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As we can see, the critical issue here is the power to define. Since historically the
black experience has been defined through the European lens (at least over the past
four hundred years or so) Black Studies is largely an effort to reclaim and redefine
the experience of persons of African descent. That's exactly the reason why naming is so
important. The different departments that have of sprung up throughout the country do
vary in the terms they use to describe themselves. Whether they go by the name Black Studies,
Africana Studies, or African-American Studies, the process of naming is very deliberate and
carries a particular meaning for the individuals who undertook to establish the various academic
departments. The different focus that each of these departments may have makes naming
a matter of political control, which is a critical principle of self-determination and
self-definition. "African American Studies" focuses on persons of African descent throughout
the Americas, including North, Central, and South America, the Caribbean, as well as northern
countries like New Foundland and Greenland. So, the term, "African American" makes "African
American Studies" a more historically specific branch of the discipline that describes the
experience of Africans in the western hemisphere with a relatively narrow lens. While there
tends to be some focus on the continent of Africa there is no specific focus on persons
of African descent in Europe or Asia. The term, "Black Studies" represents a more
politicized vision of the discipline. As we will see, the institutionalization of Black
Studies -- that is, the formal establishment of Black Studies within academic settings
-- came about largely as a result of what was known in the 1960s as the "Black Power"
movement. Malcolm X and The Nation of Islam, in an attempt to reclaim their sense of self-definition
urged the "so called ***" to become "Black." Black became redefined as a popular, a positive
affirmation of self. "Black Studies" reflects the politicization of the discipline in that
it is largely aimed at the discovery and dissemination of information pertaining to what Black people
have undergone and achieved, and the use of education and knowledge to defend and vindicate
the race against its detractors. This reframing was a symbolic victory for the masses of Black
people, but it also carries with it certain problems and challenges as we will see later.
Like Black Studies, Africana Studies is not limited to the experience of persons of African
descent on the continent of Africa or the western hemisphere, but is much broader and
focuses on the African Diaspora as a whole. The African Diaspora of refers to the disbursement
of persons of African descent throughout the globe. It is well known that persons of African
descent had a presence in ancient Greece and Rome as well as widespread contact between
Africans and Asians via the Indian Ocean. There is some evidence to suggest that there
was a pre-Columbian disbursement of Africans across the Atlantic well before 1492. Systematic
and widespread dispersal of Africans throughout the globe, however, took place on a far more
massive scale in the past 400 years as a result of the Atlantic slave trade and the subsequent
colonization of the continent of Africa. Africana studies focuses on the Pan-African links and
experiences of persons of African descent not only on the continent of Africa and in
the Americas, but in places like England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, as well as
Russia and various other parts of Europe and Asia. It does so, however, without the political
context that you find in the "Black Power" movement. Aside from the terminology, Black
Studies, African American Studies, and Africana Studies are similar in that they came about
largely in response to a systematic misrepresentation of the experience of persons of African descent
in such a way as to popularize the notion that they are inferior. It is in response
to miseducation, which, as Malcolm X explained, has redirected the world view of black people
in such a way as to prevent them from identifying with their true history , culture self-awareness,
and well-being; and diseducation, by which black people have been deprived of access
to education altogether. As such, a core value is an underlying social mission that requires
the application of theory to methodology and the combination of knowledge to activism toward
the practical resolution of issues in the Black community. That is the reason why Black
Studies always has historically been so closely aligned with activism and social justice.
Key developments in the establishment of black studies include a period of renewed hope between
1945 and 1955. During that time, legal victories such as the Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board
of Education decision of 1954 which struck down segregation, gave blacks a sense of optimism
in terms of the direction the country was going. Additionally, the GI Bill allowed many
African Americans who were returning from World War II as veterans to have most, if
not all, of their college tuition paid by the federal government. Within the first few
years of its passage, the reality of a college education combined with growing desegregation
of public institutions led to unprecedented growth in the number of African American students.
Along with the influx of African American students and the gradual breakdown of legal
barriers, however, a number of other factors combined that encouraged the institutionalization
of Black Studies in higher education. Why would the power structure which had been so
resistant to curricular and structural change now all of a sudden seem so much more open
to change? The gains of the civil rights movement -- that is the desegregation of the armed
forces and the Brown vs. Board of Education decision among many other efforts --combined
with two other forces (civil unrest and the Cold War) brought about a shift with regard
to the stance that academia in general held toward the establishment of Black Studies
as a discipline. The period of civil rights also overlapped a period of militancy, unrest,
sit-ins, and demands for acknowledgment and justice on college campuses, which increased
between 1966 and 1968. In May 1967, students at Jackson State College in Mississippi fought
with police for two nights. The National Guard was called, and one person was killed. On
March 19, 1968, a sit-in at Howard University became the first building takeover on a college
campus. By this time, the philosophy of the Black Power movement, and Black Nationalism
were about as firmly entrenched in the black community as the civil rights movement as
a response to racism and systematic oppression. Uprisings in the Los Angeles community of
Watts in 1965 and in Newark New Jersey in 1967 as well as uprisings in cities nationwide
in the wake of the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and 1965 and 1968
respectively had the effect of reframing Black Studies as a national security issue. Perhaps
some systematic change would be necessary in order prevent widespread unrest in what
were formerly exclusively white institutions that were increasingly becoming desegregated.
Another national security threat also loomed that forced or at least encouraged academic
institutions to consider implementing Black Studies into their curricula. The period immediately
following World War II through the 1980s ushered in the era of the Cold War. As most of Europe
and much of Asia lay in shambles, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged from the
conflict as the world's two emerging superpowers ... and as bitter rivals to one another. As
the two superpowers competed on a global scale for strategic and economic dominance, the
United States became increasingly concerned about supporting regimes friendly to its capitalistic
interests in order to undercut its communist rival. At home, the United States became increasingly
concerned... some might say paranoid... over the threat of communist infiltration within
the country. As a result efforts of US Government agencies to systematically root out the communist
threat from within took the form of the infamous McCarthy hearings of 1954 and FBI counterintelligence
programs intended to disrupt and destroy organizations it saw as subversive such as the Black Panther
Party. At the same time, implementing programs of Black Studies in higher education was seen
as a necessary concession in order to keep black students from "going communist." It
is within that context that Merritt Community College in Oakland, California established
the first organized Black Studies curriculum in the 1965-1966 academic year. San Francisco
State University approved the nation's first four year curriculum in Black Studies in the
1967-1968 academic year.