thumb|350px| Map of [[Africa and the African diaspora throughout the world]]

Black studies, or Africana studies (with nationally specific terms, such as African American studies and Black Canadian studies), is an interdisciplinary academic field that primarily focuses on the study of the history, culture, and politics of the peoples of the Black African diaspora and Africa. The field includes scholars of African-American, Afro-Canadian, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latino, Afro-European, Afro-Asian, African Australian, and African literature, history, politics, and religion as well as scholars from disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, education, and many other disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. The field also uses various types of research methods. Herbert Aptheker, Melville Herskovits, and Lorenzo Dow Turner.

Programs and departments of Black studies in the United States were first created in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of inter-ethnic student and faculty activism at many universities, sparked by a five-month strike for Black studies at San Francisco State University. In February 1968, San Francisco State hired sociologist Nathan Hare to coordinate the first Black studies program and write a proposal for the first Department of Black Studies; the department was created in September 1968 and gained official status at the end of the five-month strike in the spring of 1969. Hare's views reflected those of the Black power movement, and he believed that the department should empower Black students. The creation of programs and departments in Black studies was a common demand of protests and sit-ins by Black students and their allies, who felt that their cultures, history, and interests were diminished and neglected by the traditional academic structures in the previous 200 years of higher education.

Black studies departments, programs, and courses were also created in the United Kingdom, In 2009, Ama Mazama expounded:

<blockquote>In the appendix to their recently published Handbook of Black Studies, Asante and Karenga note that "the naming of the discipline" remains "unsettled" (Asante & Karenga, 2006, p. 421). This remark came as a result of an extensive survey of existing Black Studies programs, which led to the editors identifying a multiplicity of names for the discipline: Africana Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, African/Black World Studies, Pan-African Studies, Africology, African and New World Studies, African Studies–Major, Black World Studies, Latin American Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Black and Hispanic Studies, Africana and Latin American Studies, African and African-American Studies, Black and Hispanic Studies, African American Studies, Afro-American Studies, African American Education Program, Afro-Ethnic Studies, American Ethnic Studies, American Studies–African-American Emphasis, Black Studies, Comparative American Cultures, Ethnic Studies Programs, Race and Ethnic Studies.</blockquote>

In 2014, Victor Okafor clarified:

<blockquote>What appears to drive these distinctive names is a combination of factors: the composite expertise of their faculty, their faculty's areas of specialization, and the worldviews of the faculty that make up each unit. By worldview, I am referring to the question of whether the constituent faculty in a given setting manifests any or a combination of the following visions of our project:

  • a domestic vision of black studies that sees it as focusing exclusively on the affairs of only United States African Americans who descended from the generation of enslaved Africans
  • a diasporic vision of black studies that is inclusive of the affairs of all of African descendants in the New World—that is, the Americas: North America, South America and the Caribbean
  • a globalistic vision of the black studies—that is, a viewpoint that thinks in terms of an African world—a world encompassing African-origin communities that are scattered across the globe and the continent of Africa itself.</blockquote>

History by region

Americas

North America

Canada

In 1991, the national chair for Black Canadian Studies, which was named after James Robinson Johnston, was created at Dalhousie University for the purpose of advancing the development and presence of Black studies in Canada. Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin was studied by the Black Canadian Studies chairman, John Barnstead.

United States

thumb|200px| [[Carter G. Woodson, United States]]

A specific aim and objective of this interdisciplinary field of study is to help students broaden their knowledge of the worldwide human experience by presenting an aspect of that experience—the Black Experience—which has traditionally been neglected or distorted by educational institutions. Additionally, this course of study strives to introduce an Afro-centric perspective, including phenomena related to the culture.

According to Robert Harris Jr, an emeritus professor of history at the Africana Studies Research Center at Cornell, there have been four stages in the development of Africana studies: from the 1890s until the Second World War, numerous organizations developed to analyze the culture and history of African peoples. In the second stage, the focus turned to African Americans. In the third stage, a bevy of newly conceived academic programs were established as Black studies.

In the United States, the 1960s is rightfully known as the "Turbulent Sixties." During this time period, the nation experienced great social unrest, as residents challenged the social order in radical ways. Many movements took place in the United States during this time period, including women's rights movement, labor rights movement, and the civil rights movement.

The students at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) were witnesses to the Civil Rights Movement, and by 1964, they were thrust into activism. On October 1, 1964, Jack Weinberg, a former graduate student, was sitting at a table where the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was distributing literature encouraging students to protest against institutional racism. Police asked Weinberg to produce his ID to confirm that he was a student, but he refused to do so and was, therefore, arrested. In support of Weinberg, 3,000 students surrounded the police vehicle, and even used the car as a podium, from where they spoke about their right to engage in political protest on campus. This impromptu demonstration was the first of many protests, culminating in the institutionalization of Black studies.

Two months later, students at UC Berkeley organized a sit-in at the Sproul Hall Administration building to protest an unfair rule that prohibited all political clubs from fundraising, excluding the democrat and republican clubs. In 1966, the school held its first official racial and ethnic survey, in which it was discovered that the "American Negro" represented 1.02% of the university population. In 1968, the university instituted its Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), facilitated the increased minority student enrollment, and offered financial aid to minority students with high potential. "The members of the Afro-American Student Union (AASU) proposed an academic department called "Black Studies" in April 1968.

AASU members asserted: "The young people of America are the inheritors of what is undoubtedly one of the most challenging, and threatening set of social circumstances that has ever fallen upon a generation of young people in history." AASU used these claims to gain ground on their proposal to create a Black studies department. Nathan Hare, a sociology professor at San Francisco State University, created what was known as the "A Conceptual Proposal for Black Studies" and AASU used Hare's framework to create a set of criteria. A Black studies program was implemented by the UC Berkeley administration on January 13, 1969. In 1969, St. Clair Drake was named the first chair of the degree granting, Program in African and Afro-American Studies at Stanford University. Many Black studies programs and departments and programs around the nation were created in subsequent years.

At University of California, Santa Barbara, similarly, student activism led to the establishment of a Black studies department, amidst great targeting and discrimination of student leaders of color on the University of California campuses. In the Autumn season of 1968, black students from UCSB joined the national civil rights movement to end racial segregation and exclusion of Black history and studies from college campuses. Triggered by the insensitivity of the administration and general campus life, they occupied North Hall and presented the administration with a set of demands. Such efforts led to the eventual creation of the Black studies department and the Center for Black Studies.

Similar activism was happening outside of California. At Yale University, a committee, headed by political scientist, Robert Dahl, recommended establishing an undergraduate major in African-American culture, one of the first of such at an American university.

When Ernie Davis, who was from Syracuse University, became the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy in college football, it renewed debates about race on college campuses in the country. Inspired by the Davis win, civil rights movement, and nationwide student activism, in 1969, black and white students, led by the Student African American Society (SAS), at Syracuse University, marched in front of the building at Newhouse and demanded for Black studies to be taught at Syracuse. It existed as an independent, underfunded non-degree offering program from 1971 until 1979. In 1979, the program became the Department of African American Studies, offering degrees within the College of Arts and Sciences.

Studia Africana, subtitled "An International Journal of Africana Studies", was published by the Department for African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati in a single issue in 1977 (an unrelated journal called Studia Africana is published by the Centro de Estudios Africanos, in Barcelona, since 1990).

The International Journal of Africana Studies (ISSN 1056-8689) has been appearing since 1992, published by the National Council for Black Studies.

Africana philosophy is a part of and developed within the field of Africana studies.

In 1988 and 1990, publications on African-American studies were funded by the Ford Foundation, and the African-American academics who produced the publications used traditional disciplinary orthodoxies, from outside of African-American studies, to analyze and evaluate the boundaries, structure, and legitimacy of African-American studies. To the detriment of the field, an abundance of research on African American studies has been developed by academics who are not within the discipline of African American studies. Asante authored the book Afrocentricity, in 1980. By doing so, as Ama Mazama indicates, this should increase how relevant Black studies is and strengthen its disciplinary presence. Scholars, such as Fitzroy Baptiste, Richard Goodridge, Elsa Goveia, Allister Hinds, Rupert Lewis, Bernard Marshall, James Millette, and Alvin Thompson, added to the development of Black studies at the University of the West Indies campuses in Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad. On January 16, 1937, the Society for Afro-Cuban Studies was established. Even in areas of the Dominican Republic with many Afro-Dominicans and where Afro-Dominican culture is predominant, there has been an ongoing challenge in Afro-Dominican studies to find linguistic evidence of a remnant Afro-Dominican language.

Haiti

Lorimer Denis, Francois Duvalier, and Jean Price-Mars, as founders of the Bureau of Ethnology and leading figures in the Noirisme movement in Haiti, were also influential in the publishing of the foundational Afro-Haitian studies journal, '. One of the most influential academics in Afro-Haitian studies is René Piquion.

Puerto Rico

As of 2019, Afro-Puerto Rican studies is not offered as a degree program by the University of Puerto Rico. Numerous academic publications, such as Arrancando Mitos De Raiz: Guia Para La Ensenanza Antirracista De La Herencia Africana En Puerto Rico, were scholarly works that established Isar Godreau as a leading academic in Afro-Puerto Rican Studies.

Central America

Costa Rica

The Executive branch created a law to establish a Committee for Afro-Costa Rican Studies, as one, among other laws, to increase the level of inclusion of Afro-Costa Ricans in Costa Rica.

Guatemala

Christopher H. Lutz authored, Santiago de Guatemala, 1541–1773, which is considered to be one of the foundational literatures of Afro-Guatemalan studies.

Honduras

Due to a history of scarce resources and anti-black racism, Afro-Hondurans have largely been excluded from academic publications about Honduras; consequently, Afro-Honduran studies has remained limited in its formal development.

Panama

In March 1980, along with the Panamanian government, the Afro-Panamanian Studies Center hosted the Second Congress on Black Culture in the Americas.

South America

Argentina

Since the 1980s, Afro-Argentine studies has undergone renewed growth.

Brazil

thumb|200px| [[Abdias Nascimento, Brazil]]

In 1980, Abdias Nascimento gave a presentation in Panama of his scholarship on Kilombismo at the 2nd Congress of Black Culture in the Americas. His scholarship on Kilombismo detailed how the economic and political affairs of Africans throughout the Americas contributed to how they socially organized themselves. Afterward, Nascimento went back to Brazil and began institutionalization of Africana studies in 1981. Since the 2000s, there has been increasing systematization and a more formal development of Afro-Chilean studies, along with a greater focus on Afro-Chileans and the recovery of Afro-Chilean cultural heritage. In the 1960s, as social science programs became incorporated into university institutions, contributions from anthropologists and social scientists added to its emergence. and Decree 804 by the Ministry of Education in 1995, At the Pontifical Xavierian University, there is a master's degree program in Afro-Colombian studies. There is also a study abroad program for Afro-Colombian students and African-American students existing between the Afro-Colombian studies program at the Pontifical Xavierian University in Colombia and African-American studies programs at historically black colleges and universities in the United States. Though it dissolved in the early 1980s, by the 1990s, organizations that followed in the example of the Center of Afro-Ecuadorian Studies ushered in the development of the Afro-Ecuadorian Etnoeducación program at the National High School, in Chota Valley, Ecuador, and a master's degree program in Afro-Andean Studies at the Simón Bolívar Andean University (UASB), in Quito, Ecuador.

Peru

While the presence of Afro-Peruvian studies may not be strong in Peru, There have been efforts to organize the elements of Afro-Peruvian studies in Peru, such as by LUNDU, which organized an international conference for Afro-Peruvian studies in Peru on November 13, 2009. During this LUNDU-organized conference, Luis Rocca, who co-founded the National Afro-Peruvian Museum, and is also a historian, presented on his research regarding Afro-Peruvians. Additionally, there has been some scholarship in Afro-Peruvian studies developed in the United States and a panel on Afro-Peruvian studies at a conference hosted on December 11, 2019, by the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research in the United States.

Uruguay

Since 1996, the amount of scholarship of Afro-Uruguayan studies has increased as a result of increased global focus on Afro-Latin American studies.

Venezuela

The curriculum for Afro-Venezuelan studies was developed at Universidad Politécnica Territorial de Barlovento Argelia Laya (UPTBAL), in Higuerote, Barlovento, by Alejandro Correa. In 2006, Afro-Epistemology and African Culture were formally developed as the initial courses for students in this curriculum. Kehinde Andrews, who initiated the development of the Black Studies Association in the United Kingdom as well as the development of a course in Black studies at Birmingham City University,

Research methods

African Self-Consciousness

Kobi K. K. Kambon developed a research method and psychological framework, known as African Self-Consciousness, which analyzes the states and changes of the African mind.

Africana Womanism

Delores P. Aldridge developed a research method, which analyzes from the viewpoint of black women, known as Africana Womanism. First developed as a systematized methodology by Molefi Kete Asante in 1980, he drew inspiration from a number of African and African diaspora intellectuals including Cheikh Anta Diop, George James, Harold Cruse, Ida B. Wells, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and W. E. B. Du Bois. also known as the Temple School of Thought, or Temple School of Afrocentricity, was an early group of Africologists during the late 1980s and early 1990s that helped to further develop Afrocentricity, which is based on concepts of agency, centeredness, location, and orientation. Its research focus includes the study of Black manhood and Black masculinity, and it draws from disciplines such as history, philosophy, and sociology. Past and present gender studies publications tend to carry assumptions of Black men and boys being criminals and assailants of Black women and white women.

Shared Authority

Michael Frisch developed the research method, known as Shared Authority, to investigate orature, which recognizes the personhood (e.g., subject, agency) and experiences of the Africana individual. Many universities and colleges around the United States provided Black studies programs with small budgets and, therefore, it is difficult for the department to purchase materials and hire staff. Due to the budget allocated to Black studies being limited, some faculty are jointly appointed, therefore, causing faculty to leave their home disciplines to teach a discipline with which they may not be familiar. Budgetary issues make it difficult for Black studies programs and departments to function and to promote themselves.

Racism, perpetrated by many administrators, is alleged to hinder the institutionalization of Black studies at major universities.

  • Concordia University
  • Dalhousie University
  • York University

Caribbean

  • University of the Virgin Islands
  • University of the West Indies
  • Eastern Kentucky University
  • Eastern Michigan University
  • Emory University
  • Fordham University
  • Georgetown University
  • Georgia State University
  • Guilford College
  • Hunter College
  • Indiana University
  • Kent State University
  • Oberlin College
  • Ohio State University
  • Landmark College
  • Loyola Marymount University
  • Luther College
  • Middle Tennessee State University
  • Mount Holyoke College
  • Nassau Community College
  • Northwestern University
  • Pennsylvania State University
  • Portland State University
  • Princeton University
  • Purdue University
  • Queens College
  • Rutgers University
  • San Jose State University
  • Smith College
  • Southern Illinois University
  • Syracuse University
  • Temple University
  • The City College of New York
  • The College of New Jersey
  • Towson University
  • Tufts University
  • Tulane University
  • University at Albany
  • University of Arizona
  • University of Arkansas
  • University at Buffalo
  • University of California, Berkeley
  • University of California, Davis
  • University of California, Irvine
  • University of California, Los Angeles
  • University of California, San Diego
  • University of California, Santa Barbara
  • University of Florida
  • University of Houston
  • University of Illinois Chicago
  • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • University of Kansas
  • University of Louisville
  • University of Massachusetts, Amherst
  • University of Michigan
  • University of Missouri
  • University of Montana
  • University of Nebraska at Omaha
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • University of North Carolina at Charlotte
  • University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  • University of North Texas
  • University of Oklahoma
  • University of Oregon
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • University of Puget Sound
  • University of Rochester
  • University of South Carolina
  • University of Texas at Arlington
  • University of Texas at Austin
  • University of Virginia
  • University of Wisconsin
  • Valdosta State University
  • Vassar College
  • Virginia Commonwealth University
  • Washington University in St. Louis
  • Western Illinois University
  • Wesleyan University
  • Wright State University
  • Yale University

Venezuela

  • Universidad Politécnica Territorial de Barlovento Argelia Laya
  • Temple University
  • University of California, Berkeley
  • University of Louisville
  • University of Massachusetts, Amherst
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • University of Texas at Austin
  • University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
  • Yale University

Prominent academics

Africa

  • Micere Mugo

Brazil

  • Lélia Gonzalez
  • Abdias Nascimento
  • Beatriz Nascimento

Caribbean

  • Carole Boyce Davies
  • Horace Campbell
  • Oliver Cromwell Cox
  • Elsa Goveia
  • C. L. R. James
  • Walter Rodney
  • Kwame Ture
  • Sylvia Wynter

United Kingdom

  • Kehinde Andrews
  • Kwame Anthony Appiah
  • Hazel Carby
  • Paul Gilroy

United States

  • Abdul Alkalimat
  • Shawn Alexander
  • Molefi Kete Asante
  • M. K. Asante Jr.
  • Houston A. Baker Jr.
  • Robert Chrisman
  • Bill Cole
  • Patricia Hill Collins
  • Edward W. Crosby
  • Allison Davis
  • Angela Y. Davis
  • St. Clair Drake
  • W. E. B. Du Bois
  • Michael Eric Dyson
  • Gerald Early
  • John Hope Franklin
  • E. Franklin Frazier
  • Henry Louis Gates Jr.
  • Farah Griffin
  • Vincent Harding
  • Nathan Hare
  • Melissa Harris-Perry
  • Saidiya Hartman
  • Melville Herskovits
  • Lena Hill
  • bell hooks
  • Charles S. Johnson
  • Maulana Karenga
  • Robin D. G. Kelley
  • Glenn C. Loury
  • Manning Marable
  • Janis Mayes
  • Fred Moten
  • Mark Anthony Neal
  • Adolph Reed
  • Cedric Robinson
  • Tricia Rose
  • Milton Sernett
  • Christina Sharpe
  • Tracy Denean Sharpley-Whiting
  • Renate Simson
  • Geneva Smitherman
  • Robert B. Stepto
  • Conrad Tillard
  • Akinyele Umoja
  • Cornel West
  • William Julius Wilson
  • Carter G. Woodson
  • Cynthia A. Young

Scholarly and academic journals

  • African American Review
  • Africana [https://africanajournal.org/] – Journal of Ideas on Africa and the Diaspora
  • Africana Online: Journal of the Africana Center for Cultural Literacy and Research
  • Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies [http://www.jpanafrican.org] (since 1987)
  • Afro-Americans in New York Life and History [http://www.aanylh.com/] (since 1976)
  • The Black Scholar (since 1969)
  • Callaloo
  • Electronic Journal of Africana Bibliography [https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/ejab/index] – coverage includes any aspect of Africa, its peoples, their homes, cities, towns, districts, states, countries, regions, including social, economic sustainable development, creative literature, the arts, and the Diaspora.
  • The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies [https://scaasi.info/the-griot/]
  • International Journal of Africana Studies [https://ncbsonline.org/publications/the-international-journal-of-africana-studies/] – designed to interrogate and analyze the lived experiences of Africana people.
  • The Journal of African Civilizations (since 1979)
  • Journal of African American History
  • Journal of African American Males in Education (JAAME) [https://jaamejournal.scholasticahq.com/]
  • Journal of Black Studies
  • Journal of Negro Education
  • Journal of Negro History
  • Western Journal of Black Studies [https://education.wsu.edu/wjbs/]
  • Negro Digest
  • Negro Educational Review [https://www.education.pitt.edu/faculty-research/affiliated-journals-and-organizations/negro-educational-review-journal]
  • Negro History Bulletin
  • Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art [https://read.dukeupress.edu/nka] – focuses on publishing critical work that examines the newly developing field of contemporary African and African Diaspora art within the modernist and postmodernist experience, thereby contributing to the intellectual dialogue on world art and the discourse on internationalism and multiculturalism in the arts.
  • Phylon
  • Race & Class
  • Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society [https://souls.uic.edu/]
  • Transition Magazine

See also

  • AP African American Studies
  • Critical race theory
  • Whiteness studies

References

Further reading

  • Biondi, Martha. The Black Revolution on Campus. University of California Press, 2014.
  • Ferguson, Stephen. Philosophy of African American Studies: Nothing Left of Blackness. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
  • Higgins, Andrew Stone. Higher Education for All: Racial Inequality, Cold War Liberalism, and the California Master Plan. University of North Carolina Press, 2023.
  • Kendi, Ibram X. The Black Campus Movement: Black Students and the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education, 1965–1972. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
  • Rooks, Noliwe M. White Money/Black Power: The Surprising History of African American Studies and the Crisis of Race in Higher Education. Beacon Press, 2007.