Chapter 3 – Africana / African American / Black Studies – Comprehensive Study Notes

Learning Objectives

• Analyze and articulate foundational concepts in Africana / African-American / Black Studies (e.g., Panafricanism, Black Power, Black Nationalism, discrimination, double consciousness, controlling images)
• Apply Black-generated theories to describe critical events, histories, cultures, intellectual traditions, contributions, lived experiences, and social struggles, foregrounding agency and group affirmation
• Critically examine the intersection of race/racism with class, gender, sexuality, religion, and spirituality in Black communities
• Explain and assess Black struggles for resistance, social justice, solidarity, and liberation at communal, national, international, and transnational levels
• Describe anti-racist practices aimed at building a just and equitable society

3.1 Introduction to Africana / African American / Black Studies

• Origins & Purpose
  • Emerged inside higher education as an academic “site of inquiry and struggle” answering the needs of on-going racial-justice and civil-rights movements
  • Provides an interdisciplinary home for uncovering, documenting, and explaining the varied experiences of peoples of African origin
  • Works in tandem with diversity/inclusion efforts in campuses and broader societal institutions
• Terminology & Scope
  • Africana Studies / Black Studies: global focus on African heritage (continental Africans, diasporic communities in the U.S., Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, etc.)
  • African American Studies: specifically centers descendants of enslaved Africans within the U.S.
  • Choice of term signals inclusion; chapter generally uses “Africana Studies” or “Black Studies” to cover all
• Chapter Road-Map
  • Political/historical contexts of Black liberation in the 1800s–1900s
  • Exploitation vs. resistance through a Black-Studies analytic lens
  • Contemporary systemic, cultural, and political issues now studied by Black-Studies scholars

3.2 Black Power and Black Studies

• Garveyism & Panafricanism
  • Marcus Garvey (Jamaica 1887–1940) championed global Black pride, empowerment, and economic prosperity
  • Promoted worldwide solidarity to resist colonialism/apartheid; foundational to ending South-African apartheid in the 1990s
  • Two key frameworks arising from Garveyism:
  • Black Power: coined by Stokely Carmichael 1966; stresses building Black-serving institutions & leadership
  • Black Nationalism: promotes Black pride, economic self-sufficiency, separatism
• Civil Rights Movement (CRM)
  • 1940s–50s mobilization against Jim Crow segregation; churches & women activists provided food, housing, education, and social-service infrastructure
  • Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) unified religious groups; charismatic male figures (e.g., Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) often spotlighted despite women’s front-line labor
  • Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC 1960): sit-ins, Freedom Rides, voter-registration, non-violent philosophy (“justice for all overthrows injustice”)
• Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) & Fannie Lou Hamer
  • Formed 1964 to challenge all-white Mississippi delegation (“Dixiecrats”) at Democratic National Convention
  • Hamer: “nobody’s free until everybody’s free” – intersectional liberation stance; endured violence (house bombed 1971)

3.3 How We Got Here – Lifting “The Veil”

The Veil & Double Consciousness (W.E.B. Du Bois 1903)

• “Problem of the color line” defines 20^{th} and 21^{st} centuries
• Double consciousness = simultaneous self-view through racist white society’s lens and one’s authentic Black self
• Continues to explain modern political polarization, hate crimes, and racialized legal status (Joseph & Golash-Boza 2021)

Pre-Colonial Africa

• >10,000 years of complex societies; kingdoms/empires: Mali, Songhai, Ghana, Aksum, Benin, Yoruba, Great Zimbabwe, etc.
• Identities localized (e.g., Kush, Aksum) – no continent-wide “African/Black” sense prior to external contact
• Islam spread across North Africa (from 600s); Europeans (Portuguese 15^{th} c.) initiated large-scale enslavement

Chattel Slavery & Transatlantic Triangular Trade

• By 1700 ≈ 50,000 Africans enslaved annually; total ≈ 12 million trafficked
• Trade pattern: Europe ⇄ Africa ⇄ Americas; extracted human labor + resources for European industrial profit
• Resistance: shipboard rebellions, suicide, solidarity with Indigenous peoples; ≥250 documented large-scale uprisings; countless small acts (Zinn 2015)
• U.S. system codified via laws: Three-Fifths Compromise 1787, Dred Scott v. Sandford 1856
  • Modern echo: prison gerrymandering – incarcerated (disenfranchised) persons counted for representation

Abolition & Civil War

• Underground Railroad (Harriet Tubman) led self-emancipations to Canada, Mexico, Spanish Florida
• Civil War 1861–65: Union victory; Emancipation Proclamation (Lincoln) + 13^{th} Amendment: slavery abolished except “punishment for crime” → basis of prison labor < 1 $/hr (Alexander 2010)
• Juneteenth 1865 emancipation in Texas celebrated annually
• The 1619 Project (Hannah-Jones) marks 400 years since slavery’s arrival; faces political censorship via anti-Critical-Race-Theory legislation (17 states bans as of 2022)

Reconstruction, Black Codes & Jim Crow

• Freedmen’s Bureau provided limited aid; Black communities built autonomous schools, churches, businesses
• Black Codes restricted property, movement, business; post-troop-withdrawal 1877 ushered Jim Crow segregation
• “Separate but equal” legalized in Plessy v. Ferguson 1896; “one-drop” rule fixed racial categorization
• Tulsa’s Greenwood District (Black Wall Street): thriving Black economy destroyed in 1921 massacre; symbol of white supremacist terror

3.4 Systemic Racism

Incarceration

• Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow 2010: mass incarceration = continuity of slavery/Jim Crow
• Drug disparities: same substance – cocaine (powder) vs. crack (rock)
  • Penalties harsher for crack (possession associated w/ Black youth) despite chemical equivalence \Rightarrow racialized criminalization
• Policing/surveillance heavier in Black neighborhoods → higher arrest rates

Health Disparities

• Black maternal mortality \approx 37.3 vs. White 14.9 per 100,000 live births (CDC)
• Example: Serena Williams’ near-fatal childbirth complications due to dismissed symptoms
• Midwifery linked to improved outcomes; historically relied upon when white physicians refused Black women

Educational Inequity

• College-graduation gap wider in 2000 than 1940
  • 2000: Black women 15\% vs. White women 33\%; Black men 12\% vs. White men 29\%
• Teacher bias: Black children receive fewer academic pushes & more punishment (Darling-Hammond 2010)
• Ongoing segregation: 72\% Black students in majority-minority schools by 2000; \ge 40\% in 90-100\% minority schools

Affirmative Action

• Defined as procedures to remedy, prevent, and eliminate discrimination (race, color, creed, national origin)
• Regents of U.C. v. Bakke 1978 – landmark case challenging racial quotas
• California Proposition 209 1996 banned race-conscious admissions ⇒ immediate diversity drop at UCLA/UC Berkeley (≈ 50\% decline)
• Comprehensive Review 2002 weighs “life circumstances,” but African-American enrollments remained disproportionately low despite increased eligibility & applications
• Ongoing legal battles: Abigail Fisher v. UTexas (lost 2013 & 2016)

3.5 Cultural & Political Representation

Black Women’s Representation

• Historical invisibility or hyper-sexualized/servant depictions in Euro-American art (Lisa Collins 2002)
• Patricia Hill Collins’ 5 Controlling Images:
  1. Mammy – obedient domestic; desexualized model of Black subordination
  2. Matriarch – single working mother blamed for children’s outcomes (“failed mammy”)
  3. Welfare Mother/Queen – constructed as lazy, state-dependent, without male authority
  4. Black Lady – middle-class “modern mammy” whose success sparks claims of reverse racism
  5. Jezebel/Hoochie – hyper-sexual aggressor; trope visible in rap videos
• Effects: shapes policy debates on reproduction (e.g., anti-abortion billboard “most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb”), welfare, and colorblind rhetoric

Media, Film & Literature

• Daughters of the Dust (Dir. Julie Dash 1991)
  • First wide-release film by a Black woman director; depicts Gullah Sea-Island community 1902; emphasizes collectivity & intergenerational wisdom
  • Inspired Beyoncé’s Lemonade visual album
• Representation as political battleground: visibility can heal or harm (Gray 2005)

Contemporary Liberation Spaces

• Black Lives Matter (#BLM) founded 2013 by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi after Trayvon Martin verdict; intentionally queer Black-women-led; calls out appropriation & erasure in male-centered narratives
• African American Policy Forum (AAPF, founded 1996$$): Kimberlé Crenshaw & Luke Harris; campaigns include #SayHerName (police violence vs. Black women) & #TruthBeTold (anti-book-ban voter mobilization)
• Black Girls Code: STEM equity via culturally relevant coding workshops for Black girls; emphasizes “Black joy” pedagogy

Black Feminism & Womanism

• Roots in Sojourner Truth (“Ain’t I A Woman?”), Ida B. Wells, Combahee River Collective (1970s) – intersectional analysis of race, gender, sexuality, class
• Angela Davis, Women Race & Class: links racist wage structure to sexism
• Hull, Scott, Smith – All the Women Are White… insisted Black-women-centered scholarship
• Audre Lorde: difference ignored/copied/destroyed; liberation via embracing interlocking oppressions
• bell hooks: feminism must confront race/class/sex disparities; rejects depoliticized “lifestyle feminism”
• Womanism: term distinguishing Black feminists’ experiences from white feminism; centers spirituality, community, family

3.6 Summary / Review Highlights

• Black Studies arose from liberation struggles; its core concepts (Panafricanism, Black Power, Black Nationalism, discrimination, double consciousness, controlling images) enable accurate analyses of Black realities
• Intersectionality crucial: race interacts with class, gender, sexuality, religion, etc.
• Black institutions (churches, grassroots orgs, online platforms) continue to drive advocacy
• Standing in solidarity demands theoretical literacy + practical engagement with anti-racist practices

Key Terms (selected)

• Garveyism, Black Power, Black Nationalism, Panafricanism, Civil Rights Movement, De Jure discrimination, Double Consciousness, Transatlantic Triangular Trade, Chattel Slavery, Three-Fifths Compromise, Underground Railroad, 1619 Project, Freedmen’s Bureau, Black Codes, Jim Crow Era, Black Wall Street, New Jim Crow, Disproportionality, Affirmative Action, Controlling Images, Black Lives Matter, Black Feminism, Combahee River Collective

Discussion Prompts & Activities (excerpt)

• Trace forms of Black resistance across historical periods; analyze risks & supports for high-risk activism
• K-W-L group chart on slavery knowledge; revisit after semester
• Film/media clips: identify controlling images; contrast Black-women-directed vs. mainstream portrayals
• Journal: analyze Black-created media and artist’s perspective on race/identity