Born out of the Black freedom struggle of the 1960s and 1970s, Black studies is a political and an intellectual project, through which scholarly inquiry serves as a path to the empowerment and liberation of people of African descent socially, politically, and spiritually. The Black studies minor also honors centuries-long histories of Black thought, from pre-colonial, thriving African civilizations through the anti-slavery abolition movement to the prison abolition movement, from decades of Race Men to Black feminism and Black Queer studies, from the African continent to the Americas to the Caribbean and all throughout the Diaspora.
Black studies spans centuries, crosses oceans, and is shaped by multiple geographies and cultural practices. Students can immerse themselves in histories of African and African-descended people rooted in and routed through the Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, and imperialism across the Diaspora.