07/18/2019 - AFRO meet a wealth of new and known faces alike at Illini Fest. We were very pleased to see such interest in our department. The AFRO Department spent Thursday, July 18 at Millennium Park for the first-ever Illini Fest in Chicago, organized by the University of Illinois' new Chief Marketing Officer, Eric Minor. The event was planned with the purpose of acknowledging the large population of Illini in the Chicagoland area.

04/22/2019 - CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Poet Claudia Rankine, whose writing addresses issues of racism and racial violence, will visit campus this week to read from her work.

09/06/2018 - An exhibit at the University of Illinois Archives documents his official role on campus and his work on behalf of African-American students, as well as his involvement in the community and his family. The exhibit coincides with the 70th anniversary of Lee’s death, as well as the 50th anniversary of Project 500, which sought to increase the number of African-American students on campus.

08/16/2018 - Starting in the 2018-2019 academic year, Meyers will be an assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies. 

02/17/2017 - The Department of African American Studies will be sponsoring a "Freedom Forum" discussion on the topic of "Toward Black Liberation in the Era of Trump."

01/19/2017 - Dr. Ruby Mendenhall and Dr. Malaika McKee were recently interviewed by Scientific Computing to discuss their exciting research project

09/19/2016 - Professor Eric McDuffie recently spoke with LAS News to discuss his research on Garveyism, the family of Malcolm X, and the importance of black women in the struggle for civil rights.

01/14/2015 - Just say the name “Selma,” and anyone who knows the history of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s will know what you mean. It was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in that Alabama city almost 50 years ago (March 7, 1965) that peaceful marchers were beaten back with billy clubs wielded by state and local lawmen.