have written; it is a simple contribution to a very paradoxical, contradictory journey on the road to an African cultural understanding of humanity. Sankofa Black Studies: Rethinking Origins for the Future by Abdul Alkalimat, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus Department of African American Studies and School of Information Sciences University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Black studies, in all its organizational forms and names, has a history that reaches back for over a century. It is therefore appropriate to use the Sankofa principal of looking back in history to learn what is useful to guide us into the future. Times have changed, but our challenge remains learning lessons from the past that we can use today. This short essay is based on my recent book, The History of Black Studies (2021). At its origin, Black studies combines three dialectics: 1) The campus and the community 2) Theory and practical experience 3) Academic excellence and social responsibility Our critical imperative is to understand how these contradictions worked to advance the freedom struggle over the last 50 years and how we can look forward to the next 50 years of social progress toward freedom. Black studies originated from the agency of Black liberation based on the community, both directly and indirectly, through the efforts of students coming to campus with the selfdetermination politics of the community. The practical experience of confronting institutional racism stimulated students and faculty in Black studies to investigate Black intellectual history and embrace the theories and methods found there—as summed up in the slogan I created for NCBS, “academic excellence and social responsibility.” In summation, the creation of Black studies in the academic mainstream was a project of the Black Power Movement. The movement fought on many battlefronts, including electoral 198
