African American Studies

Mission

Birthed from years of struggle that began with the World War II struggles for inclusion led by labor leader Asa Philip Randolph and the subsequent efforts of Civil Rights Leaders such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth, James Baldwin, and Ella Baker, African American studies grew from the angst of newly arriving Black students on the campuses of Predominantly White Institutions. The foremost issues that these initial beneficiaries of declining obstacles to Blacks integration of previously racially exclusive educational was the lack of Black faculty members and the exclusion of the inclusion of Black contributions in school curriculum. African American studies was created as a response to the erasure of the Black presence and contributions in the development of societies around the globe since the beginning of time.

The 1960s rise of African American Studies as a multi-disciplinary discipline was undoubtedly a response to the pervasive erasure of Black contributions to the development of America and places as far away as Egypt, Mali, Ghana, and Songhay. Incubated by the hopes of moderate integrationist-oriented Civil Rights Leaders and birthed during pressing calls for self-determination during the Black Power Era, African American Studies swiftly became a rallying point for Black collegians who were simultaneously seeking a voice and safe-spaces on the campuses of lily-white colleges and universities.

The African American studies mission is inextricably intertwined with the Black Power Era historical context that birthed its arrival. While White Americans, encouraged by LBJ’s Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965), attempted to move past daunting matters such as politico-economic inequalities that have shadowed America since its founding, Blacks viewed the nation in a much different light. A combination of the Watts Rebellion (1965) that occurred ten days after LBJ’s Voting Rights Act, the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (1966), and the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968), prodded Black students at San Francisco State University to found the first African American Studies program the same year of Dr. King’s murder.

The founding fathers of African American Studies reached consensual agreement that at its best the discipline would seek to:

• Develop strategies, tactics, and goals to advance the plight of Blacks in America.
• Conduct research to illuminate Black contributions to the world for educational purposes for every segment of American society.
• Serve as a main source for the production of Black intellectuals across many academic disciplines and leaders endowed with an in-depth understanding of the previous path Blacks have traveled, as well as the miles of road that lay ahead.

The Prairie View A&M University African American Studies Program emanates from this storied past while also continuing its admirable goals of improving the status of Blacks and the entire nation. The above goals are being achieved via the dispensing of information to students via learning experiences that often extend beyond the standard classroom via internships, research opportunities, and participation in professional conferences and student competitions.

Program Goals

• Exposing students to the experiences of persons of African descent since the beginning of recorded history.
• Teaching students a relevant historical timeline that contextualizes the Black experience from the “discovery of the New World” through the new millennium.
• Examining the historical, political, and social experiences of New World Africans and their descendants since their arrival in the Jamestown Colony.
• Preparing students to bring significant purpose to their studies by developing critical thinking skills as well as communication (written and oral) skills to uplift the nation.
• Preparing students for future professional opportunities in fields as diverse as Engineering, Architecture, History, Political Science, Literature, Sociology, Education, Nursing, and other professional paths.