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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 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 those 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.[1]

Intensive academic efforts to reconstruct African-American history began in the

late 19th century (W. E. B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave-trade to
the United States of America, 1896). Among the pioneers in the first half of the
20th century were Carter G. Woodson,[2] Herbert Aptheker, Melville Herskovits, and
Lorenzo Dow Turner.[3][4]

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. The creation of programs and departments in Black studies was a common demand
of protests and sit-ins by minority students and their allies, who felt that their
cultures and interests were underserved by the traditional academic structures.
[citation needed]
Black studies departments, programs, and courses were also created in the United
Kingdom,[5][6] the Caribbean,[7] Brazil,[8] Canada,[9] Colombia,[10][11] Ecuador,
[12] and Venezuela.[13]
Names of the academic discipline

The academic discipline is known by various names.[24] Mazama (2009) expounds:

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.[25]

Okafor (2014) clarifies:

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.[26]

History
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.[9] Aleksandr Sergeevich
Pushkin was studied by the Black Canadian Studies chairman, John Barnstead.[9]
Mexico

Through development of the publication, The black population in Mexico (1946),

Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán made way for the development of Afro-Mexican studies.[27]
United States

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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.[28]

In the United States, the 1960s is known as the "Turbulent Sixties."[citation

needed] During this time period, the nation experienced great social unrest, as
citizens 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.[29]

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.[30] 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.[31] 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.[30] Police
arrested 800 students. Students formed a "freedom of speech movement" and Mario
Savio became its poetic leader, stating that "freedom of speech was something that
represents the very dignity of what a human is."[31] The Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS), a well-connected and organized club, hosted a conference entitled
"Black Power and its Challenges."[30] Black leaders, who were directly tied to then
ongoing civil rights movements, spoke to a predominantly white audience about their
respective goals and challenges. These leaders included Stokely Carmichael of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and James Bevel of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Educational conferences, like that of the SDS, forced the university to take some
measures to correct the most obvious racial issue on campus—the sparse black
student population.[32] 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.[33] 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.[32]
By 1970, there were 1,400 EOP students. As the minority student population
increased, tension between activists clubs and minorities rose because minorities
wanted the reigns of the movement that affected them directly. One student asserted
that it was "backward to educate white people about Black Power when many black
people are still uneducated on the matter.[34] "The members of the Afro-American
Student Union (AASU) proposed an academic department called "Black Studies" in
April 1968.[30] "We demand a program of 'Black Studies', a program that will be of
and for black people. We demand to be educated realistically and that no form of
education which attempts to lie to us, or otherwise mis-educate us will be
accepted."[35]

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."[35] Everyone learns differently and teaching only one way is a cause for
students to not want to learn, which eventually leads to dropping out. All students
have their specialties, but teachers don't use that to help them in their learning
community. Instead, they use a broad way of teaching just to get the information
out.[36] 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.[37] 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.[38] Many Black studies
programs and departments and programs around the nation were created in subsequent
years.[citation needed]

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.[39]

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.[40]

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.[41] It existed as an independent, underfunded non-degree offering program
from 1971 until 1979.[42] In 1979, the program became the Department of African
American Studies, offering degrees within the College of Arts and Sciences.[42]

Unlike the other stages, Black studies grew out of mass rebellions of black college
students and faculty in search of a scholarship of change.[citation needed] The
fourth stage, the new name "Africana studies" involved a theoretical elaboration of
the discipline of Black studies according to African cultural reclamation and
disparate tenets in the historical and cultural issues of Africanity within a
professorial interpretation of the interactions between these fields and college
administrations.[28]

Thus, Africana studies reflected the mellowing and institutionalization of the

Black studies movement in the course of its integration into the mainstream
academic curriculum. Black studies and Africana studies differ primarily in that
Africana studies focuses on Africanity and the historical and cultural issues of
Africa and its descendants, while Black studies was designed to deal with the
uplift and development of the black (African-American) community in relationship to
education and its "relevance" to the black community. The adaptation of the term,
"Africana studies", appears to have derived from the encyclopedic work of W. E. B.
Du Bois and Carter G. Woodson. James Turner, who was recruited from graduate school
at Northwestern on the heels of the student rebellions of 1969, first used the term
to describe a global approach to Black studies and name the "Africana Studies and
Research Center" at Cornell, where he acted as the founding director.[43]

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.[44][45]

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.[46] 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.[46] Rather, the academics, and the scholarship they
have produced about African American studies, has been characterized as bearing an
"Aryan hegemonic worldview."[46] It has been argued that due to a staffing shortage
in the field of African American studies, academics in the field, who are trained
in traditional fields, carry with them presumptions of the primacy of their field
of training's viewpoints, which tends to result in the marginalization of the
African phenomena that are the subjects of study and even the field of African
American studies at-large.[46] Consequently, matters of development of theory as
well as the development of historical and African consciousness frequently go
overlooked.[46] As the focus of African American studies is the study of the
African diaspora and Africa, including the problems of the African diaspora and
Africa, Conyers claims that this makes the theory of Afrocentricity increasingly
relevant.[46]

The National Council for Black Studies has also recognized the problem of
academics, who have been trained in fields such as education, economics, history,
philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology – fields outside of
African American studies – and are committed to their disciplinary training, yet
are not able to recognize the shortcomings of their training, as it relates to the
field of African American studies that they are entering into.[46] Furthermore,
such academics, who would also recognize themselves as experts in the discipline of
African American studies, would also attempt to assess the legitimacy of Africology
– done so, through analysis based on critical rhetoric rather than based on pensive
research.[46][who?]

Following the Black studies movement and Africana studies movement, Molefi Kete
Asante identifies the Africological movement as a subsequent academic movement.[47]
Asante authored the book Afrocentricity, in 1980.[47] Within the book, Asante used
the term "Afrology" as the name for the interdisciplinary field of Black studies,
and defined it as "the Afrocentric study of African phenomena."[47] Later, Winston
Van Horne changed Asante's use of the term "Afrology" to "Africology."[47] Asante
then went on to use his earlier definition for "Afrology" as the definition for his
newly adopted term, "Africology".[47] Systematic Africology,[46][1] which is a
research method in the field of Black studies that was developed by Asante,[1]
utilizes the theory of Afrocentricity to analyze and evaluate African phenomena.
[46] In an effort to shift Black studies away from its interdisciplinary status
toward disciplinary status, Asante recommended that Afrocentricity should be the
meta-paradigm for Black studies and that the new name for Black studies should be
Africology; this is intended to shift Black studies away from having a "topical
definition" of studying African peoples, which is shared with other disciplines,
toward having a "perspectival definition" that is unique in how African peoples are
studied – that is, the study of African peoples, through a centered perspective,
which is rooted in and derives from the cultures and experiences of African
peoples.[48] By doing so, as Ama Mazama indicates, this should increase how
relevant Black studies is and strengthen its disciplinary presence.[48]
Caribbean

Among English-speaking countries of the Caribbean, scholars educated in the United

States and Britain added considerably to the development of Black studies.[7]
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.[7]
Cuba

During the early 1900s, Fernando Ortiz pioneered the emerging field of Afro-Cuban
studies.[49] On January 16, 1937, the Society for Afro-Cuban Studies was
established.[49] Afro-Cuban Studies (Estudios Afrocubanos) is the academic journal
for the Society for Afro-Cuban Studies (SEAC/Sociedad de Estudios Afrocubanos).[49]
In 1939, Rómulo Lachatañeré's academic work appeared in a volume of this journal.
[49]
Dominican Republic

In 1967, Carlos Larrazábal Blanco authored, Los Negros Y La Esclavitud En Santo

Domingo, which is considered to be a foundational academic work in Afro-Dominican
studies.[50] 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.[51]
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, Les
Griots.[52] One of the most influential academics in Afro-Haitian studies is René
Piquion.[53]
Puerto Rico

As of 2019, Afro-Puerto Rican studies is not offered as a degree program by the

University of Puerto Rico.[54] 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.[55]
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.[56]
Guatemala

Christopher H. Lutz authored, Santiago de Guatemala, 1541–1773, which is considered

to be one of the foundational literatures of Afro-Guatemalan studies.[57]
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.[58]
Panama

In March 1980, along with the Panamanian government, the Afro-Panamanian Studies
Center hosted the Second Congress on Black Culture in the Americas.[59]
South America
Argentina

Since the 1980s, Afro-Argentine studies has undergone renewed growth.[60]

Brazil
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.[8] His scholarship
on Kilombismo detailed how the economic and political affairs of Africans
throughout the Americas contributed to how they socially organized themselves.[61]
Afterward, Nascimento went back to Brazil and began institutionalization of
Africana studies in 1981.[8] While at the Pontifical Catholic University of São
Paulo, Nascimento developed the Afro-Brazilian Studies and Research Institute
(IPEAFRO).[8] A course for professors was provided by IPEAFRO between 1985 and
1995.[8]
Chile

From the 1920s to the 1950s, publications that included the presence of Afro-
Chileans were not systematized, and, from the 1960s to the 1980s, publications
continued to group Afro-Chileans with other groups.[62] 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.[62]
Colombia

Scholars, such as Rogerio Velásquez, Aquiles Escalante, José Rafael Arboleda, and
Thomas Price, were forerunners in the development of Afro-Colombian studies in the
1940s and 1950s.[63] In the 1960s, as social science programs became incorporated
into university institutions, contributions from anthropologists and social
scientists added to its emergence.[63] Following the promulgation of the Colombian
Constitution, particularly Article 55, in 1991,[63] Law 70 in 1993,[63][10][11] and
Decree 804 by the Ministry of Education in 1995,[10][11] the elements for Afro-
Colombian studies began to come together,[63] and historic discrimination of Afro-
Colombians was able to begin being addressed, with the development of national
educational content about Afro-Colombians and Africa.[64][10][11] At the University
City of Bogotá, of the National University of Colombia, the Afro-Colombian Studies
Group developed and established a training program in Afro-Colombian studies for
primary and secondary school teachers.[64] In February 2002, a continuing education
diploma program in Afro-Colombian studies was developed and began to be offered at
the University of Cauca in Belalcázar, Caldas.[65][66][67] At the Pontifical
Xavierian University, there is a master's degree program in Afro-Colombian studies.
[68][69] 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.[69]
Ecuador

Afro-Ecuadorians initiated the development of the Center of Afro-Ecuadorian Studies

in the late 1970s, which served as a means of organizing academic questions
relating to Afro-Ecuadorian identity and history.[12] 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.[12] With the promulgation of Article 84 of
the 1998 Constitution of Ecuador, gave formal recognition was given to Afro-
Ecuadorian Etnoeducación.[12] Juan Garcia, who was one of the founders of the
Center of Afro-Ecuadorian Studies, is a leading scholar in Afro-Ecuadorian studies
and has contributed considerably to the development of the programs in Chota Valley
and Quito.[12]
Paraguay

In 1971, Carvalho Neto authored, Afro-Paraguayan studies.[70]

Peru

While the presence of Afro-Peruvian studies may not be strong in Peru,[10][11] the
body of scholarship is undergoing growth.[71] 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[72] on November 13,
2009.[73] 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.[72] A university student group focused on Afro-Peruvian
studies was also created near San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima, Peru.[74] Additionally,
there has been some scholarship in Afro-Peruvian studies developed in the United
States[75] 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.[76]
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.[77]
Venezuela

The curriculum for Afro-Venezuelan studies was developed at Universidad Politécnica

Territorial de Barlovento Argelia Laya (UPTBAL), in Higuerote, Barlovento, by
Alejandro Correa.[13] In 2006, Afro-Epistemology and African Culture were formally
developed as the initial courses for students in this curriculum.[13]
Europe
United Kingdom
Kehinde Andrews, United Kingdom

Following the rise and decline of Black British Cultural Studies between the early
1980s and late 1990s, Black studies in the United States reinvigorated Black
Critical Thought in the United Kingdom.[78] 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,[78]
continues to advocate for the advancement of the presence of Black studies in the
United Kingdom.[5][6]
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.[1]
Africana Womanism

Delores P. Aldridge developed a research method, which analyzes from the viewpoint
of black women, known as Africana Womanism.[1] Rather than the importance of the
individual (e.g., needs, wants) being considered greater than the family unit, the
importance of the family unit is regarded as greater than the individual.[1]
Afrocentricity
Main article: Afrocentricity
Molefi Kete Asante, United States

Afrocentricity is an academic theory and approach to scholarship that seeks to

center the experiences and peoples of Africa and the African diaspora within their
own historical, cultural, and sociological contexts.[79][80][81][82] 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.[79] The Temple Circle,[83][84] also
known as the Temple School of Thought,[84] Temple Circle of Afrocentricity,[85] or
Temple School of Afrocentricity,[86] 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.[83]
Black Male Studies
Main article: Black Male Studies

Black Male Studies primarily focuses on the study of Black men and boys.[87] Its
research focus includes the study of Black manhood and Black masculinity, and it
draws from disciplines such as history, philosophy, and sociology.[87] Black Male
Studies uses a Black male-centered paradigm designed to critique past and present
gender studies publications on Black males as well as centers and contends with the
problem of anti-Black misandry ("disdain for Black men and boys").[88] 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.[88] Consequently,
past and present gender studies publications tend to contain paradigms, theories,
and narratives that are grounded in anti-Black misandry, along with a theoretically
constructed language of hypermasculinity, and tend to be ill-equipped at
understanding Black males as victims.[88] The past and present vulnerability of
Black males, ranging from rape, to sexual abuse, to death, which tends to be
overlooked and downplayed by rhetoric about hypermasculinity, underscores the need
to develop new language, narratives, and theories for understanding Black males.
[88]
Blues Culture

James B. Stewart developed the research method and methodological framework, known
as Blues Culture, which examines the traits (e.g., versatility, vibration) of
Africana culture utilizing various means from an assortment of disciplines (e.g.,
economics, history, sociology).[1]
Double Consciousness
W. E. B. Du Bois, United States

W. E. B. DuBois developed the research method and conceptual framework, known as

Double Consciousness, to analyze how Africana people (and phenomena) exist in a
dual racialized (black-white) world and subsequently develop a dual consciousness.
[1] Rather than succumb to various forms of external pressure (e.g., assimilation,
harassment, prejudice, racism, sexism, surveillance), Africana people discover how
to steer through them.[1]
Four Basic Tasks of the Black Studies Scholar

James Turner developed the research method and social scientific framework, known
as Four Basic Tasks of the Black Studies Scholar, which investigates the problems
that affect the experiences of Africana peoples and addresses four related criteria
(e.g., defend, disseminate, generate, preserve new knowledge) utilizing various
means of examination from an assortment of disciplines (e.g., conceptual history,
economics, political science, sociology).[1]
Interpretative Analysis
Charles H. Wesley developed the research method of Interpretative Analysis, which
utilizes a structural or cultural system to gather, analyze, and interpret data.[1]
Kawaida Theory
Maulana Karenga, United States

Maulana Karenga drew from the concept of Nguzo Saba to develop his research method,
known as Kawaida Theory.[1] Seven factors (e.g., creative production, ethos,
history, religion, economic organization, political organization, social
organization) are utilized to examine the Africana experience, which is set within
a Pan-Africanist context.[1]
Miseducation of the Negro

Carter G. Woodson developed the research method of and conceptual framework for the
Miseducation of the Negro, which analyzes and assesses the history and culture of
Africana people, and notates their notable loss of such is due to Africana people
being decentered from their own historic and cultural contexts.[1]
Nigrescence

William E. Cross Jr. developed the research method, known as Nigrescence, as a

psychological framework; with the framework, he analyzes Africana culture and the
behavioral dimensions of its psycho-adaptive traits as well as analyzes a timeline
of Black culture (which is composed of five steps).[1]
Optimal Worldview of Psychology

Linda Meyers developed the research method, known as the Optimal Worldview of
Psychology, which utilizes investigates the African mind through a cultural
framework (e.g., surface-level structure of culture, deep structure of culture);
its sub-optimal viewpoint highlights the demerits of an African mind that has an
assimilated mentality and its optimal viewpoint corresponds with an African mind
that has an Africana mentality.[1]
Paradigm of Unity

Abdul Alkalimat developed the research method known as the Paradigm of Unity, which
has a considerable focus on relationships between social classes, via Marxist
analysis, and utilizes gender as a determining factor as well as utilizes an
undefined notion of Afrocentricity.[1][89]
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.[1] Through this methodological recognition,
information that may not have been captured in prior publications is able to be
optimally acquired.[1]
Social Legitimacy

Winston Van Horn developed a research method and methodological framework (composed
of three steps), known as Social Legitimacy, which analyzes the experiences of
Africana peoples and Africana phenomena in their political and sociological
contexts.[1]
Two Cradle Theory
Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal

Cheikh Anta Diop drew from anthropology, archaeology, history, and sociology to
develop a research method and cultural metric, known as Two Cradle Theory, to
assess the differences between African and European cultures – between what are
characterized and viewed as the southern cradle and the northern cradle.[1]
Ujimaa
James L. Conyers, Jr. drew from the concept of Nguzo Saba to develop the research
method known as Ujimaa; the methodological framework draws from philosophy,
sociology, and conceptual history, with the understanding that culture is utilized
to analyze and assess Pan-Africanist phenomena from around the world, and is
utilized to analyze social responsibility and the work of the collective.[1]
Recent challenges and criticisms

One of the major setbacks with Black studies programs or departments is that there
is a lack of financial resources available to students and faculty.[90] 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.[91]

Racism, perpetrated by many administrators, is alleged to hinder the

institutionalization of Black studies at major universities.[90] As with the case
of UC Berkeley, most of the Black studies programs across the country were
instituted because of the urging and demanding of black students to create the
program. In many instances, black students also called for the increased enrollment
of black students and financial assistance to these students.[90] Also seen in the
case of UC Berkeley is the constant demand to have such a program, but place the
power of control in the hands of black people. The idea was that Black studies
could not be "realistic" if it were taught by someone who was not accustomed to the
black experience. On many campuses, directors of Black studies have little to no
autonomy—they do not have the power to hire or grant tenure to faculty. On many
campuses, an overall lack of respect for the discipline has caused instability for
the students and for the program.