1.1: What is African American studies?-- Readings and Media
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- 362662
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\(\newcommand{\avec}{\mathbf a}\) \(\newcommand{\bvec}{\mathbf b}\) \(\newcommand{\cvec}{\mathbf c}\) \(\newcommand{\dvec}{\mathbf d}\) \(\newcommand{\dtil}{\widetilde{\mathbf d}}\) \(\newcommand{\evec}{\mathbf e}\) \(\newcommand{\fvec}{\mathbf f}\) \(\newcommand{\nvec}{\mathbf n}\) \(\newcommand{\pvec}{\mathbf p}\) \(\newcommand{\qvec}{\mathbf q}\) \(\newcommand{\svec}{\mathbf s}\) \(\newcommand{\tvec}{\mathbf t}\) \(\newcommand{\uvec}{\mathbf u}\) \(\newcommand{\vvec}{\mathbf v}\) \(\newcommand{\wvec}{\mathbf w}\) \(\newcommand{\xvec}{\mathbf x}\) \(\newcommand{\yvec}{\mathbf y}\) \(\newcommand{\zvec}{\mathbf z}\) \(\newcommand{\rvec}{\mathbf r}\) \(\newcommand{\mvec}{\mathbf m}\) \(\newcommand{\zerovec}{\mathbf 0}\) \(\newcommand{\onevec}{\mathbf 1}\) \(\newcommand{\real}{\mathbb R}\) \(\newcommand{\twovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\ctwovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\threevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cthreevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\mattwo}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{rr}#1 \amp #2 \\ #3 \amp #4 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\laspan}[1]{\text{Span}\{#1\}}\) \(\newcommand{\bcal}{\cal B}\) \(\newcommand{\ccal}{\cal C}\) \(\newcommand{\scal}{\cal S}\) \(\newcommand{\wcal}{\cal W}\) \(\newcommand{\ecal}{\cal E}\) \(\newcommand{\coords}[2]{\left\{#1\right\}_{#2}}\) \(\newcommand{\gray}[1]{\color{gray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\lgray}[1]{\color{lightgray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\rank}{\operatorname{rank}}\) \(\newcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\col}{\text{Col}}\) \(\renewcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\nul}{\text{Nul}}\) \(\newcommand{\var}{\text{Var}}\) \(\newcommand{\corr}{\text{corr}}\) \(\newcommand{\len}[1]{\left|#1\right|}\) \(\newcommand{\bbar}{\overline{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bhat}{\widehat{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bperp}{\bvec^\perp}\) \(\newcommand{\xhat}{\widehat{\xvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\vhat}{\widehat{\vvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\uhat}{\widehat{\uvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\what}{\widehat{\wvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\Sighat}{\widehat{\Sigma}}\) \(\newcommand{\lt}{<}\) \(\newcommand{\gt}{>}\) \(\newcommand{\amp}{&}\) \(\definecolor{fillinmathshade}{gray}{0.9}\)These selected readings and video are appropriate to introduce students to the field of African American Studies. The readings offer various definitions of what African American Studies is and different perspectives about its importance in higher education. The video Agents of Change provides a history of how African American Studies became included in academe.
Please read/view all of the linked texts below.
Readings and Videos
What is African American Studies?
"Black studies may be defined as an analysis of the factors and conditions which have affected the economic, psychological, legal and moral status of the African in America as well as the African in diaspora. Not only is Black Studies concentrated with the culture of the Afro-American ethnic, as historically and sociologically defined by the traditional literature, it is also concerned with the development of new approaches to the study of the Black experience and with the development of social policies which will impact positively upon the lives of black people." --Vivian Gordon, 1981
"Africana studies is the multidisciplinary analysis of the lives and thought of people of African ancestry on the African continent and throughout the world. It embraces Africa, Afro America, and the Caribbean, but does not confine itself to those three geographical areas."--Robert L. Harris, Jr., 1990
"African American studies, broadly defined, is the systematic study of the black experience, framed by the socioeconomic, cultural, and geographical boundaries of sub-Saharan African and the black diaspora of North America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Latin America, and increasingly Europe itself. At its core, it is also the black intellectual tradition as it has challenged and interacted with Western civilization and cultures. In the social sciences and humanities, that intellectual tradition has assumed a complex burden over many generations, seeking to engage in a critical dialogue with white scholarships on a range of complex issues, and most significantly, the definition and reality of race as a social construct, and the factors that explain the structures of inequality which, greatly define the existence of black people across the globe." --Manning Marable, 1995
“African American Studies is the study and analysis of the African diaspora’s history and culture which is intended to promote the economic, psychological, educational, occupational, and familial progress of Black people. This is an activist discipline, and the spirit of this subject is committed to inspiring change. By circumstance, African American Studies is a challenge to the status quo as it counters the default Eurocentric bias of Western education.”-Daniel R. Davis, 2012
"What is Africana Studies?"
University of Kansas offers a succinct description of African American studies on their website. This is a useful because it offers a rationale for the importance of the discipline.
Univesity of Kansas. “What Is Africana Studies?” WHAT AFRICANA STUDIES? | African and African-American Studies, University of Kansas, afs.ku.edu/what-africana-studies. Accessed 9 Dec. 2025.
"The Struggle and Reward of Black Studies"
This article from a post-doctoral fellow from the Department of African & African American Studies at Washington University offers a unique and helpfully described perspective on the significance of African American Studies in higher learning institutions.
Mundell, J. A. (2024, September 30). Department of African & African American Studies. Retrieved from https://artsci.washu.edu/: https://afas.wustl.edu/news/struggle...-black-studies
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View Video Agents of Change
Agents of Change tells the timely and inspiring story of how successful protests for equity and inclusion led to establishing the first Black and Ethnic Studies departments at two very different universities: San Francisco State (1968) and Cornell (1969). San Francisco State students, their supporters on the faculty and in the community, including the increasingly influential Black Panther Party, launched the longest student strike in U.S. history. In addition to curricular changes, they demanded increased minority student recruitment and retention, and the hiring of minority faculty. Student activists, like actor Danny Glover, demonstrated and faced brutal police assaults and massive arrests unleashed by then-Governor Ronald Reagan. Despite these obstacles, Black, Latino and Asian student groups formed the Third World Liberation Front and emerged victorious, creating the first College of Ethnic Studies in the nation and igniting similar actions across the country.
This video is available through Kanopy and is licensed by the City Colleges of Chicago. To view the video, click on the link and enter your CCC username and password.
Dawson, F., & Ginzberg, A. (Directors). (2016). Agents of Change [Motion Picture].