must know before they act, and there is no educator to

compare with the oppressed.” Haji Malcolm also recognized the power of the press or media and understood that it could be and was constantly used as an essential and powerful element in the structure and practice of oppression.

He stated that the media is one of the most powerful institutions on earth, especially in this country. And he (1965, p. 93) asserted that “the press [media] is powerful in its image making role; it can make a criminal look like a victim and a victim look like a criminal.” Haji Malcolm defines such media as “accessories to the crime” of oppression, whether in their reports on police violence in the U.S. or the coverage of the imperialist counterrevolutionary suppression of independence in the Congo. Thus, he says “they [media] make oppression and exploitation and war look like an act of humanitarianism ” Again, then, the need is for a socially conscious, responsible, and committed independent media as well as initiatives to demand and achieve equitable space in public and private media projects.

The critical question of culture and cultural grounding is at the heart and center of Black Studies as both an intellectual discipline and a social practice. It is the source and sanction of what it means to be African in the world, giving a people grounding in defining its identity, purpose, and direction. By culture here I mean “the totality of sensitivities, thought and practice by which a people creates itself, celebrates, sustains and develops itself and introduces itself to history and humanity” (Karenga, 2016, p. 9). And these initiatives take place in at least seven critical areas: history, religion (spirituality and ethics), social organization, political organization, economic organization, creative production (art, music, literature, dance, etc.), and ethos, the collective psychology and self-conception achieved as a result of activity in other areas.

It is here that Molefi Asante’s (1998, p. 2) concept and theory of Afrocentricity, Africancenteredness, is essential, for it speaks to the need to understand Africans in their own context.

He states that “Afrocentricity . . . means literally placing African ideas at the center of any analysis that involves African thought and behavior.” And key also to Asante’s stress on African centeredness is his position that it is a theory and methodology that stresses African agency and treats Africans as active subjects of history rather than objects or passive victims. In a word, Asante (2007, p. 109) states, “The Afrocentric idea is unthinkable without African agency.” This stress on the defining character Afrocentric methodology leads him (1992, p. 22) to argue that, even at the beginning, we knew that Black Studies was not “the mere aggregation of courses about our experiences but had to be courses taught from what we called at the time ‘the black perspective’”—a culturally grounded, African-centered perspective.

Clearly, critical cultural grounding and African centeredness is a practice of dialoging with African culture, constantly asking it questions and seeking from it answers to the fundamental challenges and issues facing African people and humanity as a whole. The dialog with African culture is a three-pronged initiative involving critical, depthful, and comprehensive study. Indeed, as Kawaida philosophy teaches concerning this initiative, this our duty: to know our past and honor it, to engage our present and improve it, and imagine a whole new future and forge it in the most ethical, effective, and expansive ways (Karenga, 2016a, p. 44).

Here the practice of sankofa is appropriate and an indispensable point of departure for all our projects—to reach back, not only to retrieve rich resources from the continent of Africa but also from the diaspora. And we are not only to reach back and retrieve from ancient sources but also from more recent sources, uncovering and appropriating the best ideas and practices of our history and culture and using them to engage and improve our present and imagine and work and struggle to bring into being a new future worthy of the name and history of Africa and human in their fullest and most fundamental interpretations and expressions. There are, as these essays

demonstrate, ever new and endless sources for doing Black Studies, and that which has been understudied most comes into focus and is foregrounded and pursued, especially the rich retentions of African cultural sensitivities, thought, and practices, overlooked and hidden under a myriad of efforts to deny and diminish our African origins, and thus we prove ourselves worthy of our place and placement in American society. But also it represents a choice of priorities and thus might deprive us of a rich source of Black culture and studies that reaffirm thought and practice. Crystal Temple defines her seminal work on cultural mythology as “a priority corrective” for this limited and limiting choosing. She (2020, p. 216) asserts the narratives told and imagined about our lives, work, creativity, resilience, and struggles in this country represent and reflect a multidimensional process, project, and practice. “The tools of Black cultural mythology give us confident dexterity to analyze critically the paths and tributaries between encounter, resistance, enslavement, freedom and self-determination, and how this journey deserves to be experienced as sacred memory.”

All through this commentary and in each of the essays here, the emphasis is on constantly developing Africana Studies and the importance of community engagement as defining features of the discipline. At its beginning formation during the Black Power phase of the Black Freedom Movement, Nathan Hare, who conceptualized its first curriculum and department, called for Black Studies to keep its original mission, which was fundamentally transformative and emancipatory. He (1972, p. 33) stated that “Black Studies is at best a mass movement and mass struggle based on the notion that education belongs to the people and the idea is to give it back to them. Hence, most crucial to Black Studies, Black education, aside from its ideology of liberation, would be the community component of its methodology.” And the discipline of Black/Africana Studies that came into being in the midst of a liberation struggle committed itself

to producing scholars, scholarship, and social policies and practice relevant to an improved and liberated life for Black people and the requisite struggle to achieve this. Thus, as in this report, there is, of necessity, a sustained focus on generating thought, social policy and social practice committed to a real rupture with the established order of things and a radical reconception and reconstruction of society and generative initiatives contributive to similar transformative processes in the world.

Certainly, if Black Studies is to maintain its vitality, vision, and growth, the continuing education and hiring of a critical body of new scholar-activists is imperative. As I (1988, p. 400) have stated, a discipline requires “a community of scholars within the discipline that are primarily and ultimately responsible for its definition, defense and development ” And this requires “the careful and rigorous preparation and formation of new scholars to perpetuate and constantly evaluate and develop the discipline and defend and maintain its integrity and ensure that it continuously achieves and advances its essential overarching goals of cultural grounding, academic excellence and social responsibility” (Karenga, 2018, p. 592).

Stewart (2004, p. 25), stressing the self-perpetuation of the discipline as a vital interest and practice of Africana Studies, and thus the need for young scholars being carefully trained for and rising to the task, states that “It is a multigenerational project that requires that subsequent generations build on a solid foundation of activist scholarship.” Moreover, he (2004, p. 23) notes that Black Studies, borrowing from and building on the educational legacy and emphasis of W.

E. B. DuBois, must continue to commit itself to “looking back to understand the present; institutionalizing itself in centers of learning while maintaining its strong ties with and active involvement in Black communities; becoming a self-perpetuating enterprise; and looking

forward in efforts to contribute to the development of viable public policies that can ensure Black progress into and during the twenty-first century.”

Asante’s closing commentary on where we are and where we should go is also a big, complex, and critical question and speaks to the continuing challenge of affirmation and opposition, constant renewal and relentless resistance. He rightfully reaffirms the role of young Black Studies scholaractivists who are committed to the overarching guiding principles of NCBS: cultural grounding, academic excellence, and social responsibility. These principles, however, still must be interpreted and practiced in Afrocentric ways or they are stripped of their meaning for the discipline and the community as well as its scholars and practitioners. Confident about going forward, he (1992, pp. 28–29) says concerning the future of the discipline and succeeding generation of scholar-activists, “They will find in their own time and energy and will to carry out their intellectual mission as we are trying to carry out ours in order to create new spaces for human discussion,” and of course, good in the world. It was Amilcar Cabral (1973, p. 43) who urged us in the struggle for the liberation of African people, building on the works of Haji Sekou Toure to constantly move forward “on the upward paths of (our) own culture.” This means, again and always, that we are to conscientiously and continuously dialog with our culture, extracting its ancient, ongoing, and varied richness and using it to ground ourselves, orient ourselves and direct our studies and our lives toward good and expansive ends. And in our valuable study and work, may we remember, as I have (2006, p. 410) said, “Our project is an open-textured and open-ended one, and we who are involved in this intellectual and practical work can only, in the words of the ancestors, wish of the divine guardian spirit of sacred writings and teachings: ‘That he may grant [us] life, prosperity and health, blessings of being on earth. Knowledge of Maat like the One who created it, and a depthful grasp of all that is yet to be done ’” Hotep. Ashe. Heri

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Alexander, Michelle (2012). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness New York: The New Press.

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DIGITAL EQUITY

Digital Exclusivity by Inclusivity: Blacks and ‘the’ Digicultural Paradox of Afrofuturism

by Kehbuma Langmia, PhD Howard University, Washington DC Cathy Hughes School of Communications Department of Strategic, Legal, and Management Communication

Behind the Broken Mirror of Hope

As Black Panther 2 hit the airwaves November 11, 2022, Afrofuturists like some of us were holding our breath. Is this movie the launching path to Black technological advancement void of epistemic violence or another experiment of fictionalization that bears little resemblance to Black experiential reality? As a Wakandarized Afrofuturistic scholar burning in the nonstop oven of persistent Westernized hegemonic culture, all one can say about this second Black Panther movie launch is that we hope to dream of a world void of Eurocentric White gaze over our shoulders, checking if we are up to par with technological advancement with the rest of the world or not. In case our realities are distorted and our vision doomed, then like Jerome Turner says in Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman movie, our history was already written by the lightning in the sky. So, we may just continue to limp in circles hoping for the chariot to swing low as it comes forth to carry us home . . . But that cannot be true because it is Wakanda forever. Black

cybernetic users are caught between being inclusive in the superhighway of new digital technology and being excluded at the same time.

If Afrofuturism is not going to be a dream deferred, Black communicologists and scholars alike need to rethink a strategic goal that makes Black digital communications on all digital platforms meaningfully inclusive. Right now, in the words of Marcus Breen, most digital “proletariats” (Breen, 2011) whose labor as unpaid content providers and consumers has only helped to enrich the pockets of White Western capitalists. Auxier’s (2020) Pew Research study has shown that from the point of view of political digital activism, Blacks have outpaced Whites in social media presence. The amount of social media traffic in the last six years by mostly Black users before and after the brutal murder of George Floyd has quadrupled. Hashtags on Twitter, like #BlackLivesMatter, created after the untimely death of Trayvon Martin, and others have followed suit, like #GirlsLikeUs, #OscarSoWhite, #TWiB (this world in Black Nation); #RhodesMustFall, and #FeesMustFall (Black student protest in South Africa). And hashtags like #SayHerName, a term created by Kimberly Crenshaw when she witnessed the muted response, or better still, downright media silence on the murder of “Black transgender women in the United States” (Langmia, 2021, p. 153) have mushroomed in cyberspace. But what does that mean? Are we seeing another replica of the Arab Spring digital activism that toppled the dictatorial regimes of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt from 2010–2012, thinking it may have a cascading effect in the U.S. in the form of policy changes towards Black inclusivity for political power-wielding? Not so fast!

Jim Morrison is reputed to have said, “He whoever controls the media controls the mind” (Pacheco, 2017, para. 1). Today, digital communication platforms on the internet constitute the oceanic melting pot for interactive human exchanges. But who controls the format and structure

of this digital media that is pregnant with messages from all and sundry on planet earth? Not one of the media giant companies, like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or TikTok, is owned and controlled by a Black person. Safiya Umoja Noble has brilliantly captured this vexing phenomenon in her 2018 magnum opus Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. In this book, she demonstrates how a simple Google search of the term “Black girls” (Noble, 2018, p. 17) can uproot a plethora of derogatory sexualized descriptions of Black women and girls. The negative portrayals of the Black girl image by far outweigh the positive ones. Imagine the psychosocial effect of a teenage high school girl reading these descriptions of their kind on the internet and how that can immediately traumatize her into developing a feeling of low self-esteem that may last for who knows how long. This is what one gets when ahistorical and pseudo-cultural experts are employed on certain internet sites to input information about others without proper checks and balances. Siva Vaidhyanathan has buttressed this view of Safiya Umoja Noble with the 2011 publication of The Googlization of Everything (and Why We Should Worry). This statement from the introduction to the book has venerated the fears of Noble (2018), “Google is not only ‘creatively destroying’ established players in various markets but also altering the very ways we see the world and ourselves. If Google is the dominant way we experience both the local and the global, then it has remarkable power to set agendas and alter perceptions” (Vaidhyanathan, 2011, p. 7). This is where ownership and control are keys to recovering and rewriting the wrongful descriptions of Black girls’ images on the world wide web. Therefore, as a content provider and consumer, the Black person’s mind is under a certain invisible, controlled mechanism. The Black user is part of the human race and not a subset to be lurking in the periphery or sitting in the margins as a parasitic entity yearning for respect and appraisal from the global community.

The heavy sackcloth of Black “vulnerability” since the Emancipation Proclamation is still very much present today. Its shadow is still reflected online on the world wide web. That vulnerability began with the transatlantic slave trade and subsequent colonization of Black bodies and minds. This traumatic journey has psycho-cognitively wheelbarrowed the Black person to the curb for quite a long time. S/he is a mediatized pariah, in the digital sense of the word. Black young digital media consumers populate content on sites/platforms they don’t own or control. The profiteering by mostly White owners of these platforms, like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, from the Black content providers makes the Black user nothing short of a digital pariah. This “pariahtization” has continued unabated; it has been stretched to both electronic and digital media, where the Black person both on the continent of Africa and in the diaspora has not answered the issue of ownership presence but rather has maintained a participatory presence. Consequently, the Black user does not control the content of media messages because ownership of these entities by members of the Black race has continuously remained dismal. The million-dollar question is why is this so? Owners determine structural and policy directions for a given media platforms. If truth is an elusive concept, then perception of factual truths differs from person to person depending on one’s sociocultural and political system of reality. The Black person often seeks jobs in mega transnational radio and television stations where he/she is employed as an underdog, a pariah to gatekeep, toe the line, or be fired. This is still the chain on the feet of the employee regardless of any veneer of objectivity that this employee may want to transmit on the air. This is where the paradox of belonging on the electronic and digital communication superhighway becomes paradoxical. On the one hand, the media expert feeds the Black population with junk to satisfy the political thirst of the master/owner, and at the same time, this servant of the people who wants objective news

reporting is feeding on the taxpayers’ monetary rewards to take care of his/her family. This conundrum of being a pariah is the unfortunate e-tragedy of most Black persons in the media space. Just maybe we may reluctantly adopt the saga of digital Blackface on the internet as opined by Lawrence Michelle Jackson in her 2017 article in Teen Vogue. But that too is like oiling the chains on the Black person’s feet rather than taking them off completely for the unlimited freedom of ownership and control. On the other hand, activism on Twitter in the postGeorge Floyd ignominious white supremacy saga has become the e-sociological public sphere where sympathy for the Black cause has gained traction. Michela Musto of the Clayman Institute has demonstrated this in her 2020 article by showing how Kimberly Crenshaw’s #SayHerName was meant to draw attention to the plight of African American women who have become victims of police brutality in the United States. This too has been effective in galvanizing popular support globally. Therefore, political digicultural activism has been a success in bringing about awareness at the same time, the Twitter hashtag #defundthepolice has mushroomed in the hands of both the detractors as well as political junkies to provoke policy change that can stem the tide of merciless, unprovoked killings of Black men and women at the hands of the police force in the United States.

Ghosts of #BlackLivesMatter

Impactful online activism for the Black race can be significant if a pan-African movement-style conglomerate of ideas from all and sundry that make up this race can be organized. There is a plethora of conferences, panel discussions, open forums, and symposia, in Zoomified style, that are organized around the entire globe to bring unity of purpose for the Black person. But none of these come-togethers have been more impactful for the cause of the Black suffering, from a socio-cognitive perspective, than the #BlackLivesMatter Twitter

campaign by all the races in the entire world at large. Our hope is that what let the ghosts of the Arab Spring, through the gargantuan use of social media, bring down three dictators Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt does not haunt BLM. The spirit of the movement caught these three nations unaware, and all they did was swim to the flow of the wavelengths, but as soon as the dictators were out of power, the political status quo resurfaced, and everything went on as if the Arab Spring was a sudden flash of lightening or a quick monsoon wind that goes without leaving any trail behind in its wake. BLM has created an anthem of national (without territorial boundary) Black essence that has outstretched its wings to other Blacks in the entire diaspora, including Brazil, where marches were organized to condemn the actions of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who placed his knee on the neck of a Black George Floyd for over eight minutes, suffocating him to death. If cybercultural activism championed on the world wide web by the presence of #BlackTwitter, #ThisWorldinBlackNation, #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, etc. do not force us Blacks to wear tied shoes with our hands tied behind our backs and run a distance to nowhere but rather choose words carefully on these platforms, echoing the “deferred” dreams of our forebears, like C L R James of Jamaica, W E B Dubois of North Africa, and Kwame Nkrumah of Africa, to unify the Black race against the onslaught of constant Western bashing. We need to own and manage our own digital platforms.

Conclusion

This paper sought out to problematize digital culture among Black users and to lay the groundwork that is necessary for Black cyberspace users and content providers to rethink the future of Black participation. The younger generation, most often referred to as Gen Z, has suddenly become addicted to social media, triggered largely by the global COVID-19 pandemic

that confined everyone to becoming laptop warriors in their homes. Their consumption of messages on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter has made adults scratch their heads as to what kind of future lurks in the horizon with respect to digital media communications. The constant effects of cyberbullying that go on unchecked and, most importantly, the rate of mental illness suffered by Black kids with little or no health support system are causes for concern. With no political will for policy change that will help Black social media users and with no Black ownership of the most influential digital media companies, as this paper has enumerated, where these issues can be tackled with racial and cultural knowledge brought to the fore, these issues will continue to plague this generation and, just maybe, the next generation to come. Black digital media experts and scholars need to seek ways to address these concerns in the not-too-distant future.

References

Auxier, B. (2020, December 11). Social media continues to be important political outlets for Black Americans. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2020/12/11/social-media-continue-to-be-important-political-outlets-for-blackamericans/

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HEALTH

Black Healthcare Providers Matter

by Trina L. Gipson-Jones, PhD, RN Assistant Professor

School of Health Sciences

Stockton University

Shanea Brown, PharmD, RPh

Director of Experiential Education and Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice

Hampton University School of Pharmacy

Che Matthew Harris MD, MS, FACP Assistant Professor of Medicine

Collaborative Inpatient Medicine Service

Division of Hospital Medicine

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Joint Appointment in Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center

Police brutality is not the only racial injustice killing Black people; historical and present-day medical atrocities and health disparities span 400 years of United States history. Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd's deaths galvanized the

U.S. and championed the call that Black lives matter. Similarly, the healthcare system reaffirms the importance of examining racism in healthcare by supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and hosting White Coats 4 Black Lives events. The fight for health equality continues. In multiple health outcomes, Blacks lag behind non-Hispanic Whites. For example, during 2014–2017, the Black maternal mortality rate was three times that of non-Hispanic Whites, even after controlling for age and income (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2022). Systemic racism has a significant impact on Black infant mortality rates. According to the Office of Minority Health (OMH), in 2018, Black/African Americans had 2.3 times the infant mortality rate as non-Hispanic Whites. However, there is a gleam of hope, as Black patients have elected to receive more preventive care in racially compatible patient/provider relationships (Alsan et al., 2019). Furthermore, when mothers are cared for by Black/African American physicians, Black infant mortality decreases (i.e., 173 more fatalities per 100,000 live births than White newborns vs. 430 more fatalities per 100,000 live births than White newborns; Greenwood et al., 2020).

Despite growing awareness and national recognition of racism in healthcare, Black patients continue to be disenfranchised. Sadly, Black/African American healthcare professionals are underrepresented. In 10 healthcare occupations (advanced practice registered nurses, dentists, occupational therapists, pharmacists, physical therapists, physician assistants, physicians, registered nurses, respiratory therapists, and speech-language pathologists), the mean diversity index for Black people is only 0.54 in the current workforce. The educational pipeline for Black people has also seen lower rates than for their White counterparts (Salsberg et al., 2021). Moreover, in 50% of studied healthcare professions, Black graduate representation was lower

than workforce representation (e.g., for occupational therapy: 0.31 vs. 0.50; Salsberg et al., 2021).

Healthcare professional organizations (e.g., the American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, and National Association of Boards of Pharmacy) have issued statements expressing their commitment to eradicating racism in their professions and for their patients. These organizations recognize that increasing the number of Black/African American healthcare professionals can reduce health disparities. However, change will only occur if we take steps to elicit and understand their unique perspectives. To that end, a roundtable discussion with eight healthcare professionals (i.e., doctors, nurses, and a pharmacist) was facilitated via Zoom by the Department of Africana Studies and supported by the Interprofessional Education Committee at a predominantly White institution (PWI). The event was attended by 239 students, faculty, and staff members. In this paper, we reflect on two roundtable discussion points to identify lessons learned during an extraordinary time in history: the perceived impact of COVID-19 or health disparities on Black/African American patients and the challenges of being a Black/African American healthcare professional. We reflected on the panelists’ comments, which enabled us to analyze current clinical challenges and processes and develop a framework for the future success of academia and programs, interprofessional education, and healthcare organizations.

Lessons Learned

COVID and Health Disparities on Patient-Provider Relationships

The significance of patient-provider relationships (PPR) has been extensively debated and researched. Researchers have investigated how patients' perceptions of their relationship with their providers were influenced by the quality of patient-provider communication,

interactions and time spent with patients, execution of shared decision-making, quality of care, and health outcomes. However, research into PPR in Black/African American patients is scarce. Little is known about how Black/African American providers view racially concordant PPR or patient interactions. The panelists discussed how their Black/African American patients reacted to being in a racially concordant PPR. During COVID, an obstetrician and gynecologist (OB/GYN) panelist stated that patients sought out providers of color for care. She noted that this might be linked to medical mistrust, especially compared to prepandemic patient preferences. She also said that at the start of COVID, patients' access to OB/GYN services decreased, which seemed to be related to fear and mistrust of the medical system (i.e., lack of trust in the medical provider, the healthcare system, suggested treatments, and the government's oversight and handling of healthcare) and systemic racism ("A Day," 2022; Jaiswal & Halkitis, 2019; LaVeist et al., 2009).

Another panelist, an internist/hospitalist, said, “We have a long way to go when it comes to building back trust (“A Day,” 2022).” He also stated that historical medical atrocities and medical mistrust are the root causes of these issues. Both physician panelists agreed that more community outreach, trusted information in digestible formats (i.e., infographics, podcasts, YouTube videos, and trained peer educators), community involvement, and education would help the medical community gain trust and improve PPRs. The internist/hospitalist emphasized learning from the past and transforming medical mistrust into community empowerment and transparency we want them to see we can be trusted and have their best interests at heart.

Why Is Trust Missing?

The panelists also discussed significant barriers to trust in PPRs. They agreed with the work of Jaiswal and Halkitis (2019), who indicated that long-standing barriers are rooted in systemic racism and centuries of oppression (i.e., slavery, police brutality, high incarceration, and poverty). A panelist, a researcher of minority aging, discussed geriatric considerations about medical mistrust, including difficulties obtaining COVID vaccines, treatment, and personal protective equipment due to limitations in transportation, computer access, literacy, and internet availability. She presented how these senior patients wondered, “Who will hear me?” (“A Day,” 2022).

Another panelist, a pharmacist, noted transportation issues and vaccine “rollout” problems were evident in Black/African American communities. Limited COVID-19 vaccine accessibility at the start of the rollout resulted in disparities in pharmacists’ ability to vaccinate vulnerable Black/African American patients. As a provider of color, she increased accessibility by personally taking the vaccine to disenfranchised neighborhoods and churches. The frontline work helped her better understand existing disparities. She suggested that healthcare providers of color help those most in need. She also said healthcare providers must be transparent with patients to make them feel protected. Other researchers and practitioners have made similar observations about COVID-19 vaccination disparities in Black/African American communities (Gipson-Jones et al., 2020, 2021).

Other COVID Considerations

The panelists discussed other COVID-19 treatment considerations. All agreed that increased cultural sensitivity and implicit bias training would equip staff and providers to better care for their Black/African American patients. They were resolute that group discussions,

interprofessional grand rounds, and enforcing culturally sensitive and appropriate policies and procedures that shed light on the root causes of medical mistrust are vital to combat health disparities like those highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The panelists also suggested that healthcare professionals take a "for us, by us" mentality and use tenets of communityparticipatory research when practicing within Black/African American communities, allowing community members to be involved in every aspect of intervention (Jaiswal & Halkitis, 2019). Being

Black in Healthcare

Black/African American healthcare providers remain underrepresented in a system that desperately needs them. Tokenism occurs when minority group members make up less than 15% of the workforce or are underrepresented in a specific industry, field, or position, such as healthcare and most healthcare provider roles (Kanter, 1977). Black/African American healthcare practitioners and educators work within “White spaces” (i.e., spaces typically devoid of Black/African American people or places where their presence would be unexpected or where they are often marginalized when present; Anderson, 2015, p. 10). Black/African American healthcare professionals often find themselves as minorities in their workplaces. In order to secure continued employment, they must learn to navigate these “White spaces” successfully.

The panelists discussed how their experiences as Black/African American healthcare professionals had influenced them. Several panelists shared how they were often dismissed or mistaken for having a lesser role when providing patient care. One panelist shared how staff in the operating room assumed that a White male doctor would be in charge of a case, looking to him to lead or provide instruction, when, in fact, it was the Black/African American female doctor’s patient/case (“A Day,” 2022). This doctor countered these stereotypes by asserting that

she was in charge of the case and was recognized and not undervalued or ignored. In these instances, she says, “You can address me. It is my case. It is what I need and want” (“A Day,” 2022). Others, including the youngest panelist with only two years of nursing experience, shared that microaggressions (i.e., interpersonal/interprofessional communication that invalidates, tokenizes, and isolates nondominant members of a profession or interprofessional healthcare team) occur frequently and are a source of great anguish within their respective disciplines and workplaces. Several panelists stated how people often asked about their credentials, assuming they were not qualified for their position. They often felt they need to over-excel or overachieve to minimize any thoughts of inferiority by the dominant group. However, they also reported using these experiences to strengthen their practice in preparation for the questions and treatment they anticipated receiving. They recommend that healthcare facilities take aggressive measures to combat incivilities and implicit bias. According to one panelist, healthcare professionals practicing in Black, Indigenous, and persons of color (BIPOC) communities should be competent, fair, and courageous and understand that knowledge is the greatest equalizer. She also emphasizes the importance for healthcare professionals to strive for excellence and be a presence in any room, owning the space, awakening their truth, and embracing their authentic selves.

Future Directions

Priming the Pipeline with a Diverse Pool of Students

Healthcare disparities have long existed for racial and ethnic minority populations. BIPOC communities have experienced structural racism and oppression for generations, resulting in disproportionately high rates of trauma, poverty, and chronic diseases linked to

increased COVID-19 morbidity and mortality rates. The current pandemic, which has the potential to expose people to new trauma, exacerbates existing disparities (Webb Hooper et al., 2020).

Racial and ethnic minorities are woefully underrepresented among health professionals. African Americans account for nearly 13.6% of the U.S. population (Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, 2021), yet this diversity is not reflected in the health professions workforce. African Americans are underrepresented among the nation's health professions and those currently pursuing healthcare careers.

Diversity is critical to delivering effective healthcare. It is so vital that people's lives depend on it. The question remains: How will health professions achieve such diversity?

Educational programs should be developed for high school students in urban areas to increase their interest in healthcare occupations. These experiences can potentially increase interest in, and matriculation to, college, graduate, and professional programs for healthcare careers (Kendrick et al., 2020).

Mentorship plays a critical role in our medical system. Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists will always need the guidance of a mentor in their respective fields. Healthcare professionals must have role models to look up to and emulate throughout their careers. A lack of diversity can make it difficult for minority healthcare workers to identify with and learn from mentors. Lack of mentorship leads to a lack of progression in professional development, thus affecting their ability to provide the best patient care (Tatem et al., 2021).

Implicit biases may unfairly influence the application processes for candidates of medical, nursing, and pharmacy schools, as well as residencies and fellowships, in certain

underrepresented groups. Implicit bias in admissions and application processes must be mitigated to reduce its potential negative impact on patient care and diversity in the medical profession. Healthcare leaders must understand biases and how to overcome them consciously (Capers, 2020).

Healthcare professionals enter the medical profession to serve humanity. Well-meaning healthcare professionals may unknowingly treat groups differently based on associations, potentially causing harm and exacerbating healthcare disparities. The time has come to recognize that the lack of diversity in healthcare is an unacceptable reality that must be addressed with a sense of urgency.

COVID Pandemic Expands Opportunities to Teach Diversity

The COVID-19 pandemic raised awareness of and attention to the healthcare disparities that Black communities face. Indeed, compared to their non-Hispanic White counterparts, Black patients in the U.S. are more likely to contract and die from the COVID-19 virus (Mackey et al., 2021). Misconceptions that Black patients are inherently immune to COVID-19, fueled by the "Black Myth," may worsen ongoing medical mistrust and vaccine hesitancy, increasing the virus's infection and death rates (Laurencin, & McClinton, 2020). Building understanding and trust will require forums dedicated to diversity training and educating healthcare providers about potential community or cultural health beliefs in minority populations. Providers aware of these potential barriers to COVID-19 testing and vaccination will be best suited to providing education and counseling about the virus and methods to prevent its spread. Additionally, minority outreach COVID-19 vaccination programs and acute care hospital settings that serve Black patients may provide opportunities to dispel myths (Gonzalez et al., 2022; Nguyen et al.,

2022). Hence, diversity training for healthcare providers may help increase vaccination acceptance and decrease morbidity/mortality among Black patients.

Conclusion

The underrepresentation of African Americans/Blacks in healthcare is a persistent issue and a threat to providing culturally appropriate, sensitive, and equitable care to the African American/Black community. Diversity issues exist across healthcare professions and can be attributed partly to the time-consuming and costly education, testing, application, and interviewing processes required to pursue these careers. If accepted, most African American/Black students are less financially and socially resourced than White students and face stifling financial obstacles in the form of student loans. Thus, fewer African Americans/Blacks pursue, complete, and practice in health-related fields.

Moreover, the healthcare workforce continues to fall short of keeping up with nationwide demographic shifts. When African Americans/Blacks are missing from the healthcare professional scene, there is a rise in racial bias and a decrease in culturally competent care perceived and received by African American/Black patients, resulting in poorer health outcomes in this population. Increasing diversity in healthcare professions makes sense and may help to address medical mistrust, health inequities, and dismissal of African American/Black health concerns. The COVID-19 pandemic has again highlighted health disparities in African American/Black communities. This pandemic sounds the alarm once more for the need to increase the number of African American/Black health professionals across the U.S. to ensure improved health outcomes and the delivery of holistic health in African American/Black

communities, which continue to bear a higher burden of disease and death when compared to White communities.

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Anderson, E. (2015). The White space. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 1(1), 10–21.

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Black Hair in Black Places: Detangling the Burden of our Crowns Beyond White Borders

by LaToya T. Brackett, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, African American Studies Leadership Team, Race & Pedagogy Institute University of Puget Sound

“How do you get your hair like that?” “Can I touch it?” “Is that your real hair?” With hair rooted from the African continent, many Black people in the U.S. are tasked with navigating the inundation of questions by white people in white spaces about their hair. White spaces beginning in childhood, with schools, playgrounds, and sports teams, to the white spaces within adulthood of friendship, romance, and professionalism. Black hair is a point of tension likened to the tension in the grip of a fresh cornrow at the nape of our necks. But what happens when the tension about Black hair comes from Black people in Black places? We pause. Why? Because why would Black people question Black hair? Because there is a burden in our crowns as Black people, a burden placed upon us by white colonialism and living on despite postcolonial times. Black Studies scholarship has been central in documenting these complexities and providing proof proof used to establish protective policies related to African-textured hair. Such

documentation is also important to have for Black hair throughout the diaspora due to the presence of harm that also resembles the harm occurring in white places. No matter the location of Black people, what I, as a teacher-scholar of Black Studies, have begun to process is the white politics in the social construction of Black hair policies in Black places. Even where whiteness is seemingly absent, Black hair remains political and policed. Black Studies scholars and approaches are ideal in navigating Black hair beyond white borders.

Hair Journeys: Understanding the Researcher and Her Research

Over the years, as an African American woman traveling to Black nations, I have found that even in Black places that the hair resembling my own, even in its place of origin, creates tension. Hair tensions like the ones on my own predominately white campus where I teach, where a white woman has touched my hair and examined it as if I were a slave on an auction block. Of course, in that moment, the only tension imposed was upon me. And yet, beyond the U.S. and white places, there is tension surrounding Black hair. In Black places, the tension is different, and not fully detangled.

I began detangling Black hair in Black places in 2009, when I took my first trip to Ghana, and I found myself disappointed that I did not find Black women wearing natural hair but rather chemically processed hair. This disappointment is an expression of what I felt in that instance and of my socialization into the unfortunate binary between natural or relaxed hair. I had optimistically expected my first time in Africa would have been different. Nonetheless, I was disappointed because as a descendent of enslaved Africans in the U.S., I had come to the continent to find a place where I’d find unconditional love for all the aspects of my African roots, and that included hair. I too had a relaxer in that time, and looking back now, after beginning my research on hair, I realize one of the main reasons I used a relaxer is similar to the

reasons for my Ghanaian participants our associated ease of styling our hair at home in between hairdresser visits.

When I grew out my relaxer and went natural, my awareness of Black hair also grew. It was a major learning curve for me, as it is for many Black women globally. In 2018, I noticed an increase in natural hair styles in Ghana. I became intrigued by this embracing of natural hair styles, and I set out to learn more. With a grounded theory approach, I let the qualitative data I was collecting guide me, and it revealed aspects about Black hair in these Black places that exposed the parallel yet different tensions as the ones many Black people experience in white places. My research shifted to understanding the complexities of why natural hair was so burdensome to have despite being in the place from which it originated and had been cared for long before white interaction. Therefore, what my on-the-ground research in Ghana (2021–2022) and Kenya (2021) has confirmed is that Black hair is political in Black places too. Why? As hypothesized, my analysis places whiteness at the center of this harmful reality for Black persons globally; however, what is essential to my analysis is how whiteness’ invisibility in Black nations makes the discussion about hair attitudes complicated and delicate. Discussing Black hair in Black places must be intentional; thus, I am sharing aspects of my initial engagements with this topic with scholars dedicated to supporting the Black world. Black hair being discussed beyond white borders is a current issue in need of intentional, Black-centered discourse.

Towards Protective Hair Policies: Filling a Gap in the Research

When proposing this research for funding and writing the institutional review board protocol to conduct interviews and surveys, in reviewing the literature it was clear that the focus on Black hair in Black places was academically largely untouched. However, the literature on Black hair in white places is prominent and still growing. It spans from popular media to peer-

reviewed texts and most recently the 2022 Hulu documentary series The Hair Tales, produced by Oprah Winfrey, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Michaela Angela Davis. The distinguished 2001 text Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America by Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps details the histories of African hair prior to European interaction, but the text focuses primarily on how whiteness impacts Black hair in white places. In white countries, such research has provided evidence for legislative policies to protect Black hair. Unfortunately, research is what African nations are lacking and are in need of. A nonnegotiable component of Black Studies research is promoting liberation for all Black people. Therefore, Black hair research needs to expand beyond white borders. The following is a small selection of the literature regarding African-textured hair, with a focus on policies related to Black hair. Policies are currently the main areas of tension in Black places.

In the U.S., the CROWN Act, an acronym for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, began from a coalition comprised of Dove, the National Urban League, Color of Change, and the Western Center on Law & Poverty. This coalition’s research has been foundational in the passage of the CROWN act in 19 states, with the first occurring in 2019. The research 1 they conducted provided evidence that African-textured hair and associated styles are discriminated against in schools and the workplace and are indeed racially defined (Dove, 2019)

The CROWN act sets a precedents and provides a resource for similarly situated societies where Black people negotiate their lives under a white-dominant narrative. The bill “ensure[s] that traits historically associated with race, such as hair texture and protective hairstyles, are protected from discrimination in the workplace and in K–12 public and charter schools” (Dove, n.d.). The

1 The CROWN research study was conducted by JOY Collective in 2019. It was conducted in the U.S. among 2,000 (1,000 Black and 1,000 White) women, ages 25–64. All data tested at 95% confidence level (Dove, 2019)

CROWN Act has provided a major platform for discussion about Black hair and the consequences associated with it, but it remains outside the context of Black societies. Beyond U.S. borders, Black hair conversations in the United Kingdom have also shown the political aspects of Black hair in white places. Similarly to the U.S., this discourse appears in news articles, research reports, and peer reviewed articles. A 2019 report by the organization that established World Afro Day concluded with the following regarding a request for a policy amendment:

[We support] the 95% of respondents in our survey in calling for an amendment to the 2010 Equality Act to specifically recognise hair discrimination in its own right. This type of discrimination disproportionately affects black and mixed-race people. Historically, the attitudes behind this discrimination have become embedded in society as norms so the only way to tackle this is to create the law and educate the public as to why it is needed.

(De Leon & Chikwendu, 2019)

DeLeon and Chikwendu additionally cited the CROWN Act as a precedent to their call for policy adjustments. In citing the 2016 Alabama law allowing “employers to deny jobs and promotion to people with dreadlocks” (De Leon & Chikwendu, 2019), they provide context to why World Afro Day is marked annually on September 15, the same day this law was passed. World Afro Day contradicts the discriminatory action and flips the narrative to African hair awareness and appreciation.

Most of the writing about hair in African countries comes by way of news media. In the first BBC article I read about African hair, “Why Ghana's Natural Hair Fashion Is Bad for Business,” one hairdresser interviewed shared that “[It's] not just me: I think other hairdressers are suffering a similar fate customers are no longer interested in using chemicals to perm or

curl their hair” (Kwei, 2018). Also in this article, interviewees shared that the shift to natural hair was for various reasons, including reduction in time and money needed to keep up with relaxers and how they preferred the versatility of their natural hair. The owner of a hair salon for natural hair shared that her business was indeed growing. Nonetheless, because not all hair is the same, the article mentioned how natural hair is not always less expensive or easier to maintain. A different BBC visual article discussed the hair journey of a woman from Botswana who shared the complexity of caring for her hair at home, including access to tools and products necessary to maintain natural hair (Loewen, 2015). Additionally, a personal narrative from Rwanda shared, “My love-hate relationship with my hair started when I was six years old and my mom chopped off my hair a few days before I joined grade one. I remember crying and pleading with her while equally asking why I couldn’t just go to school with my long hair” (Bizimungu, 2021). These singular voices draw attention to the issues but are not enough to affect policies.

Providing more extensive and institutionally supported research about the realities of African hair in Black places can provide foundational evidence and understanding as to why Black hair is policed, thus supporting the building of Black nation-specific policies. The research I am conducting is meant to be a part of a new foundation for literature as these dialogues about Black hair continue. Policies regarding hair have been at the forefront of these discussions, and they are the remaining focus of this article. There are two main areas of contention: school hair rules and the hair care industry.

Hair Tensions in Ghana and Kenya: School Hair Policies

In the past few years, youth with Black hair in Black nations have vocalized the harm experienced at the hands of their K–12 educations. Ghana and Kenya have both had youthinitiated, nationally and internationally debated hair and school policies. Unfortunately, both

incidents revealed the postcolonial remnants of white ideologies about African hair. Such policies, ideologies, and actions parallel the very reasons and justifications of why the CROWN Act exists.

In Ghana in 2021, two Rastafarian male students, who maintain dreadlocks as a part of their religion, sued Achimota Senior High School after they were ordered to cut off their dreadlocks in order to matriculate (Lartey, 2021). In Ghana, it is written in the constitution that no student should be denied education based on their religion. 2 Because the two boys were Rastafarian, they won their case. This court case initiated my focus on the rules and reasoning for hair cutting in schools. Hair cutting for Ghanaian schools also became the primary focus of my first published work on this research a short documentary discussing the school hair experiences of Ghanaian women 3 Cutting students’ hair to a very low level is a general rule for students in most public schools across the nation, but so far I have not been successful in my search for such a policy. As one of my interviewee’s stated, “It’s [simply] become a norm, why we cut our hair.” This norm spans the continent.

In Kenya, students and parents from Olympic High School demanded that students have the ability to keep their hair without reprimand. In launching a petition to the Ministry of Education in 2020, they have gathered over 30,000 signatures (Change.org, n.d.). Perhaps the most important aspect of this petition was the statement of concern related to the reasons, rooted colonial history, as to why students were shaving their hair in the first place. The petition states the following:

Many people do not understand the motive of the whole culture. Initially, Africans were forced to shave their hair by colonial powers because it was seen as “dirty,” “unhealthy”

2 “No child shall be deprived by any other person of medical treatment, education or any other social or economic benefit by reason only of religious or other beliefs” (Const. of the Republic of Ghana, ch. 5, art. 28.4)

3 Documentary “Exploring Hair Narratives in Ghana,” www.africanhairstories.com

and “untidy.” Therefore, our current school heads, who were children back then, were brought up in a culture where shaving hair was a mandatory practice and seemed neat to them. (Change.org, n.d.)

This student calls out the harm in perpetuating the settler colonialism imbedded in Kenyan school hair policies, and they demand actions to decolonize both policies and minds. In Ghana, this colonial history of hair regulations was also confirmed by a gender studies professor in Accra. White colonialists have long implemented the stripping of a culture by forcibly cutting hair. Unfortunately, the conversations and interviews I have had in Ghana and Kenya reveal the lack of knowledge related to colonialism’s role in establishing schools and school rules related to hair. Informed awareness is key to any possible policy change, which is what youth are fighting for.

The Hair Care Industry in Ghana

Many of my interviewees shared frustrations about learning to care for their hair and the associated costs. Some of this tension comes from the large hair care industry in Ghana and what they felt was a lack of cohesion. From what I have gathered, the issue is rooted in the guidelines about education and training, licensure, and professional oversight. It became clear in my research that more than one organization provides “licensure” or “certification” and not all salons I visited have such a document. There are multiple ways in Ghana to become a hairdresser. The one most financially accessible one to this majority female industry is training as an apprentice. This often occurs at a hair salon and can most easily be understood as on-thejob training.

One deeply concerning issue in salons is the improper technique and handling of relaxers.

I interviewed an apprenticeship-trained hairdresser working on a college campus, and I learned

she was unsure of what a relaxer actually did to the hair, and she was unable to detail any warnings or precautions as someone who regularly uses the product. She also stated her preference to work with relaxed hair over natural. Unfortunately, despite the increase in natural hair, many of the salons in Ghana, which are on every corner due to the demand for Black hair needs in a Black place, are more focused on relaxing and styling relaxed hair (braiding shops excluded). Recently, a National Institutes of Health study from October 2022 found a higher rate of uterine cancer for women who regularly used hair relaxers (Chang et al., 2022). Proper relaxer usage, at minimum, on a continent of over a billion people with African-textured hair is imperative.

Many Ghanaian salons use the relaxers sold for personal at-home use. However, for those that do use professional-grade relaxers, one prominent hair product company, Mizani, has implemented its own policy, which requires hairdressers to be trained on their product before using it (DailyGuide Network, 2018). My visit to a Mizani distributor in Ghana confirmed this requirement. Such a policy and oversight is a start, but it is not nationally endorsed. Regarding beauty education, there are three well known and respected beauty education schools in Ghana. In the summer of 2022, I interviewed two of the three owners, and they informed me that collectively, not competitively, they are working to support higher expectations and stronger oversight of hair care in Ghana. They seek to establish policies and procedures best suited for both client and stylist. This is where I foresee my research best supporting Ghanaian-initiated policy change, similarly to how the coalition of organizations produced the research for passage of the CROWN Act.

Concluding Thoughts

Black hair is not only political in places in which a white-dominant society resides and rules but also in places where white colonialism no longer resides but the white-informed structures unfortunately remain. The hair policies in African schools are being questioned because of the harm they create. The lack of clear policies in the hair care industry of Ghana has clients and beauty educators concerned. Within white borders, policies have been initiated to protect against harm, supported by extensive research. Previously colonized Black countries are struggling with embracing the kinks, coils, and waves that are African hair, and yet some are now ready to challenge the policies that are responsible for the burdens of their crowns. Africanfocused research could be a catalyst to stopping and preventing further harm. Black Studies scholars are especially equipped to support the delicate research needed to build policies and procedures responsive to the Black hair struggles in Black places.

References

Bizimungu, N. (2021, March 29). The racist politicization of Black hair in African schools. Minority Africa. https://minorityafrica.org/the-racist-politicization-of-black-hair-inafrican-schools/

Chang, C.-J., O’Brien, K. M., Keil, A. P., Gaston, S. A., Jackson, C. L., Sandler, D. P., & White, A. J. (2022). Use of straighteners and other hair products and incident uterine cancer. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 114(12), 1636–1645.

https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djac165

Const. of the Republic of Ghana, ch. 5, art. 28.4.

DailyGuide Network. (2018, April 13). Mizani launched in Ghana

https://dailyguidenetwork.com/mizani-launched-in-ghana/

De Leon, M., & Chikwendu, D. (2019). Hair equality report 2019: More than just hair. World Afro Day CIC. https://www.worldafroday.com/charity/research/

Dove. (n.d.). The CROWN Act: Working to eradicate race-based discrimination. Retrieved October 30, 2022, from https://www.dove.com/us/en/stories/campaigns/the-crownact.html

Dove. (2019). The CROWN Research Study

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5edc69fd622c36173f56651f/t/5edeaa2fe5ddef345e 087361/1591650865168/Dove_research_brochure2020_FINAL3.pdf

Kwei, R. T. (2018, January 29). Why Ghana’s natural hair fashion is bad for business. BBC News.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42546620

Lartey, N. L. (2021, June 4). Rasta boy, Tyrone Marhguy sits for exams at Achimota School after being enrolled. Citi Newsroom. https://citinewsroom.com/2021/06/rasta-boy-tyronemarhguy-sits-for-exams-at-achimota-school-after-being-enrolled/

Change.org. (n.d.). Let Kenyan students keep their hair. Retrieved October 30, 2022, from https://www.change.org/p/kenya-s-ministry-of-education-let-kenyan-students-keep-theirhair

Loewen, F. (2015, July 22). In pictures: My natural hair journey. BBC News.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33410763

CRIME AND JUSTICE

Crime Has Been Decreasing, so Why Hasn’t Criminalization?

by Kiana Foxx Doctoral Candidate, Department of Education & Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles

In 2019, there were 2 million people housed in prisons and jails across the United States, representing a 500% increase over the last forty years and making the United States a world leader in incarceration (The Sentencing Project, 2021). Black people made up a sizable percentage of that population. In fact, in 2019, Black people made up 33% of the population in U.S. state and federal prisons (The Sentencing Project, 2021) despite representing only about 14% of the U.S. population (Tamir et al., 2022). In addition, by the end of 2018, the rate of Black people in jail was almost twice that of Hispanic people (1,501 vs. 797 per 100,000) and more than five times that of white people (268 per 100,000; Gramlich, 2020). Furthermore, Black males made up a sizable proportion of the Black people incarcerated in American prisons and jails. Compared to 1,018 inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 392 inmates per 100,000 white men, there were 2,272 prisoners per 100,000 Black men. Furthermore, in some age

brackets, the rate was much higher. For example, nearly 1 in every 20 Black men aged 35 to 39 was housed in a state or federal prison in 2018. That is 5,008 inmates for every 100,000 Black men in this demographic (Gramlich, 2020).

However, this number has decreased significantly. Between 2006 and 2018, the prison rate declined substantially and is currently at the lowest level that it has been at in more than twenty years (Gramlich, 2020; The Sentencing Project, 2021). The most significant decline has been among Black Americans, whose incarceration rate has dropped 34% since 2006 (Gramlich, 2020). However, you would not know it. Despite a steep drop in crime since the mid-1990s, including a 51% decline in violent crime and a 54% decrease in property crime (Gramlich, 2020), a fear of crime has permeated American society. This fear is evident in the passage of harsh incarceration policies, the substantial number of police-involved shootings, the considerable number of politicians who won or lost elections based on their stance on crime, and research that suggests people feel that crime is rising annually.

These facts suggest two things: First, beliefs about crime do not align with the reality of what is happening, and second, people have been led to believe American society has a crime problem when, in fact, it has a criminalization and incarceration problem. Make no mistake, we still have an incarceration problem, and Black and Brown people are still overrepresented in jails and prisons. However, an overemphasis on crime prevention with no regard for how crime has decreased has only made America’s already significant problem with criminalization and incarceration worse. Therefore, in this paper, I suggest the need for more widespread information regarding the current state of crime reduction in addition to ongoing support for strategies to reduce crime, mass incarceration, and overcriminalization.

Criminalization, Overcriminalization, and Mass Incarceration

Overcriminalization and mass incarceration in the United States have been problems for a long time. Criminalization is the process of turning an activity into a crime. Thus, overcriminalization is making too many activities into crimes. It consists of actions such as making far-fetched behaviors into crimes, punishing one individual for the behavior of another, making crimes out of actions that should be outside the purview of the legal system, handing out severe punishments for crimes, creating new laws for penalties that can be covered under existing laws (i.e., redundant laws), extending criminal responsibility to people who are outside their right state of mind during the commission of a crime (e.g., mentally ill people), or abusive policing, such as state officials using their power to search and detain people for minor offenses or civil infractions (Luna, 2005). However, this list is not exhaustive. The term "overcriminalization" is broad and can refer to various issues. However, it is always associated with the inappropriate use of the criminal justice system and the unnecessary overapplication of the criminal justice system to aspects of American life (Luna, 2005), and it, along with mass incarceration, has been an issue in the U.S. for some time.

Examples of early overcriminalization can be seen in the slave patrols and the sentencing of inmates at Eastern State Penitentiary, a Philadelphia prison that opened in 1829 and set the tone for America’s modern penitentiary system (Abdelfatah, R., & Arablouei, R., 2020b). For instance, slave patrols had a great deal of power. These patrols were led by armed captains with dogs, and their mission was to apprehend and whip any enslaved person found straying from plantations. They had the legal or customary authority to punish with impunity. And with this power, they could do just about anything they wanted. They could even shoot the enslaved people if they attempted to escape (Abdelfatah, R., & Arablouei, R., 2020a).

Similarly, conditions in Eastern State also mimicked modern criminalization. Although

initially created to be a tool for penance and healing, Eastern State created the foundation for the mass incarceration problem that exists in America today. First, it spread the message that prisons and solitary confinement were effective deterrents against criminal behavior. So, prisons modeled after Eastern began to pop up all over the United States, Europe, and even Latin America. Second, it provided America with a means to overlook its complex social and cultural problems. It systematized criminalization and provided a destination for those whom America deemed undesirable. As a result, people began to be sent to jail for qualities and activities that had nothing to do with crime, such as being gay, being an immigrant, or being Black (Abdelfatah, R., & Arablouei, R., 2020b). Outside of punishment for nonmoral or noncriminal activities, such as being gay, another quality that mimicked modern jails and prisons was the enactment of severe penalties for petty crimes. For example, a man was sentenced to 2 years in Eastern State for stealing a horse (Abdelfatah, R., & Arablouei, R., 2020b).

This overcriminalization has continued into the present day. In 2005, over 4,000 offenses carried criminal punishment (Luna, 2005). Many of these crimes were petty offenses. In South Carolina, sharing suggestive images is punishable by up to 3 years in prison (S.C. Code Ann. § 16-17, n.d.; Luna, 2005). In Delaware, it is illegal to sell perfume or lotion as a beverage (State v. Powell , 1965; Luna, 2005). In Nevada, being noisy in a church is punishable by up to 6 months in jail and/or fines of up to $1,000 (Luna, 2005), and in Massachusetts, it is illegal to scare birds from their nests (Luna, 2005). Additionally, harsh penalties for minor offenses and police abuse are widespread due to policies like stop and frisk and mandatory minimum sentencing. For example, in 2006, a then twenty-two-year-old man named Lance Saltzman was sentenced to life without parole for burglarizing his own home, making him one

of at least 3,278 people serving life sentences for nonviolent offenses (The Economist, 2013). Similarly, in 2009, Todd Hannigan was sentenced to 15 years for attempting to take his own life (Hannigan v. State, 2012). So, overcriminalization has not declined.

The Effects of Overcriminalization and Mass Incarceration

Overcriminalization has had many detrimental effects. First, overcriminalization has shifted law enforcement officers into stakeholders who actively seek arrests and convictions rather than neutral bystanders. In addition, it has led to a litany of problems that have resulted from excessive sentencing, including disparities in power; punishments for defendants who exercise their rights; guilty pleas from the innocent; increases in discrimination and the police’s ability to abuse their authority; law enforcement mistrust from communities of color; the misallocation and waste of limited resources; a diversion of resources away from more significant areas, such as severe criminal activities and social programs; corruption amongst law enforcers; a dilution of the force of the government; financial and social costs to the families of those prosecuted; and financial and social costs to society at large (Luna, 2005; NAACP, 2021; Stewart, 2020). For example, 1 out of every 15 state general fund discretionary dollars was spent on corrections in the United States in 2012, totaling close to $81 billion and making corrections the second fastest-growing category for state budgets. Spending on prisons and jails has increased three times faster than spending on pre-K–12 public education over the last thirty years (NAACP, 2021).

While overcriminalization and mass incarceration are problems for everyone, they are particularly harmful to Black people. Studies show that a Black person is five times more likely to be unlawfully stopped than a white person (NAACP, 2021). In addition, compared to white men, Black men are six times more likely to be incarcerated (The Sentencing Project, 2021).

Furthermore, Black men are sentenced to longer prison terms for committing the same crimes as white people (Ingraham, 2017). All these facts lead to a disproportionate percentage of Black males making up the jail and prison population (Hamilton et al., 2009). Black men have higher rates of imprisonment than any other group in the U.S. (Stewart, 2020).

High incarceration rates create a plethora of problems for Black communities. First, they reduce the pool of eligible Black bachelors, resulting in lower Black marriage rates and higher rates of single parenthood (Hamilton et al., 2009; Stewart, 2020; Western & Wildeman, 2009). Furthermore, they increase poverty (Western & Wildeman, 2009) and unemployment rates among Black families (NAACP, 2021; Western & Wildeman, 2009). Moreover, they harm social networks, interpersonal connections, prospects for long life, physical and mental health, and the foundations of the economy and politics (Clear, 2008). Finally, they harm children. Research suggests that children whose parents are in the criminal justice system experience increases in psychological stress, antisocial behavior, school suspension or expulsion, and financial hardships. In addition, they are six times more likely to engage in criminal activity than kids who do not have parents in the criminal justice system (NAACP, 2021).

What is worse is that this overcriminalization and mass incarceration are unnecessary.

First, because there have been substantial decreases in crime over the last 20 years, and second, because several studies indicate that incarceration is not an effective technique for rehabilitation. Multiple studies show that crime has decreased (Gramlich, 2020; The Sentencing Project, 2021).

Violent crime and property crime have both declined by more than 50% (Gramlich, 2020). In addition, instead of reducing crime, prison often perpetuates it. About half of the 650,000 Americans released from jail each year will return within a few years (NAACP, 2021). One

significant reason is that imprisonment decreases an individual's chances of employment. About 75% of formerly incarcerated people are still jobless one year after incarceration, making them more likely to return to jail or prison (NAACP, 2021). Thus, imprisonment creates a cycle: Incarceration prevents future employment, and this leads to higher rates of recidivism (Silver et al., 2021). According to research, unemployment is the most significant predictor of recidivism (NAACP, 2021). Therefore, there may be more effective ways to spend American tax dollars than on incarceration.

For example, research suggests that there are better ways to reduce an inmate's likelihood of reoffending. Services such as education programs (Davis et al., 2013; McKean & Ransford, 2004) and substance abuse and mental health treatment programs have been shown to be much better deterrents to recidivism than imprisonment (McKean & Ransford, 2004).

Furthermore, education, mental health and substance abuse treatments, and social services aimed at reducing poverty can decrease crime, which can also lead to reductions in first-time incarceration rates (O’Neil Hayes & Barnhorst, 2020). Despite these realities, overcriminalization and a culture of fear of crime remain significant issues in America. This fear is reflected in the severe laws that are enacted, the substantial number of police shooting cases, and the considerable number of politicians who have been elected or defeated depending on their positions on crime.

The Rise and Persistence of Retributive Policies

In the United States, sentence severity began to rise in the 1970s and persisted into the 1990s, when incarceration rates climbed to unrecognizable heights. During this time, harsh statutes, such as mandatory minimum laws and California's "three strikes" law a law that while updated and still existing today replaced rehabilitation ideology (Beale, 2003). These

changes resulted in a substantial increase in the length of time that criminals spend in prison (Beale, 2003). And these harsh sentences have endured. In 2019, The Sentencing Project found that the number of people serving life sentences has nearly quintupled since 1984 (The Sentencing Project, 2021). In addition, for decades, state and municipal prosecutors have won elections by pledging to be tough on crime. These days, the desire for law enforcement to be tough on crime has begun to change, and prosecutors are becoming well-known and winning elections for promising to implement reform agendas (Sawyer, 2019; Sklansky, 2016). However, although some beliefs have changed, the desire for harsh sentencing has not entirely disappeared.

According to data from the Pew Research Center, only 28% of American adults believe that those who commit crimes are imprisoned for too long. In addition, 37% believe that the length of time spent in jail or prison is about right, as opposed to 32% who feel that inmates spend too little time incarcerated (Gramlich, 2021). So, 69% of Americans either believe that prison rates are appropriate or should be increased. Therefore, the desire for severe punishment is still present. In addition, in many of the many incidents of police shootings in America, the officers have cited fear for their safety as a reason even when it involved unarmed people (Barker et al., 2021). Therefore, fear exists even among law enforcement officers. One reason the fear and desire for harsh sentencing may not be declining could be that people are unaware of declining crime rates or the significant, damaging impacts that high incarceration rates and overcriminalization have on American society. For example, despite an overall decreasing trend in national violent and property crime rates, at least 60% of American adults said there was more crime nationwide than there was the year before in 20 of 24 Gallup surveys conducted between 1993 and 2020 (Gramlich, 2020). So, such beliefs about increased

crime on a national scale have become widespread. More widespread awareness of the true issues high incarceration and overcriminalization may decrease the focus on crime and direct it to where it should be increasing social services and reducing poverty. Only then will we be able to experience a society that is genuinely just.

Conclusion

Despite making up only around 5% of the world's population, the United States is home to about 25% of its prisoners. Similarly, despite only accounting for roughly 14% of the U.S. population, Black Americans accounted for 2.3 million, or 34%, of the 6.8 million people incarcerated in 2014 (NAACP, 2021). But lately, this number has been falling. From 2006 to 2014, crime and incarceration fell dramatically, especially for Black Americans (Gramlich, 2020). Still, harsh penalties, overcriminalization, and mass incarceration have persisted. As a result, their detrimental impacts have continued to harm Black families, unemployment rates, U.S. spending, and society at large. One reason may be that the general population is unaware of how crime has decreased or the substantial adverse effects of overcriminalization and mass incarceration. If we can spread the truth about crime rates, we can focus policies on the actual problems. Maybe then society can begin to put its focus where it belongs.

References

Abdelfatah, R., & Arablouei, R. (Hosts). (2020a, June 4). American police [Podcast episode transcript]. Throughline. NPR. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/869046127

Abdelfatah, R., & Arablouei, R. (Hosts). (2020b, September 3). Reframing History: Mass Incarceration: [Podcast episode transcript]. Throughline. NPR

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/899441920

Barker, K., Eder, S., Kirkpatrick , D., & Sundaram, A. (2021, November 6). How police justify killing drivers: The vehicle was a weapon. New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/06/us/police-traffic-stops-shooting.html

Beale, S. S. (2003). Still tough on crime-prospects for restorative justice in the United States. Utah Law Review, 1 , 413–437. https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.358440

Clear, T. R. (2008). The effects of high imprisonment rates on communities. Crime and justice, 37(1), 97-132.

https://doi.org/10.1086/522360

The Economist. (2013, November 16). Throwing away the key. The Economist.

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2013/11/16/throwing-away-the-key

Davis, L. M., Bozick, R., Steele, J. L., Saunders, J., & Miles, J. N. (2013). Evaluating the effectiveness of correctional education: A metaanalysis of programs that provide education to incarcerated adults. RAND Corporation.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR266.html

Gramlich, J. (2020). Black imprisonment rate in the US has fallen by a third since 2006 Pew Research Center.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/05/06/shareof-black-white-hispanic-americans-in-prison-2018-vs-2006/

Gramlich, J. (2020). What the data says (and doesn’t say) about crime in the United States Pew Research Center.

https://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/

Gramlich, J. (2021). U.S. public divided over whether people convicted of crimes spend too much or too little time in prison. Pew Research Center.

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CULTURE

The Largely Ignored Influence

of Gullah Geechee Culture Throughout the Diaspora

by Maxine L. Bryant, PhD Amir-Jamal Touré, JD

Georgia Southern University

Often, when people hear the term “Gullah Geechee,” images of Black people with a strange dialect, storytellers, dancers, singers who live in coastal South Carolina and Georgia come to mind. Outsiders are awed by their almost mystical faith, their delicious foods, and strong family connections (Heyward, 2018). The Gullah Geechee physical landscape stretches from Jacksonville, North Carolina, to St. Augustine, Florida. Not only is the physical landscape more massive than what many people think, the people who make up the Gullah Geechee community are found throughout the U S and throughout the world. In fact, what makes Gullah/Geechee people unique are the connections they’ve had throughout the world over centuries. This essay provides a historical context on the key issue of diversity within the African diaspora that often ignores the Southeast coastal Gullah Geechee culture. This absence is pervasive and continues today. To that end, we offer the tourism industry as a contemporary example and discuss recent efforts to right this wrong.

The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Center/ Center for Africana Studies

The Gullah Geechee community consists of the descendants of enslaved Africans who were brought to the Southeast coastal regions in the U.S. and held captive during the early 1700s. Their ancestors are largely from Western and Central Africa. The enslaved Africans formed their own communities, language, and culture as a result of being separated from the mainland plantations. After chattel slavery ended, many Gullah Geechee people moved from the southern states, both voluntarily and/or by forced migration, throughout the U.S. and the world, taking their culture with them. Reportedly, there are more than one million people who identify as Gullah Geechee in the U.S. alone. This fact speaks to the significance and the widespread impact of the Gullah Geechee culture in the diaspora.

Gullah Geechee descendant groups can be found in Oklahoma and Southern Texas. They are in northern Mexico, the Bahamas, and Trinidad. They are as far north as Canada and as far west as Liberia. It can be accurately said, then, that the Gullah Geechee culture and experience is not regional or national it is global and has significant impact throughout the African diaspora. The African diaspora is quite diverse. This diversity contains a culture that is often not included in African diaspora conversations the Gullah Geechee communities.

Gullah Geechee Presence in Trinidad

During the War of 1812, the British entered Camden County, Georgia, on Cumberland Island, taking control of the area. They recruited Africans to join the effort in exchange for freedom. On December 24, 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, which served to end the War of 1812 (Smith, 2014). With the treaty in place, the British departed from coastal Georgia. Many of those Gullah Geechees who were on Cumberland Island became a part of the British Royal Marines, first going to Bermuda and eventually settling in Trinidad (Weiss, 2022). In Trinidad, these descendants settled in locations called company villages and were known as Trinbagonians

or Merikins (which is short for Americans). The Merikins have a subgroup among them called Gullah Geechees. A piece of culture Merikins took with them to Trinidad came from Gullah Geechee foodways, a red-bearded variety of rice that came to America on a ship from West Africa, namely Sierra Leone (Neimark, 2017)

Gullah Geechee Connection with Haiti and Influence on the Slave Trade Freedom has always been important to Gullah Geechee people. One of the largest recorded slave revolts in history occurred in 1822 in Charleston, SC, and was a collaboration between enslaved and freed Africans, Denmark Vesey, Gullah Jack, and Blacks from Haiti. Gullah Jack was an urban slave whose name suggests an identity with the Gullah Geechee community. Recognized as a great spiritual leader by both freed and enslaved Blacks in the area, he was able to influence large numbers of people to participate in the rebellion (Millett, 2013). Many whites left Haiti and fled to Charleston and other port cities as refugees during the Haitian Revolution from 1791–1803 and brought their enslaved persons with them (“Denmark Vesey,” 2022). No doubt, many enslaved Blacks from Haiti participated in the rebellion. Additionally, according to Gershon (2022), Vesey and Gullah Jack consulted with Black leaders in Haiti over the planning of the rebellion, which became known as the “Vesey slave conspiracy.” Freed and enslaved Blacks from cities and plantations, numbering as many as 9,000, planned the rebellion, which involved taking over the state armory so that enslaved Blacks from rural areas and the local sea islands could rise up and assist. They intended to seize arsenals, kill all whites, burn and destroy Charleston, free enslaved people, and relocate to Haiti. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2022).

It has been surmised that Vesey’s planned revolt was a turning point in history because it marked an event that changed how enslaved Blacks were viewed. According to Johnson (2010), knowledge that enslaved Blacks were capable of planning such a grand scheme raised a genuine

fear in whites. Enslaved Blacks transitioned from being perceived as docile properties and even friends to being viewed as a “violent threat that needed to be armed against” (Johnson, 2010).

Native Americans and Gullah Geechee in Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas

African Seminoles are descendants of Gullah Geechee people who came out of South Carolina and Georgia prior to Florida becoming a part of the United States. In the eighteenth century, Florida was a tropical wilderness claimed by the Spanish (Opala, n.d.). According to Opala (n.d.), the Spaniards offered refuge to enslaved Blacks and renegade Native Americans from South Carolina and Georgia. The Gullah people and Native Americans maintained friendly relations, and over time came to view themselves as parts of a unique, loose tribe (Opala, n.d.). For several generations, they lived in close but separate and free settlements and intermarried (Opala, n.d.; Wittich, n.d.). Black (Gullah Geechee) men often served in positions of leadership and authority in their blended village (Wittich, n.d.). The Native Americans became known as Seminoles and the escaped Gullah became known as Seminole Negroes or Indian Negroes (Opala, n.d.). Over time, the name Black Seminoles was given to this unique tribe. Today there are Native American Seminoles and African Seminoles.

The relationship between the African Seminoles and the Native American Seminoles transitioned into a military alliance when the Florida Territory became a part of the U S. The Seminole Wars began in 1818 as the Black and Native American Seminoles fought side-by-side in resistance to American control. The first war was called the Indian and Negro War. In 1835, a second Seminole war occurred, called the Gullah War. African Seminoles were military leaders in that conflict and led a “full-scale guerilla war” (Opala, n.d.). According to Opala (n.d.), when the Black Seminoles were finally subdued after a six-year war, the U.S. Army officers decided not to return them to slavery. They feared their experience as freed men would wreak havoc on

the Southern plantations. Opala (n.d.) wrote that in 1842, the U.S. Army forcibly moved the Black and Native American Seminoles to what is now Oklahoma (previously called Indian Territory). When the majority of both Seminole groups were forced out west to Oklahoma, the culture was taken with them, naturally. Rice made its appearance in Oklahoma also, as it had been produced for consumption by both groups in Florida.

One of the reasons the Black and Native American Seminoles resisted being forced to Oklahoma was the concern of having to share land with the Creek Indians, who practiced a chattel slavery comparable to what was used by white people (Wittich, n.d.). This was a valid concern for the Black Seminoles, as they often had to take refuge to protect family members from being stolen and sold. A group of Native American Seminoles and Black Seminoles fled Indian Territory under Seminole chief Wild Cat and Black Seminole chief John Horse (Wittich, n.d.). The group traveled to Mexico, eventually settling at Nacimiento in Coauila (Wittich, n.d.).

According to Wittich (n.d.), the Black Seminoles took on a name of their own choosing, the Mascogos. Although, no longer called Gullah Geechee, the Mascogos continued to practice multiple aspects of Gullah Geechee culture and way of life that had been handed down for centuries.

Texas was a large territory between the Mexican border and Oklahoma, and the Kickapoo and Lipan Native American tribes constantly raided parts of it. In 1870, the U.S. Army decided to solicit able-bodied males of the Mascogos who were in Mexico and ask them to enlist in the Army as Indian scouts to help the regular army fight the Kickapoo and Lipan tribes (Wittich, n.d.). Over the next few years, many Mascogos left Mexico and settled on military reservations in Texas to fight in the U.S. Army. While there, their Gullah Geechee language and culture were maintained.

In 1898, the Curtis Act dissolved the Native American nations, and both Blacks and the Indian Nations accepted the land allotments (Krauthamer, n.d.). Many Mascogos who had fled to Mexico returned to Oklahoma and became legal residents of the state of Oklahoma (Krauthamer, n.d.; Wittich, n.d.)

Gullah Communities in the Bahamas

Not all of the African Seminoles in Florida traveled west to Oklahoma. Some journeyed to the Bahamas and settled in a remote area called the Andros Islands. There, they created an isolated community on the northwest shore of the island called Red Bays (Howard, 2006; Gallagher, 2013). One obvious Gullah Geechee cultural aspect that remains evident among the African Seminoles in Red Bays is basketsewing/basketweaving (Howard, 2006).

Gullah Geechee People Come Full Circle – From the Rice Coast of Africa to Coastal

Georgia and South Carolina to Canada and Back to Africa: The Rice Coast of Africa –Freetown, Sierra Leone

The British often requested African support during wars with the U.S. The first was made during the American Revolution (1765–1791). Africans were offered freedom in exchange for military support (Frey, 1991). Two of the largest cities in the southern part of the colonies, Savannah, GA, and Charleston, SC, were under British control. Thousands of enslaved people escaped from plantations and fled to British lines to fight in exchange for freedom. When the British evacuated and retreated to Canada, they took many formerly enslaved people with them and named them Black loyalists (“Black Loyalists,” 2022).

In 1787, 4,000 Black loyalists, assisted by British abolitionists, left Canada because the British did not make good on many of their promises. They relocated to West Africa to form Freetown, Sierra Leone. Five years later, in 1792, another 1,192 Black Loyalists relocated to

Sierra Leone. Both groups became part of the Sierra Leone Creole people and founders of the nation of Sierra Leone (Knight & Manson, 2007). When they left for Africa, they retained aspects of ‘Africanisms’ from the Gullah Geechee culture they came from and took this culture with them. The descendants of Black Loyalists are the Sierra Leone Creole people.

Gullah Geechee Descendants Across the Waters in Liberia

In 1820, the infamous ship Antelope was captured near Amelia Island, Florida, by federal authorities (Zinn Education Project, n.d.). The ship was carrying more than 280 captive Africans. By this time, participation in the slave trade was a federal crime; thus, the ship was escorted to Savannah, GA, and the captive Africans were taken into U S custody to await a decision regarding their future fate (Hatfield, n.d.). For over seven years, they were held in custody while a legal and political battle took place that focused on how they should be viewed as free Blacks in Savannah or captured property to be returned to their owners. While being held, many worked on Georgia plantations alongside Gullah Geechee enslaved persons. During this time, 120 of the captured Africans died, 2 were unaccounted for, 39 were sold into slavery by the U.S. government, and 120 were sent to Liberia to found New Georgia (Zinn Education Project, 2022). These Africans who spent 8 years in Savannah with people in the Gullah Geechee culture took features of the language and culture with them to Liberia.

A Contemporary Challenge Facing Gullah Geechee Communities

Despite possessing an authentic diasporic connection, Gullah Geechee communities, particularly in the southern coastal U.S., continue to face challenges that threaten their identity and autonomy. Economic exploitation is an example. Isolation on coastal islands contributed to the manifestation of Gullah Geechee culture. Increased interaction with “outsiders” has presented a palpable threat to identity and economic growth. Outsiders have commercialized Gullah

Geechee culture and have set up money-making endeavors that impede the potential earnings of Gullah Geechee business owners. Examples of this are plentiful within the tourism industry. Tourism is one of the most prominent industries in the coastal Low Country areas and includes lodging, dining, transportation, entertainment, and guided tours. Commercialized guided tours in Gullah Geechee areas have been criticized for offering a “whitewashed,” “slave-free” interpretation of history (Butler, 2001; Hargrove, 2007).

A Strategic Initiative for Gullah Geechee Communities

A strategy to decrease the threat of whitewashed guided tours is to increase authentic Gullah Geechee-owned tours. The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor used the term “heritage tourism” to describe this. The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, established in 2006 by the U S Congress, was created to call attention to the historic and cultural contributions of the Gullah Geechee people (National Park Service, n.d.). Their 2012 management plan indicated that heritage tourism can help Gullah Geechee people leverage their cultural resources into economic assets while providing an important incentive to protect their cultural heritage. The National Trust for Historic Preservation (n.d.) defined heritage tourism as tours that allow tourists to “experience the places, artifacts, and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present ” Several authentic Gullah Geecheeowned tours throughout the Low Country offer guided tours with accurate historical information. Heritage tourism corrects inaccuracies or romanticized notions, celebrates the current aspects of folklore, arts, crafts, and music that embody the culture in that way, and addresses socioeconomic issues by becoming a viable economic engine for Gullah Geechee people (Taylor, 2010). The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor actively engages in efforts to increase support and awareness of Gullah Geechee-owned businesses.

Conclusion

For years, Gullah Geechee culture has been synonymous with shame. Academia has a role in removing this stigma and honoring the culture. This is done by educating students of Africana Studies about the myriad contributions of Gullah Geechee people by including Gullah Geechee culture as discussion topics in forums and conferences and by telling the accurate history of the Gullah Geechee people.

The expansion of heritage tourism via supporting existing Gullah Geechee-owned tour companies and investing in the growth of additional Gullah Geechee-owned tour companies helps to tell the accurate history of the Gullah Geechee people beyond what is taught in schools.

The Mascogos, the Black Seminoles, the Black Loyalist, the Jamaican Maroons all have Gullah Geechee connections or roots. However, rarely are these groups identified by academia as Gullah Geechee descendants. Their connection is real, and their history is rich. Their true story must be told and heard because it breathes life into the fabric of the African diaspora. Their true story must be told from their perspective by them and those who support them. Why? Because, in the words of the African proverb, “Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter ”

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THE STATE OF BLACK/AFRICANA STUDIES

Uncovering the Black Studies Center

by Elise Johnson Africana Studies Major Pomona College

Maryan Soliman, PhD Intercollegiate Department of Africana Studies, Scripps College

In 1968, a pitched battle took place over the founding of Black Studies at the Claremont Colleges, the likes of which had transpired on several other campuses of higher education. Although students at the liberal arts college consortium in Southern California began organizing during the same year as the iconic San Francisco State College student strike, the Claremont story, especially regarding the mistreatment and demise of the Black Studies Center, remains little understood, if not intentionally buried. Founded in 1969 and originally envisioned as an autonomous unit designed to support Black students at a predominantly white institution through the utilization of an array of approaches, from coursework to counseling to community/field work the Black Studies Center (BSC) at the Claremont Colleges was dissolved within a decade. Its bifurcation into a traditional academic department and an office of Black student affairs erased years of painstaking, innovative work on the part of Black students, professors, and staff.

With the 50th anniversary of Black Studies providing a terrific opportunity to reflect on the history, state, and future of the field both across the nation and on our campus the BSC emerges as an important case study that illustrates the powerful ethos of the field at its origins, opposed by campus administrations then and now. Because Black Studies was birthed by social and political movements promoting Black liberation and because of the longstanding oppression facing Black people (in the United States and across the diaspora), the field was created as distinct from traditional academic disciplines already present in academe. While the differences are extensive, there are five tenets that encapsulate the framework of Black Studies departments at their founding: a liberatory praxis, a diasporic framework, a holistic approach to the Black student experience, community ethos, and autonomous functioning. In short, these principles capture not only the importance of centering the continent of Africa and its entire diaspora but also the importance of centering Black liberation.

The Black Studies Center at the Claremont Colleges both exemplifies all five of these tenets and anticipates possible new directions in Africana Studies today. Presently, many Africana Studies departments have deprioritized the early, defining qualities of Black Studies and instead have become integrated into the world of white academia conforming to the standards and molds that traditional disciplines have created over time in an effort to gain and tenure faculty members and have courses, budgets, and departmental work approved and promoted by the university. Going forward, then, Africana Studies must reorient around social movements, as was the case at its founding, and reprioritize all five tenets to work wholeheartedly for learning and liberation.

Liberatory Praxis

When the first Black Studies department was founded at SF State, the last thing the students wanted was for it to merely mirror white-run academic departments, both in San Francisco and across the country. Instead, Black Studies advocates founded the department with the intention of proliferating a liberatory praxis, meaning that everything that Black Studies stood for was to be enmeshed in the liberation of Black people. Practically, this framework meant that Black Studies departments focused on learning not just for knowledge’s sake but to help the communities one comes from. In this sense, the liberatory praxis was intended to empower students to assist their communities and fight for Black liberation but did not just leave it up to students to initiate the work themselves; rather, the intention was to set up necessary (and successful) programs and systems to empower communities.

Claremont’s Black Studies Center embodied this liberatory praxis. Indeed, the Black students who fought to establish the BSC wrote a memo challenging the Claremont Colleges to do better, stating that “we did not come here to merely study academically, but also to bring back to our respective communities methods of alleviating the problems that now exist” ([Demand for a Black Studies Center], ca. 1969, p. 1). In this way, the BSC truly went beyond a mere study of Black history and theory, and it worked to create a space where students could retain their Blackness, fight discrimination, and learn how to effectively engage with the Black community outside of academe. The BSC was so dedicated to cultivating a liberatory praxis that it gained a reputation among prominent Black activists; for example, when Angela Davis agreed to work at the Center as a lecturer, she was inspired by how the BSC “maintained the content of liberation” in its courses (as quoted in Spicer, 1975).

Diasporic Framework

Employing a diasporic framework in the BSC meant that the continent of Africa and the entire African diaspora were both claimed and upheld. This approach is necessary for recognizing the different experiences of Black people across the diaspora and ensuring that these experiences not only inform liberation but are included in it. Moreover, as explained by scholar Santiago-Valles (2005), “The intellectual justifications for the field are in the connections between Africa and its diaspora, as well as in the context that gives those connections meaning” (p. 50).

The Black Studies Center promoted a diasporic framework in a variety of ways. First, it offered classes that featured content from the continent, including an African philosophy course and a newly created Swahili course. In addition, the BSC cosponsored a colloquium with the UCLA Afro-American Studies Center in which it hosted a pan-Africanism panel. In yet another example of the BSC’s commitment to the diaspora, and perhaps the most important, the BSC and the Chicano Studies Center at the Claremont Colleges began working more closely together by 1973 toward fostering pan-Africanism and third-world solidarity. This collaboration is important, as it demonstrates the BSC’s concern with the study and liberation of the entire continent and its diaspora.

Unfortunately, with its budget repeatedly under attack and with constant scrutiny from administrators, the BSC was unable to devote the necessary resources and energy to develop its diasporic framework while still managing the services it sought to provide Black students at the Claremont Colleges. Even today, institutions (including the Claremont Colleges) support a diasporic framework in a lackluster way by treating Africa as one country, giving minimal support to the teaching of African languages, problematically framing the study of Africa, and permitting the creation of African Studies departments and programs by white professors, thus

“rendering Africa and its diaspora as ‘separate and contradictory entities’” (as quoted in Azterbaum, 2017, para. 9; Zeleza, 2011, pp. 27–28).

Community Ethos

The community ethos of Africana Studies is entirely distinct from that of traditional disciplines. Whereas white-dominated disciplines typically focus their community engagement on charity, community engagement within Africana Studies is an intrinsic and reciprocal relationship centered around building up communities from the inside, particularly as a means to liberation. This difference stems from the fact that Africana Studies departments across the country were born out of a struggle during a time when Black militant groups were prominent and students saw the need for material change. Hence, the Claremont Black Student Union emboldened not only by its connection to the Black Panther Party and the path to victory set by other Black Studies movements was determined to see through the creation of a Black Studies Center where students could effectively engage with the Black community. When the BSC opened, many of the courses described field work as either encouraged or integral, and the BSC itself also led community engagement efforts. Some of the notable initiatives included starting a Black businessmen’s group, developing a relationship with a local hospital, and starting a six-week preparatory course for incoming first-year students to help community members succeed at the colleges. The BSC also had the Pomona Day School, a supplementary school for Black youth, as well as the Peer Academic Counseling initiative, peer counseling for high school students whose campus counseling was inadequate. Even during tumultuous times, the BSC always returned to community engagement. Despite the firing of its first director, students at the Center were assigned to work with high school students, economics majors were sent to the impoverished city of San Bernardino to work

on economic issues and brainstorm about how they could help turn empty storefronts into cultural centers for the community. Unfortunately, when the BSC was dissolved into the Intercollegiate Department of Africana Studies and the Office of Black Student Affairs, it largely lost the emphasis on community ethos. The department has not been able to regain that level of work since. This attenuation likewise plagues other Africana Studies departments across the country, as professors and students are forced to choose between compliance with the university and the “radical possibilities of Black Studies” (Andrews, 2020, p. 27). As such, the community ethos of Africana Studies is just one reason that the field must be autonomous: wholly separate from and in many ways in tension with the inner workings of the ivory tower.

Autonomy

Truly autonomous Africana Studies departments are able to control not only their budgets but also their services, classes, staffing, and tenure and promotion of professors. This status differs from typical departments in that autonomous departments can work outside the confines set by the university, including standards for course content and student learning. This kind of control is important because, as noted, Africana Studies needs both a liberatory praxis and community ethos to best serve the Black population and remain true to the student activists who fought for the first Black Studies departments in the country. Since community ethos and a liberatory praxis differ from what traditional departments emphasize, many Africana Studies professors produce work and teach classes in a way that is not necessarily conducive to typical standards for promotion (as their priorities differ). Hence, it is unfair to evaluate them as if they are professors in traditional disciplines, necessitating a clear path to tenure and promotion set by and for Africana Studies professors. This system, in turn, necessitates autonomy.

When the Black students at the Claremont Colleges originally proposed the Black Studies Center, they envisioned it being completely autonomous, controlling aspects that would allow the BSC to best serve the Black population at the Claremont Colleges. Indeed, they wanted their own facilities, their own budget, and equal access to consortium facilities. The administration at the colleges, however, used this desire for autonomy as another way to stall the creation of the Center, citing potential legal issues with a completely autonomous Center. The administrators and the BSU eventually agreed on allowing the Center the fullest self-determination possible just short of full autonomy. At the very least, members of the BSU were under the impression that self-determination meant they could control faculty promotion and tenure. Unfortunately, the administration took every opportunity to ensure that this control never materialized.

Consequently, by 1976, the BSC faculty had been moved to the colleges with only secondary offices within the Center, thus “murdering” the Center by “eradicating the director’s control over both the faculty and the curriculum” (A Luta Continua, 1975, para. 2). Coupled with the continuous reduction of the Center’s budget, this move to the colleges stripped the BSC of almost all remaining autonomy. As a result, many of the services that the Center saw as integral were perpetually in question, jeopardizing the holistic nature of the BSC.

Holistic Approach

The very structure of the Black Studies Center provided a holistic approach to student life, preventing the bifurcation between academic and social life. Students had a centralized place where they could address issues ranging from academic courses, career, mental health, housing, and Black resistance. The BSC addressed each of these issues in a way that acknowledged those needs as part of one human being. This centralized mode of approaching Africana/Black Studies majors prevented many of the compartmentalization issues that arise

today from Black student affairs and Ethnic Studies academic departments constituting separate units on campus. For example, it was up to the Center to “deal with any problems Black students might incur during their attendance at the Claremont colleges,” including “discrimination in housing or employment, and academic difficulties requiring tutoring or counseling” ([Demand for a Black Studies Center], ca. 1969, p. 3). Moreover, one centralized building allowed for a gathering space for Black students a location to decompress, meet with professors, eat, study, receive counseling, and simply exist together. Spaces such as these are particularly important, as students are continually asked to devote more and more of themselves to their academics.

By the late 1970s, Claremont administrators, however, were generally unconvinced of the necessity of the BSC’s services, viewing the Center as an unselective, “random grouping of courses” that no longer reflected the “social and political context out of which the concept of Black Studies arose” (Shelton, 1989, para. 3). As such, they viewed the Center as somewhat irrelevant, particularly because “with perhaps ten times the number of Black Students on campus, [the] sense of being alone should not be felt so keenly” (Stewart, 1974, p. 3). In other words, there was a pervasive belief that Black students no longer required the same support as they had at the founding of Black Studies despite Black students insisting they did. Consequently, the administration took every chance they could to cut services from the BSC. In fact, the steep budget cut from $225,000 to $195,000 (which was only one cut in a string of many reductions) proposed in 1973 would have forced the BSC to eliminate the tutor counseling program, the assistant dean of counseling position, and the prefreshman program, which would cause an estimated 30% of the incoming Black first-year students to fail. The BSC included these programs and positions initially because, as the director of Claremont Counseling recognized, “The counseling needs of Black students that are unmet by white counselors” and the available

support to incoming Black first-years and enrolled Black students was wholly inadequate (Black Studies Center Progress Report, 1969, p. 3).

Moreover, BSC faculty member Mimi Browne and BSC Director James Garrett were fired for participating in a sit-in at the colleges’ financial center, which was geared toward retaining funding for the prefreshman program. These extra summer classes were crucial for helping working-class Black students gain the necessary skills to succeed in college. That Browne and Garrett lost their jobs trying to protect these programs shows how crucial the programs were to the success of Black students at the Claremont Colleges.

The administrators ultimately won when they split the BSC into the Intercollegiate Department of Africana Studies and the Office of Black Student Affairs, sending the message that a student’s academic and social needs are inherently separate. This message is not only unfortunate but also dangerous in that students who do not learn to value their whole being often sacrifice their mental health.

Conclusion

That the Claremont Colleges today are falling short of upholding the five tenets integral to Africana Studies is indicative of a larger, nationwide problem facing Africana Studies. This problem is largely due to two factors. First, Black Studies is not being taught in the same social and political context as it was in the 1970s. Because there is no national revolutionary movement for Black liberation in the same way that there was when Black Studies was founded, the ethos and motivation is different, and thus there are more ties to the university and fewer links to the original goals of Black Studies. Second, many institutions refuse to give their Black Studies departments autonomy or sustained infrastructure to safeguard the mission of Africana Studies. Instead, universities for decades have wanted Black Studies departments to function in identical

ways as traditional departments. Hence, the academy is more concerned with promoting its diversity initiatives to potential students and donors than actually safeguarding the departments and organizations that serve minority students.

To combat these failures, it is imperative to change the direction of Black Studies, particularly keeping in mind that Africana Studies must be ready for the next social movement if there is any hope of successfully carrying on the legacy of the first Black Studies departments. First and foremost, getting ready requires reorienting around the five tenets of a liberatory praxis, a diasporic framework, a holistic approach, community ethos, and full autonomy. While this reorientation is certainly no easy task, it is important to begin sustained student and faculty efforts as soon as possible. In doing so, it would be useful to collect and share information regarding exemplary Black Studies initiatives achieved on the department level during the waves of Black Lives Matter protests.

Unfortunately, administrator opposition to Black Studies is often political, making it harder to receive institutional support and cooperation for meaningful change. The stance that the Claremont administration took while the BSC was still active epitomizes this fact: Once the Colleges opined that “since 1969, the [Black and Chicano] Centers have become more separatist,” BSC students, faculty, and staff were unable to keep the BSC open for much longer (Stewart, 1974, p. 2). Thus, Black Studies advocates will have to combat this political opposition to further the field and thereby prioritize Black students, Black faculty, and the vision and goals of the first Black Studies departments.

References

A Luta Continua. (1975, May 6). Honnold Library Archives, The Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA, United States.

Andrews, K. (2020). The radical “possibilities” of Black Studies. The Black Scholar, 50(3), 17–28.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2020.1780858

Azterbaum, J. C.-C. (2017, May 2). Proposed African Studies program meets backlash. The Student Life.

https://tsl.news/news6791/

Black Studies Center Progress Report. (1969, October). Honnold Library Archives, The Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA, United States.

[Demand for a Black Studies Center]. (ca. 1969). Honnold Library Archives, The Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA, United States.

Santiago-Valles, W. F. (2005). Producing knowledge for social transformation: Precedents from the diaspora for twenty-first century research and pedagogy. The Black Scholar, 35(2), 50–60.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2005.11413311

Shelton, M. (1980, June 27). [Letter to John H. Chandler]. Honnold Library Archives (Protest Papers). The Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA, United States.

Spicer, K. (1975, December 8). KFL raps with Angela. The Collegian. Honnold Library Archives, The Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA, United States.

Stewart, C. (1974, July 30). [Letter to Howard Brooks]. Honnold Library Archives (Protest Papers). The Claremont Colleges, Claremont, CA, United States.

Zeleza, P. (2011). Building intellectual bridges: From African studies and African American studies to Africana studies in the United States. Afrika Focus, 24(2), 9–31.

https://doi.org/10.21825/af.v24i2.5000

The Pursuit of Black Studies: The Importance of Hiring PhDs Trained in the Discipline

by Charmane M. Perry, PhD Assistant Professor

Department of Africana Studies

San Diego State University

In 1969, after three years of struggle, the first department of Black Studies was established at San Francisco State University (SFSU; Karenga, 2010). Although the study of people of African descent as the subject matter existed prior to 1969, it was at this moment that Black Studies became institutionalized in the academy. The push for Black Studies was firmly rooted in community and student activism within the larger Black Campus Movement, and the initial goals of the movement were trifold: the transformation of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) into Black universities, the building of Black universities in the Black community, and the creation of departments in the academy (Rogers, 2012). Central to these demands for Black Studies were the introduction of Black people as the subject matter which 1) deconstructed and renegotiated the historiography of Black people as actors, 2) introduced and/or expanded courses on Black people into the university curriculum, and 3) knowledge production that resulted in transformative outcomes in the socioeconomic and political realities of Black

people. Although SFSU would be the first department of Black Studies, the pursuit of Black Studies was a national movement that resulted in students seizing buildings, expulsions, student withdrawal, and protests from Howard University to Coppin State University to Cornell University (Rogers, 2012).

Between 1969 and 1973, over 600 Black Studies programs and departments were created as well as courses dedicated to the study of Black people as the subject matter (Beeson, 2009; Rogers, 2012). In a 2013 report, African American Studies 2013: A National Web-Based Survey, researchers found that 20% of U.S. colleges and universities (1,777) held formal units (i.e., programs or departments) in Black Studies. This figure increases to 76% of U.S. colleges and universities when considering institutions that do not have a unit but have at least one course related to Black history (Alkalimat et al., 2013). Despite challenges and attacks on the discipline, such as funding/underfunding, low enrollment, or claims that Black Studies is less rigorous and should be dismantled completely, half a century later, Black Studies is still active within the academy (Bernard-Carreño, 2009; Clark-Hine, 2014; Rogers, 2012; Shaefer Riley, 2012).

In this essay, I discuss the importance of hiring educators trained in Black Studies for the future growth and sustainability of the discipline. Importantly, for the discipline to continue growing, we must hire those trained in Black Studies. This is important for multiple reasons but in particular because it shapes the pedagogy and orientation of students who, in turn, also represent the future of the discipline. Educators trained in the discipline will lead to the increased production of students trained to think like Black Studies scholars. Besides institutional barriers, it is impossible for the discipline to thrive and reproduce itself if students are not being trained as Black Studies scholars and PhDs in the discipline are not being hired. Both are important because they mutually reinforce why Black Studies is more than just a place to study Black

people. If anyone can teach a course in Black Studies, then that within itself invalidates the discipline.

In the two decades following the institutionalization of Black Studies in the academy, courses were exclusively taught by those trained in traditional disciplines (Kendi, 2018). The first doctoral program in the discipline was not created until 1988 at Temple University, and it took another ten years for the second doctoral program to be created at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1998 (Fischer, 2013). By the year 2000, there were only two more programs, University of California, Berkeley and Harvard University, representing a total of four programs (Asante, 2009). There are currently 20 masters and 19 doctoral programs in Black Studies (National Council for Black Studies, 2022). In an analysis of Molefi K. Asante’s decision to develop the first doctoral program in Black Studies, Ibram X. Kendi (2018) states:

Asante’s own Afrocentric perspective also allowed him to look at the 20-year-old Black Studies differently in the mid-1980s. He did not view a thriving discipline. He viewed a dying discipline. Asante’s establishment of Black doctoral studies in 1988 saved the life of Black Studies. A people will become extinct if a people cannot reproduce itself. It is the same for a discipline. Asante recognized that Black Studies had to produce and raise Black Studies scholars to survive through creating its own doctoral programs. (p. 544)

Just as Asante viewed the lack of doctoral programs in the discipline as a sign of the unsustainability of the field, the same can be said for continuing to hire those trained in traditional disciplines. In fact, Asante considers the field incomplete until Black Studies departments are hiring those trained in the field and until over half of the departments are filled with those with doctoral degrees in the discipline (Asante, 2015). Asante (2015) states:

There are many scholars teaching in Black Studies who self-declare as something other than Black Studies professors. I find this quite incredulous when it comes to the process of developing a discipline. However, in many ways those of us of the first generation and the second generation have been responsible for this circumstance by hiring individuals who are looking for a job rather than those who know the discipline and will continue the legacy established by the early scholars in the field. I was struck not long ago by [how] inadequate our education in the field and its history has been when I found out that there were professors teaching in Black Studies at a certain institution who had never heard of Nathan Hare. When we have reached the level of having more than half of our faculty members with degrees in African American or Africana Studies we can say that the discipline is on the road to security and maturity. (para. 24)

The discipline must reproduce itself in the form of educators and scholars trained in Black Studies and scholars who identify themselves as such. The limited number of graduate programs does indeed present a challenge for Black Studies concerning the hiring of PhDs in diverse areas of expertise and training undergraduate and graduate students. But as time progresses, it is critical that more educators trained in the discipline are teaching and securing positions in the field.

In “A Black Studies Manifesto,” Darlene Clark Hine (2014) argues, “We often forget that Black Studies is an intellectual discipline characterized by different objects and methods of study than other disciplinary formations in the university” (p. 11). Clark Hine goes on to say:

Within ten minutes of talking to a person, it is rather easy to determine whether he or she is a lawyer by the way they articulate critical issues. Though law schools do not teach or

require students to learn or memorize every law that has been passed, students do, however, learn how to think like lawyers. (p. 11)

Clark Hines is correct in her assertion that students must be trained to think like Black Studies’ scholars and suggests intersectionality, nonlinear thinking, diasporic perspectives and comparative analyses, oppression and resistance, and solidarity as five characteristics of the Black Studies mind. However, for this to happen, the pedagogical and disciplinary orientation of faculty are important for successfully training students in the discipline. For example, in Spring 2020, one of my assigned courses was Research Methods in Africana Studies. For this course, it was important to be very intentional about the selection of course materials, and I ultimately decided upon Serie McDougal III’s Research Methods in Africana Studies. My decision to choose this text was important for many reasons, but at the foundation, it was important to me to train students to think like a Black Studies scholar and understand what that means when conducting research. It would be simple to select any text or collection of articles on research methods. However, a part of the way a discipline distinguishes itself is related to its methodology. In Black Studies, it is imperative to be concerned with the how and the why, and it is crucial to train students to think in the same way. According to McDougal (2014): Africana Studies’ mission centralized three things: academic excellence, social responsibility, and cultural grounding (Karenga, 2002). Africana Studies is distinguished not by what or who is studied, but by how and why it is studied. Africana Studies grounds itself in the cultural location of peoples of African descent. The researcher engages in study for the purpose of improving the lived experiences of people of African descent.

(pp. 106–107)

During this course, the significance of the how and why, was repeatedly emphasized as well as the need to conduct research that has societal implications. While discussing these important components of research, it was important to draw students back to Manning Marable’s Black intellectual tradition, which was used as a lens for understanding how to approach the study of people of African descent and the significance of Black Studies. In my courses, in general, the Black intellectual tradition is often one of the first required readings because many students have a faulty understanding of the definition, orientation, and goals of the discipline. Marable provides a lens to introduce students to the discipline who may or may not be majors or minors but also provides a lens for the course subject matter and course materials and reinforces critical ideas of what it means to be a Black Studies scholar. History departments train historians. Sociology departments train sociologists, and they each have a particular method of approaching their subject of analysis. Black Studies must train its students to do the same.

Yet the challenge is also related to encouraging undergraduate students to pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in the field. This can manifest in a variety of ways, one of which is by “not offering Black Studies as a major or more than a few elective requirements,” with the result that “students are disempowered, and are driven farther away from this academic field of study” (Bernard-Carreño, 2009, p. 17). However, it can also be present in the form of faculty (in the university and the department) or staff, such as advisors. In discussing the reactions to seeking a graduate degree in Black Studies, Bernard-Carreño (2009) reveals the way advisors attempted to discourage her pursuit with statements such as “it’s a waste of your time and brain,” “there are no jobs for that,” and “you will not make money” (p. 13). She goes on to say that “word of mouth encouragement and slim examples without actual and accurate representation of success in Black Studies, helped to harbor the attitude that economics trumps

the production of knowledge” (p. 19). This is critical. How does the lack of educators with doctoral degrees in Black Studies impact students’ decision to obtain a traditional degree? Does representation, in this way, matter? And how does having educators in the field with traditional degrees shape the mentoring and advocating for the pursuit of graduate degrees in Black Studies? My own decision to pursue graduate study in the discipline was partially influenced by examples from the classroom, specifically the doctoral students in the department at Temple University. It was not only the courses or the ability to major in African American Studies but also representation and their encouragement and passion for the discipline. Like BernardCarreño, I, too, had a faculty member in one of my programs (who was traditionally trained) attempt to discourage me from pursuing a graduate degree in the field by simply stating, “Do you want a job?” How many students stop at a bachelors’ or even a masters’ degree and opt for a doctorate in a traditional discipline because of these same concerns, whether directly stated, implied, or from the lack of doctoral representation among faculty in their department?

The Department of Africana Studies at San Diego State University (SDSU) is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary. There are currently a total of eight tenured and tenure-track faculty members, the majority of whom (seven out of eight) received their doctoral degree in the discipline. In fact, the only faculty member without a degree in the discipline is the most senior and longest-employed member of the department. The department is intentional in hiring faculty trained in the discipline and considers applicants not specifically trained in the discipline only if they are extremely exceptional candidates. As stated earlier, Asante (2015) argued, “When we have reached the level of having more than half of our faculty members with degrees in African American or Africana Studies we can say that the discipline is on the road to security and maturity” (para. 24). The Department of Africana Studies at SDSU provides an example of what

we should be striving towards for the future of the discipline. As faculty, staff, activists, researchers, and educators in the field, it is not only our responsibility to produce a new generation of critical thinkers connected to the larger community, but it is our responsibility to believe in the purpose of the field. Positions in Black Studies cannot be a job for job’s sake. The responsibility is too great.

References

Alkalimat, A., Bailey, R., Byndom, S., McMillion, D., Nesbitt, L., Williams, K., & Zelip, B. (2013). African American Studies 2013: A national web-based survey. University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Department of African American Studies.

http://www.afro.illinois.edu/documents/BlackStudiesSurvey.pdf

Asante, M. K. (2009). The creation of the doctorate in African American Studies at Temple University: Knocking at the door of Eurocentric hegemony. Dr. Molefi Kete Asante.

http://www.asante.net/articles/7/the-creation-of-the-doctorate-in-african-americanstudies-at-temple-university-knocking-at-the-door-of-eurocentric-hegemony

Asante, M. K. (2015). The pursuit of Africology: On the creation and sustaining of Black Studies. Dr. Molefi Kete Asante. http://www.asante.net/articles/59/afrocentricity/

Beeson, J. (2009, February 3). U.S. celebrates 40th anniversary of Black Studies programs. News Bureau, University of Missouri.

https://munews.missouri.edu/newsreleases/2009/02.03.09.brunsma.Black.studies.annivers ary.php

Bernard-Carreño, R. A. (2009). The critical pedagogy of Black Studies. The Journal of Pan African Studies, 2(10), 12–29.

Clark Hine, D. (2014). A Black Studies manifesto: Characteristics of a Black Studies mind. The Black Scholar, 44(2), 11–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2014.11413683

Fischer, K. (2013, October 15). Temple’s doctoral program in African American Studies celebrates 25 years. Temple University. https://liberalarts.temple.edu/news/first-doctoralprogram-african-american-studies-celebrate-25th-year

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

Kendi, I. X. (2018). Black doctoral studies: The radically antiracist idea of Molefi Kete Asante. Journal of Black Studies, 49(6), 542-558. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934718786124

Manning, M. (2000). Introduction: Black Studies and the racial mountain. In M. Marable (Ed.), Dispatches from the ebony tower: Intellectuals confront the African American experience (pp. 1–28). Columbia University Press.

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

National Council of Black Studies. (n.d.). Africana Studies graduate programs. Retrieved September 14, 2022 from https://ncbsonline.org/students/as-grad-programs

Rogers, I. H. (2012). The Black campus movement and the institutionalization of Black Studies, 1965–1970. Journal of African American Studies, 16, 21–40.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-011-9173-2

Shaefer Riley, N. (2012, April 30). The most persuasive case for eliminating Black Studies? Just read the dissertations. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/the-most-persuasive-case-for-eliminatingblack-studies-just-read-the-dissertations

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

African American Trail Riding: A Legacy of Perseverance and Community Engagement

by Demetrius W. Pearson Associate Professor Department of Health and Human Performance University of Houston

This paper highlights the perseverance and community involvement engaged in by the Prairie View Trail Riders Association (PVTRA) Established in the late 1950, for over 65 years the PVTRA has been actively involved in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (HLSR) as well as various philanthropic, educational, and social causes throughout Texas.

Historical Overview

For the record, trail riding is as an ancillary component of rodeo, which is a ritualistic contemporary reenactment of the mid-19th century trek across the American western plains in pursuit of a viable homestead (Pearson, 2021). From a sociocultural perspective, this nostalgic cultural pastime engaged in by thousands of individuals throughout the year has gained

considerable attention of late. However, the reenactment takes on a significant meaning in Texas at the annual HLSR. During this 21-day event, trail riding associations throughout Texas converge on Houston to celebrate the largest rodeo in the world. Western culture enthusiasts and devotees have donned their cowboy/girl drag and prepared themselves for an often arduous sojourn to downtown Houston since 1952. Those most familiar with ranching and livestock management will climb on their trusted steeds or into a vintage replica covered wagon with their Stetson hats, Lucchese boots, Roper shirts, Wrangler jeans, and Scully vests destined for a number of predetermined campsite respites for the journey. The actual trail rides vary depending upon where the trail riding outfit is located. Some trail rides will last more than two weeks and cover over 350 miles. Approximately 3,000 trail riders from 11–13 associations annually participate in this signature rodeo event (Campbell, n.d.). This longstanding ritual has garnered national attention from prominent newspapers like the New York Times. Beat writer Ralph Blumenthal noted the avidity, passion, and deference toward this annual pilgrimage in an article titled “A Hummer Alongside a Horse? The Rodeo Must Be in Houston” (Blumenthal, 2004).

A New Sheriff Is in Town

Among the many trail riding associations is the Prairie View Trail Riders Association. Based in Hempstead, TX, close to Prairie View A&M University, PVTRA is arguably the oldest African American trail riding organization in the United States (Lashway, 2022) and assuredly the oldest of the four sanctioned African American trail riding organizations participating in the HLSR parade annually. This trail riding association was established in 1957 and has participated in the annual HLSR for the past 65 years with the slogan “Ride with Pride.” Currently, it is the largest African American trail riding association, traveling over 100 miles in a week on Texas rural highways and byways with as many as 270–525 riders (Campbell, n.d.; Mack, 2001). They

also participate in the grueling Mission Trail Ride of over 150 miles. PVTRA’s founders, James Francies Jr. and PRCA Hall of Fame bull rider Myrtis Dightman Sr. know that it was not easy to galvanize Black cowboys/girls to participate in social events and fraternize with white Texas cowboys during the 1950s and 1960s. Even though Black cowboys/girls have been a fixture on Texas ranches since before the republic was established, their legacy and contributions during the western migration in American history has oftentimes been marginalized and blatantly omitted. Yet they made up a considerable segment of the western frontier population as well as the cowboys herding cattle north on several of the most celebrated trails (e.g., the Chisholm Trail, Goodnight-Loving Trail, and Great Western Trail).

Trials, Tribulations, and Travails

Francies and Dightman, still actively involved in the association, can genuinely attest to the past discriminatory treatment and segregated campsite accommodations en route to Houston, as well as the phalanx of National Guard, Department of Public Safety, Houston Police Department, and Sheriff’s Department officers dispatched to escort and protect the trail riders from possible civil unrest (Pearson, 2021). However, this did not stop the barrage of racist taunts, jeers, and obscene gestures directed at the trail riders. This was a reality due to the mounting civil unrest over segregation and discriminatory practices nationally during the mid-twentieth century. Texas law enforcement agencies actually had to set up guard posts in close proximity to the Prairie View Trail Riders Association campsite throughout their stay. Fortunately, no incidents of violence occurred. Yet in spite of the dangers, past social indignities, and the complexities of coordinating the annual event, both founders have committed over the years to participate in Rodeo Houston’s Go Texan Day and parade, as well as maintaining the legacy of the Black western homesteader, ranch hand, and rodeo cowboy/girl.

Community Engagement

The PVTRA community engagement activities occur year-round: before, during, and after the HLSR. According to Cardenas (2020), members from the PVTRA often share their legacy at elementary schools, museums, and historically Black colleges and universities around the state of Texas. They discuss the historical omission of Black cowboys/girls as well as their enduring involvement in the cattle industry during the major cattle drives and western frontier expansion. Cardenas (2020) also noted that the stories take on greater meaning via trail riding. In 2018, during an evening respite at the Community Faith Church (Houston, TX), en route to their campsite outside of downtown Houston (TX), the PVTRA was recognized and honored through a filmed documentary by a local television network. They were also lauded for their trail rides using rescued animals. While at the church, trail riders entertained the many western culture enthusiasts and devotees with stories about their annual pilgrimage to Houston, TX, and the excitement gleaned from participating in the HLSR parade. With a captivated audience, trail riders also highlighted the many hardships (i.e., inclement weather, traffic congestion, covered wagon repairs, and animal reshoeing) endured during their self-imposed sojourn. Yet they actually take pride and revel in the nostalgic atmosphere of the nightly campfires, chuck wagon meals, and lively Texas tunes. Whether the music is live or prerecorded the, diverse genres (i e., country, country and western, rhythm and blues, zydeco, hip-hop, rap, and folk music) that fill the air suggest that all are welcome.

In order to coordinate a trail ride of this magnitude, meticulous planning must take place. This includes the galvanization of veteran trail riders and novice riders who choose to ride part of the way. A concerted effort is made to recruit teenagers and young kids from the surrounding counties in the hope that they will maintain the legacy. Ronald Turner, assistant trail boss, stated,

“I ‘growed’ up on the trail. We try to promote kids and agriculture and show them the way” (Lashway, 2022, para. 8). Before the actual trail ride begins, major logistically preparations are made. This includes the collection of participation fees to offset trail riding operating expenses. Also, standard codes of conduct, informing trail riders of basic attire, riding format, standard protocol, and personal behavior, are addressed. Transportation routes must be coordinated with local authorities (e.g., highway permits, police escorts, etc.). Scouts have to be identified to monitor traffic patterns, establish overnight campsites, and determine the basic amenities to be packed (e.g., food, water, tents, firewood, porta potties, etc.). In addition, arrangements to care for the horses and mules must be undertaken; thus, a farrier is required to trim hooves and replace horseshoes. Lastly, current Coggins papers are required to verify the health of the animals as well as animal feed, consisting of hay, grass and various dietary concentrates, must be packed for however long the trip will last. Needless to say, the delegation of duties and responsibilities is an enormous task for the trail boss; however, the PVTRA and their community devotees manage to make it work year after year.

A salient galvanizing aspect of the trail rides are the breakfast and dinner chuckwagon meals, which elicit a communal atmosphere among riders and invited guests. One would be remiss if cowboy cuisine were not mentioned. Although beans, brisket, and ribs are traditional Texas fare staples, much like Tex-Mex dishes (e.g., chili, burritos, enchiladas, etc.), Cajun/Creole food, including jambalaya, boudin/boudain, fried catfish, crawfish, and gumbo, has become a favorite on African American trail rides. This is due in part to the early Creole settlers in Spanish Texas around 1803 and the large contingent of former enslaved Blacks that relocated to southeast Texas from Louisiana after the Civil War and during the Great Migration of the early 20th century (Pruitt, 2005, 2013; Steptoe, 2015). Arguably the most notable and

accomplished chuck wagon cook among Black trail riders is Nathan Jean Whitaker Sanders, fondly known as “Mama Sugar.” In a 2022 visit to the Sugar Shack, she readily admitted that following behind the rear end of a horse or mule was not overly appealing but took to trail riding because of her six daughters’ fascination with the experience and community engagement among Black cowboys/girls. Mama Sugar contends this was the impetus for establishing the Sugar Shack Trailblazers in 1983 at her ranch in nearby Fresno, TX. Yet it is Mama Sugar’s cooking that keeps her on the chuck wagon. She is so revered and accomplished as a cook that she has her own unpublished recipe book (Mama Sugar Recipes) and has contributed to several national publications (e.g., Gourmet, The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, etc.) on Texas cuisine.

The Spoils of Perseverance

The Prairie View Trail Riders Association has received numerous accolades and honors for their perseverance and community service. Among them are the following: the 2011 Spirit award, 2012 and 2013 Division II Best Trail award, 2014 Best Wagon Spirit award, 2017 Best Appearance Trail Ride Group, Division II Outstanding Trail Ride Group, and the 2019 Top Trail award. During their 64th year of participation, they won an unprecedented Trail Ride Spirit award and were Division I winner for the first time in the history of the organization.

The PVTRA has also been lauded over the years for their community service contributions and philanthropic endeavors. As a designated 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, they annually award scholarships to Texas residents and students attending Prairie View A&M University. This is due in part to various fundraisers (e.g., Annual Kickoff Dance, Chili Cookoff, etc.) conducted throughout the year. Their devotion to preserving Texas culture and western heritage, as well as educating students, has garnered financial support from the HLSR, which has pledged over $500,000 toward the Prairie View Trail Riders Association’s scholarship program

(Pearson, 2021). Lastly, the HLSR also recognized them in 1986 as having the best trail ride for that year. This is the highest honor bestowed upon a participating trail riding organization.

Conclusion

Needless to say, the Prairie View Trail Riders Association has persevered as a pioneering organization in the HLSR at large and their respective community in particular. Their steadfast determination to share the oft-omitted legacy of Black cowboys/girls, as well as their willingness to contribute in myriad ways within the Black community, has endeared the association to western culture enthusiasts and rodeo devotees alike. Interestingly, the PVTRA’s longtime involvement with the HLSR has galvanized the other three sanctioned Black trail riding associations to participate, thereby creating a more culturally diverse communal environment. As an annual trail riding association participant at the HLSR, their legacy has been cemented. This is communicated through their coveted parade status, which has them leading all trail riding groups into downtown Houston during this nostalgic sociocultural ritual.

References

Blumenthal, R. (2004, March 1). A hummer alongside a horse? The rodeo must be in Houston. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/01/us/a-hummer-alongside-a-horsethe-rodeo-must-be-in-houston.html

Campbell, D. (n.d.). Their happy trails blazed pathways of respect and historic achievements for African Americans. African American News & Issues.

http://www.aframnews.com/prairie-view-trail-riders-association/

Cardenas, C. (2020, March). Through a historic trail ride, Black Cowboys and Cowgirls take ownership of their role in history. Texas Monthly

https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/historic-trail-ride-black-cowboyscowgirls-houston-rodeo/

Lashway, Z. (2022, February 24). Field trip February: Prairie View Trail Riders give KPRC 2’s Zach Lashway a glimpse of life as a cowboy. KPRC 2

https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2022/02/24/field-trip-february-prairie-viewtrail-riders-give-kprc-2s-zach-lashway-a-glimpse-of-life-as-a-cowboy

Mack, K. (2001, February 9). For 43 years, Black cowpokes ‘ride with pride’ to the rodeo. The Houston Chronicle. https://www.chron.com/news/article/For-43-years-black-cowpokesride-with-pride-to-2006745.php

Pearson, D. (2021). Black rodeo in the Texas Gulf Coast Region: Charcoal in the ashes. Lexington Books.

Pruitt, B. (2005, Fall). In search of freedom: Black migration to Houston, 1914–1945 The Houston Review of History and Culture, (3)1, 45–57, 85–86.

Pruitt, B. (2013). The other great migration: The movement of rural African Americans to Houston, 1900-1941. Texas A&M Press.

Steptoe, T. (2015, December 15). When Louisiana Creoles arrived in Texas, were they Black or white? Zócalo. http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2015/12/15/when-louisianacreoles-arrived-in-texas-were-they-black-or-white/ideas/nexus/

THE VOICES OF BLACK YOUTH

Water Filtration, Water System Infrastructures, and the Black Community

by Bryce Davis-Bohon

Brooklyn Amaya Thompson

Saphyr Brown

Tosh Brown

Janea Douglas

Elijah Lockhart

Kobi Obeng

Aniyah Nelson

Samir Sababu

Jordan Tejeda

Isaiah Holmes

Abstract

The purpose of this study is exploring different effective ways people can clean water. Extreme weather can cause tremendous damage. Climate change can affect the environment, especially the ocean. Ocean flooding allows dirty water from underground to seep into water filtration systems through cracks in pipes. Therefore, people will have to boil water to drink. We have worked to solve this problem by creating our own water system innovations. Resources we used were books, articles, virtual water plant tours, and videos about water filtration and pipes. We also had a guest speaker from the WATER Institute to learn different water filtration steps.

The Problem

Our goal is to make water safe and accessible for everyone. This problem needs to be solved because many people have suffered from flooding and have not had safe water to drink.

Research Questions

How is climate change affecting flooding?

In what ways can flooding affect water systems?

What new filtration methods might be effective in removing bacteria and viruses in water?

Methods

The resources we used were books, articles, virtual water plant tours at MSD Project Clear (Missouri) and Hemphill Water Treatment Plant (Georgia), and videos about water filtration and pipes. We also had a guest speaker from the WATER Institute to learn different water filtration steps.

We used the first 4 steps of the engineering design process:

• Ask

• Research

• Imagine

• Plan

History and Context

The rise of oceans is a very prominent issue. Details of how oceans rise is explained in the following:

The latest IPCC report from 2019 estimates that we will see somewhere between .43 and .84 meters (1.4 to 2.75 feet) of global mean sea level rise above 2000 levels by the end of this century due to the continued thermal expansion (water expands as it warms) and increasing melting of ice sheets and glaciers. This is not even the high end of the projections but the “likely” mid-range, and two meters is projected in some studies. Seas will continue to rise for centuries thereafter with some models indicating up to 5 meters’ increase. How high and how fast will depend in large part on the amount of greenhouse gases that we pump into the atmosphere over the next few decades.

During that time, the tidal cycle will continue to offer a rolling preview of the flooding that our coasts can expect in the future. (Conklin & Psaros, 2021 p. 130)

Background

According to Hossein Tabari in the article “Climate Change Impact on Flood and Extreme Precipitation: Increases with Water Availability,” the hydrological cycle intensifies global warming and can risk flooding. Also, with climate change, flood risks could increase by almost 30 times with existing drainage systems (Ashley et al., 2005).

Climate change means the earth is warming up. This means that ice and glaciers from cold places would melt, causing the sea levels to rise. This could mean a flood could happen! As a result, designers and drainage operators need to be relied upon to make sure there will be no flooding. With climate change, flood risks could increase. Some researchers believe that traditional engineering customs would not protect from floods. They believe instead that new materials should be used. However, the future may change.

Significance

High sea levels and storms could flood towns or neighborhoods, such as in Miami Beach, New Orleans, and Nuuk, Greenland (Thomas et al., 2018). Water purification technologies, like microfiltration/ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis, utilize porous membranes to remove suspended particles and solutes. Those membranes also cause many drawbacks, such as high pumping costs and a need for periodic replacement.

What Are the Dangers of Flooding?

Climate change can cause bigger natural disasters, such as superstorms, hurricanes, and tornados, causing more flooding damage to our environment (Pogue, 2021). Flooding can not only cause damage to our homes; it can also cause damage to our water systems, letting dangerous

pathogens into the water supply. Flooding further tampers with sewage and drainage systems (Concerning Reality, 2018).

Research on Water Filtration

According to Mao, “Water filtration is the process of removing or reducing the concentration of particle matter, including suspended particles parasites, bacteria, algae, viruses, and fungi, as well as other undesirable chemical and biological contaminants” (2016). This purifies water for the purpose of drinking. The filtration systems for drinking water include several stages of the filtration process: sediment, mechanical, chemical, mineral, and bacterial (Mao, 2016). Sand filtration is also an important part of water treatment that has been around for thousands of years.

How Do Water Treatment Plants Work?

First, there is coagulation and flocculation. After that, there is sedimentation and filtration. The last step is disinfection. Coagulation and flocculation are when little pieces of floc are clumped together so it is easier to take out of the water. During the sedimentation process, all of the clumps of floc fall to the bottom and are taken out later. For filtration, three different types of sand are put inside a basin and the water is poured on top of it. Chemicals used during this process can include chlorine, alum, phosphate, fluoride, and lime.

This relates to our project by letting us know how our water is cleaned before it comes out of our faucet. This can help our project by giving us ideas for our innovation designs to keep water inside of pipes clean (Concerning Reality, 2018).

Engineering Goal

Our water filtration innovations may offer different but effective ways for people to clean water. The following illustrations show several of our water filtration innovations:

Future Research Ideas

Our future research idea is to use the next steps of the engineering design process, which are as follows:

Step 5: Create

• Follow the plan

• Build a prototype

• Test it out

• Evaluate the solution. Does it solve the problem?

• Test Results

Engineering Design Process Step 6: Improve

• Consider what can be improved

• Revisit the problem and the plan

• Redesign the prototype

Source: Engineering Design Process Journal, 2022

Conclusion

In conclusion, the pictures we created show how we can filter water in Black communities.

Many in our communities are suffering from a shortage of resources and don’t have the money to

improve. Our innovations can create systems that prevent unnecessary contamination in the water we use for our necessities. However, we must be careful with funds that go into this because it is costly to have excellent and healthy water run through our community (Pryke & Allen, 2019). In the future, modern or futuristic drainage and treatment systems will have to be adopted to prevent flooding and allow these systems to thrive. We know the pros and cons of water systems and now have to make them sustainable. This work can inform future plans for efficient and sustainable water infrastructure for our Black communities. Something that surprised us in this project was how when floc comes together, it is easier to get out of water.

References

Ashley, R. M., Balmforth, D. J., Saul, A. J., & Blanskby, J. D. (2005). Flooding in the future –Predicting climate change, risks and responses in urban areas. Water Science and Technology, 52(5), 265–273.

Concerning Reality (2019). “How Do Water Treatment Plants Work?” [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_ZcCqqpS2o

Engineering Design Process Journal (2022). https://www.reallygoodstuff.com/engineering-designprocess-journals-12-journals/p/163872/

Mao, N. (2017). Nonwoven fabric filters. In P. J. Brown & C. L. Cox (Eds.), Fibrous filter media (pp. 133–171). Woodhead Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-100573-6.000058

Pryke, M., & Allen, J. (2019). Financializing urban water infrastructure: Extracting local value, distributing value globally. Urban Studies, 56(7), 1326–1346. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098017742288

Tabari, H. (2022). Climate change impact on flood and extreme precipitation increases with water availability. Scientific Reports, 10(1), Article 13768. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-02070816-2

Thomas, K., Wuthrich, B., & Boake, K. (2018). Rising seas: flooding, climate change and our new world. Firefly Books Ltd.

From STEM Teams to STEM Careers

Dannielle Joy Davis, Ph.D. Professor of Higher Education Saint Louis University, School of Education

As the Founder and Director of the community initiative, The Circle of Excellence Network, where I consult Black parents, I counter inequity and promote inclusion in STEM education. I am a second-generation homeschooling parent, a university Professor, and a Queen Mother within the Black community. Overall, I inspire minority families and their youth by offering culturally relevant, engaging opportunities to become lifelong learners of STEM.

In 2022, I developed a blog (https://circleofexcellencestl.blogspot.com/?m=0) to inform the Circle of Excellence community of the youths’ science competition success and to announce STEM education opportunities. One of these opportunities was the 1st annual International African Innovation Science Fair, a collaboration between the Circle of Excellence and Saint Louis University’s Division of Diversity and Innovative Community Engagement.

I have committed myself to the needs and concerns of the African diaspora in my professional life through interdisciplinary research, which examines experiences of racially marginalized groups and educational spaces. A “Society for Science and the Public” STEM Advocate Awardee, I am also an Associate Investigator & Affiliated Faculty with the SLU WATER (Water Access,

Technology, Environment, and Resources) Institute where my commitment to STEM education has a social justice orientation.

The Featured Program

During the summer of 2022, I was awarded a 4.0 Schools Fellowship to pilot the Circle of Excellence program “From STEM Teams to STEM Careers.” From STEM Teams to STEM Careers transforms the traditional science fair process into a culturally affirming, family-oriented experience to increase the numbers of Black youth competing in science fair competitions. The program offers science coaching for minorities tailored to promote career exposure and technical skills via competitive STEM competition. Through the science competition process, racial disparities in 9-12 Grade STEM education and performance are addressed. When participating in competitions, high school minorities increase their understanding of careers within STEM, enroll in higher education STEM programs, and enter careers with skills to render them competitive long term. Our idea expands on previous work in this area by using the process of competing in academic science competitions to:

1. Improve math and science skills

2. Cultivate mentoring from Black and Brown STEM professionals

3. Promote STEM careers in validating, culturally rich contexts

The communities I work with include African American high school youth and their families, some of which attend African centered schools (Davis et al, 2021). Via this work, I witnessed racial minority youths’ underrepresentation in national and international competitive STEM opportunities, as described by Vasquez in the Natural Science article “How to Increase Diversity in Community Science Projects.” Black youth are also underrepresented in STEM fields and degree attainment in higher education (Lee et al, 2022; whitehouse.gov). During my work in the

community, I have come to understand the power of modeling and validation from same-race teachers and professionals who serve as STEM mentors and coaches to Black youth (2022).

Commitment to the Community

I have been a science fair coach for about 7 years. I am also a Science for Society STEM Advocate where I have undergone over a year of training in science competition coaching. The Society for Science STEM Advocate Program works to address low numbers of Black youth in STEM competitions by training and encouraging STEM teachers like myself to actively recruit and coach minority youth for national and international competitive STEM opportunities. Because few science educators are trained specifically in preparing youth to win science fairs, I believe I am the right person leading this venture. I also believe that what I learned as a STEM Advocate, coupled with my focus upon culturally relevant teaching and engagement, offer a holistic solution to the issue of low minority representation in STEM and promises to yield positive long-term results.

Program Evaluation

Based upon my experiences, I have noticed that some parents appear to have had past negative learning experiences in math and science that are revealed via interactions with me and their teens. I assume that as my idea grows and I continue this work, I may see similar types of “STEM phobia” that need to be gently healed, as recent research suggests the power of parents in positively influencing the STEM perceptions of Black adolescents (Starr el at, 2022).

Evaluation outcomes thus far reveal that participants increased their math and science skills and increased their science competition participation via this initiative. I intend to evaluate both student and parent perceptions of the program, as well their experiences participating in the program at the end of the academic year

Looking Forward

In an effort to promote STEM careers, I recruit African scientists worldwide to support the affiliated project, the International African Innovation Science Fair (IAIF), as both consultants and judges. Our first fair included collaborating scientists from Jamaica, Tanzania, and Ghana. I hope to improve marketing of the fair and recruitment of African scientists sharing my diasporic vision via utilizing a community connection/ community engagement component for the IAIF. This new requirement charges that youth identify and interview Black or Brown scientists or knowledgeable community people to serve as a credible reference for their projects. Hence, students are expected to connect with and learn from Black scientists or community experts in the field, thereby honoring their voices and contributions. I look forward to expanding the opportunity to build these networks so I can reach more families and schools, particularly schools with an African centered vision for liberation.

Biography

Dr. Dannielle Joy Davis inspires families and their youth by offering culturally relevant, engaging opportunities to become lifelong learners of STEM. As an Associate Investigator with the SLU WATER Institute, a Science for Society Advocate, and a member of Sigma Xi (a scientific honor society), she creatively shares the joys of STEM with youth and their communities. She is a member of the National Black Lives Matter in Research Working Group and has published over 70 refereed journal articles, book chapters, volumes, academic commentaries, and reviews, many of which address racism. She is also Editor or Co-Editor and a contributing author of the books: Black Women in Leadership: Their Historical and Contemporary Contributions (Peter Lang Publishing), Social Justice Issues and Race in the College Classroom: Learning from Different

Voices (Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.), and Intersectionality in Education Research (Stylus Publishing). Dr. Davis has served as Vice President of Professional Development for the National Girls and Women of Color Council, as a Leadership Team member with Sisters of the Academy Institute, and the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Colorism Studies.

References

Biden, J. (2021). Executive order on White House initiative on advancing educational equity, excellence, and economic opportunity for Black Americans. Retrieved December 31, 2022, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/10/19/executiveorder-on-white-house-initiative-on-advancing-educational-equity-excellence-and-economicopportunity-for-black-americans/

Davis, B., Munson, T., Davis, D.J., Bush-Munson, D., & Washington, E. Physics and Community Engagement: Promoting Social Justice With Science. (2022). The discipline and the African world 2022 report: An annual report on the state of affairs for Africana communities. National Council for Black Studies.

Lee, A., Henderson, D. X., Corneille, M., Morton, T., Prince, K., Burnett, S., & Roberson, T. (2022). Lifting Black student voices to identify teaching practices that discourage and encourage STEM engagement: Why #Black teachers matter. Urban Education, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859211073898

Starr, C.R., Tulagan, N., & Simpkins, S.D. (2022). Black and Latinx adolescents’ STEM motivational beliefs: A systematic review of the literature on parent STEM support. Educational Psychology Review 34, 1877–1917. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-02209700-6

Vasquez, K. (2021). How to increase diversity in community science projects. Natural Science. Retrieved December 31, 2022, https://daily.jstor.org/how-to-increase-diversityin-community-science-projects/

COMMENTARIES

Where Are We Now and Where Do We Go from Here?

by Molefi Kete Asante Professor Department of Africology Temple University

Just a casual survey of the dissertations done strictly in our discipline has convinced me that we have only touched the fins of the whale that floats in and out of our political, social, and economic lives. I have personally supervised nearly 150 of those dissertations in Africology, and most of them have been excellent none has been without merit. However, the problem is not in the mastery of technique nor in understanding methodology or procedures identified in the scientific language of the West, but in the conception, the boldness necessary for epistemological warfare on hegemonic systems that smother the willingness of African people to be for themselves and the human spirit. Our discipline is still plagued by the racist superstructure set in place by

those who have sought to control, oppress, and suppress African agency. For me, every work we perform must be to dismantle the imaginary racial ladder that supports white racial domination in every aspect of our study.

Similarly, in the research done for scholarly journals and reported in books in our field, I have been confronted with the perennial question as to whether we are living up to the demands that were raised by my peers in the 1960s and early l970s. I ask myself what did and does William Nick Nelson, Barbara Wheeler, Maulana Karenga, Shirley Weber, James Stewart, Patricia Reid Merritt, Joe Russell, Delores Aldridge, James Turner, or Maxwell-Roddy fight for? Certainly, it was not to continue the traditional disciplines in the same manner and for the same purpose for which whites established them. Anthropology, political science, history, and sociology, among others, were developed with the idea of advancing a particular cultural idea in the construction of a white supremacist society. If we did not read that mission in the literature of those fields. We saw the evidence in the answers they gave to the aspirations of African people. Trapped by racial analyses, we have often been enmeshed in the same language, theories, and culture that generated hegemonic racist disciplines. I think that cultural analysis will provide us with the best escape for creating the intellectual maroonage essential for our stance toward the illusion of race.

What I desire is a boldness in the collective of our discipline that will tackle questions outside of the traditions, that is, for us not to make Africology the Black version of sociology, English literature, history, psychology, or anthropology. Remember, that is precisely why the best departments fought against the attempt to align us with majors that combined our Afrocentric thinking with anti-Afrocentric departments. We knew that the hegemonic nature of those fields, alongside their patriarchy, would attempt to curtail our explosive, revolutionary attitude toward the acquisition and uses of knowledge.

Setting the agenda for us must not mean the acceptance of the minutes of the last Eurocentric conference on the future or the latest article by the European writer of today’s flavor. We must read all of them, but we must continue to debate, critique, and question from our own perspective, otherwise we are not intellectuals in our own tradition. In any conference on the economic quagmire of African nations supposedly overburdened with debt we must ask, “What is debt?” On issues of the LBGTQ community, we must ask, “Who declared those terms and the meaning of them?” What do the terms mean in an African sense? How do we discuss gender in African languages? What is transgender in a genderless society?

The idea is that some words and terms from other cultures may be useful, but in our realities, as African people with a different cultural starting place, “Are we bound by hand-medowns in terms of intellectual questions?” Gaining a vision of Africology that requires constant questioning will prepare us for a future where the assertion of African agency and the teaching of Africa at the center of Homo sapiens’ history is entirely rational and sustainable. What is not sustainable is Africologists working in the same racial tank as white scholars because we must explode the tank, take it down, and introduce a new Maatic ethic.

I was having a conversation with two of my current doctoral advisees, Michael Wilson, a gifted artist, and Michelle Taylor, a leading social media activist, about questions in the field that matter in a contemporary sense. Michael said, “We now have the third generation of students of Africology. The first generation gave us the foundational outlooks and materials; the second generation extended the questions and demonstrated responses to Western ideas, bringing into focus complexities of theory and methods that did not concern the first generation; now we have a third group that is asking even harder questions, interrogating the meaning of our mission in light of the multiplying issues of climate, social disorder, violence, ruthless capitalism, and physical attacks on other humans.” Michelle Taylor, a brilliant commentator who will complete her

doctorate soon, asked, “Why shouldn’t Africology question everything that seems to support hegemonic patriarchy even when people who claim centeredness present themselves in a patriarchal manner?” Other students in the Temple program could have asked similar questions because they are exposed to the intelligent teaching of Reynaldo Anderson on Afrofuturism, Nah Dove on African womanism, Jabali Ade on contemporary expressions of African culture, and Kimani Nehusi on African civilization. I know the same discussions are going on in other parts of our field, not just here at Temple, because the new generation of Africology majors is seeking to delve into extended areas of research connected to all aspects of human sciences. They have abandoned race but have not abandoned the fight against the reality of racism.

Racism can exist even when the biological concept of race itself has followed ether into unreality. Our scholars must explore the most critical edges of human futures, asserting an African agency as a legitimate and major part of the process of reconstructing the world along lines of Maaticity without resorting to the inaccurate and unreliable term “race.” Sociology as a discipline appears to be struggling with finding a place to rest its swords because it has lost its relevance to understanding human societies. When they no longer had “race” as a concept, they lost their way as a field of study, and departments were merged with anthropology, also another field with a lost mission, and it has become like the blind leading the blind. In the United Kingdom, the departments of sociology have been closed at most major universities, and in the United States students are asking about the relevance of the field. So far, we have escaped that fate, and we can escape it so long as we accept our roles as vanguards in an Afrocentric inquiry into humanity based upon our own cultural, historical, and social studies. Only in this way can we reassert the Kemetic qualities of Maat that stood in Africa at the beginning of human society. Our principal task in a racist society, however, is to dismantle the racial ladder. When IndoAryan, Greco-Roman, Hebraic-Semitic, and Germanic peoples set up the hierarchy of “race” based

on physical characteristics pegged to intelligence and temperament, they established an elaborate imaginary system that undergirded all human actions. One of our intellectual jobs as scientists, interrogators is to use logic, ordered inquiry based on our appreciation of ancient classical African ideas to take down piece-by-piece the broken planks that have served to support the weight of white racial supremacy. Of course, we did not say it this way in the l960s when my colleagues and I created the Black Studies movement, but the implications of our study of African Americans and Africa were clearly pointed in this direction. Nothing that we can think of in relationship to the racial ladder with whites at the top of it is off bounds to us; the entire façade must be smashed, and we must assert the Afrocentric principles that gave human beings the longest period of peace.

CONCLUSION

Conclusion

The content presented in the 2023 NCBS Annual Report, entitled The Discipline and the African World, addresses three important liberatory themes within Africana Studies: (1) fostering cultural preservation and reaffirmation, (2) identifying and combatting contemporary manifestations of racism and oppression, and (3) advancing the organizational autonomy of Africana Studies academic units.

Fostering Cultural Preservation and Reaffirmation

Africana Studies is firmly committed to documenting the scope and diversity of Africancentered cultural formations around the world and contributing to their preservation and adaptation, if necessary, to respond to contemporary challenges. Gullah Geechee communities constitute the most visible contemporary exemplar of the systematic preservation of African cultural traditions. However, although the significance of these communities is well understood among Africana Studies scholar-activists, there has been only limited exploration of specific preservation strategies. “The Largely Ignored Influence of Gullah Geechee Culture Throughout the Diaspora” by Maxine Bryant and Amir-Jamal Touré discusses educational and organizational initiatives intended to enhance preservation practices while also contributing to community empowerment and avoiding cultural commodification. Increased inclusion of “Gullah Geechee culture as discussion topics in forums and conferences” is proposed to ensure that an “accurate history of the Gullah Geechee people” is being conveyed. In addition, the authors advocate for “the expansion of heritage tourism via supporting existing Gullah Geechee-owned tour companies and investing in the growth of additional Gullah Geechee-owned tour companies.” Notably, these types of interventions may be adaptable by other communities that have developed unique cultural preservation practices and/or adaptations.

Consistent with the preceding observation, African Americans who participated in the cattle drives of the late 19th century in the western U.S. produced a distinctive cultural profile that warrants increased visibility. The identity profile of these “pioneers” reflects a fusion of general characteristics of African American culture and cowboy culture. Demetrius Pearson offers useful insights regarding the descendants of these pioneers and describes their activities in “African American Trail Riding: A Legacy of Perseverance and Community Engagement.” His study of the Prairie View Trail Riders Association, established in the late 1950s, documents the group’s perseverance and community involvement, thus providing another exemplar of a community-based effort to preserve a lesser-known thread of the cultural diversity present within the African American cultural fabric writ large. As Pearson observes, “Their steadfast determination to share the oft-omitted legacy of Black cowboys/girls, as well as their willingness to contribute in myriad ways within the Black community, has endeared the association to western culture enthusiasts and rodeo devotees alike.”

The term “African World” in this report’s title signifies the importance of using a global framework to examine the social forces impacting cultural dynamics in Africa and the African diaspora. European standards of beauty continue to present a monumental barrier to the cultivation of wholesome identity profiles for people of African descent around the globe.

The negative impacts of preferences for European hair characteristics and styles are addressed by LaToya Brackett in “Black Hair in Black Places: Detangling the Burden of Our Crowns Beyond White Borders.” She discusses both the problem and emerging resistance praxis. Brackett observes, “Previously colonized Black countries are struggling with embracing the kinks, coils, and waves that is African hair, and yet now some are ready to challenge the policies that are responsible for the burdens of their crowns.” These initiatives are welcomed and can hopefully be

catalyzed by successful efforts in the U.S. to counter Black hair discrimination. As of 2022, 18 states have adopted legislation outlawing hair bias.

Identifying and Combatting Contemporary Manifestations of Racism and Oppression

The manifestations of racism and oppression explored in the report are health care disparities, mass incarceration, environmental racism, and cyberspatial racism. Collectively, these racialized systems pose significant challenges to liberatory projects.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the problematic persistence of systemic racial health disparities into sharp relief. A recent study by Latoya Hill and Samantha Artiga concludes, “While disparities in cases and deaths have narrowed and widened over time, the underlying structural inequities in health and health care and social and economic factors that placed people of color at increased risk at the outset of the pandemic remain. As such, they may remain at increased risk as the pandemic continues to evolve and for future health threats” (Hill & Artiga, 2022).

“Black Healthcare Providers Matters” by Trina L. Gipson-Jones, Shanea Brown, and Che

Matthew Harris presents a compelling discussion of how the paucity of Black health care providers generates a disproportionate likelihood of negative health outcomes for people of African descent.

As the authors conclude, “When African Americans/Blacks are missing from the healthcare professional scene, there is a rise in racial bias and a decrease in culturally competent care perceived and received by African American/Black patients, resulting in poorer health outcomes in this population.” Africana Studies specialists must increase communication and collaboration with organizations like the National Medical Association to develop strategies to achieve health equity.

The systemic oppression generated via mass incarceration was foregrounded by Michelle Wallace in her classic 2010 book (updated in 2020), The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

. In “Crime Has Been Decreasing, so Why Hasn’t Criminalization?” Kiana

Foxx documents that although crime and incarceration have declined significantly, especially for

Black Americans, “harsh penalties, overcriminalization, and mass incarceration have persisted. As a result, their detrimental impacts have continued to harm Black families, unemployment rates, U.S. spending, and society at large.” Africana Studies scholar-activists must become more involved in supporting community organizations fighting to dismantle the racialized prison industrial complex.

Environmental racism has many dimensions. Lack of access to safe drinking water is one of the most visible manifestations as a result of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis that started in 2014 and the Jackson, Mississippi, water crisis that began in August 2022. It is truly impressive that students Bryce Davis-Bohon, Brooklyn Amaya Thompson, Saphyr Brown, Tosh Brown, Janea Douglas, Elijah Lockhart, Kobi Obeng, Aniyah Nelson, Samir Sababu, Jordan Tejeda, and Isaiah Holmes have taken the initiative to conduct research that addresses this problem that has the potential to affect other predominantly Black communities. In “Water Filtration, Water System Infrastructures, and the Black Community,” the student researchers present a method for filtering water in Black communities. They conclude, “We know the pros and cons of water systems and now have to make them sustainable. This work can inform future plans for efficient and sustainable water infrastructure for our Black communities.” Africana Studies units should develop working relationships with those units involved in environmental research to elevate the priority given to environmental justice in research and instruction. Such partnerships will hopefully lead to more research leading to innovative technological innovations that ameliorate the impacts of environmental racism that plague Black communities.

Africana Studies specialists should focus increased scrutiny on how the continuing evolution of computing technologies and digital media impacts Black liberation praxis and identity dynamics. As Safiya Noble argues in Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce

Racism (2018), “Racism and sexism are part of the architecture and language of technology.” From

this perspective, she maintains, “Despite the widespread beliefs in the Internet as a democratic space where people have the power to dynamically participate as equals, the Internet is in fact organized to the benefit of powerful elites, including corporations that can afford to purchase and redirect searches to their own sites” (Noble, 2018, p. 48) In “Digital Exclusivity by Inclusivity: Blacks and ‘the’ Digicultural Paradox of Afrofuturism,” Kehbuma Langmia opines, “If Afrofuturism is not going to be a dream deferred, Black communicologists and scholars alike need to rethink a strategic goal that makes Black digital communications on all digital platforms meaningfully inclusive.” Langmia argues for a Black owned and controlled social media platform as part of a strategy to lay the groundwork necessary for Black cyberspace users and content providers to focus participation on liberatory messaging.

Advancing the Organizational Autonomy of Africana Studies Academic Units

In many respects “Uncovering the Black Studies Center,” “The Pursuit of Black Studies: The Importance of Hiring PhDs Trained in the Discipline,” and “Where

Are We Now and Where

Do We Go From Here?” collectively trace important phases in the development of Africana Studies and remind us of challenges that continue to hamper forward movement.

Elise Johnson describes how the Black Studies Center at the Claremont Colleges, established in 1969, was originally “envisioned as an autonomous unit designed to support Black students at a predominantly white institution through the utilization of an array of approaches, from coursework to counseling to community/field work.” This description could be appropriately applied to many of the institutions where Africana Studies units were initially assigned responsibility to provide support services for students while also addressing the absence of coursework examining the experiences of people of African descent. At most institutions, administrators quickly abandoned this model in favor of the traditional arrangement, which involves a strict demarcation between academic affairs and student affairs. In the case of the

Claremont Colleges, Johnson explains, “The administrators ultimately won when they split the BSC into the Intercollegiate Department of Africana Studies and the Office of Black Student Affairs, sending the message that a student’s academic and social needs are inherently separate. This message is not only unfortunate but also dangerous in that students who do not learn to value their whole being often sacrifice their mental health.” In addition to the negative consequences for students highlighted by Johnson, the creation of artificial distance between the world experienced by students and that occupied by instructors may have contributed to a contemporary decline in activism within many Africana Studies academic units.

The first generation of Africana Studies instructors necessarily received their training in traditional academic disciplines. It has been generally understood that full-scale “disciplinization” would eventually result in the composition of Africana Studies academic units consisting either exclusively or almost exclusively of persons with terminal degrees in Africana Studies. Progress in achieving this ideal outcome has been slow, so it is important to celebrate the success of the Department of Africana Studies at San Diego State University. In “The Pursuit of Black Studies: The Importance of Hiring PhDs Trained in the Discipline,” Charmane Perry informs that seven of the eight tenured and tenure track faculty members in the department received their doctoral degree in the Africana Studies. She opines that “ The Department of Africana Studies at SDSU provides an example of what we should be striving towards for the future of the discipline.”

Molefi Asante’s commentary “Where Are We Now and Where Do We Go from Here?” offers a strong reaffirmation of Afrocentricity as a fundamental point of departure for Africana Studies, insisting, “One of our intellectual jobs as scientists, interrogators is to use logic, ordered inquiry based on our appreciation of ancient classical African ideas to take down piece-by-piece the broken planks that have served to support the weight of white racial supremacy . . . Nothing that we can think of in relationship to the racial ladder with whites at the top of it is off bounds to

us; the entire façade must be smashed, and we must assert the Afrocentric principles that gave human beings the longest period of peace.” However, it is important to remember that there is a growing number of departments that offer doctoral degrees in Africana Studies and that there are major differences in the curricula and ideological orientations across these units. This means that future assessments of the state of Africana Studies must go beyond the examination of the proportion of faculty with degrees in Africana Studies and examine how differences in ideology are being navigated by faculty with degrees from different institutions.

References

Hill, L. and Artiga, L. (2022, August 22) COVID-19 cases and deaths by race/ethnicity: Current data and changes over time. Kaiser Family Foundation. https://www.kff.org/coronaviruscovid-19/issue-brief/covid-19-cases-and-deaths-by-race-ethnicity-current-data-andchanges-over-time/