Dr. Desiree McMillion has been selected as one of the winners of the Ebony Excellence Award at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The Ebony Excellence Award Ceremony is a night to celebrate our Black students, faculty and staff on another year of thriving at UIUC. We are so excited to present Dr. Desirée McMillion with this award for all of her hard work this academic year...

Dr. Esther Ngumbi has been chosen by LAS Honors as the LAS James Scholar Honors Program Faculty Mentor of the Year for 2021-2022. This award recognizes a faculty member who exemplifies the Honors mission and who has inspired, supported, and challenged their students to develop as an Honors student and as an individual.  This award is particularly special because the students nominate the faculty...

The American Dance Festival (ADF) is awarding Dr. Kariamu Welsh the Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching.  ADF granted her this honor in 2020, but the pandemic forced cancellation of the celebration.  Dr. Welsh requested that the celebration happen when the event could take place in person. Unfortunately, she passed away before it could happen.  The award...

Dr. Desirée McMillion had the privilege of hosting Dr. Robyn Collymore, University of Illinois (Class of 1982) African American Studies major,  in her AFRO 226 Black Women in Contemporary US Society course.  This course focuses on the sociological perspective of the experience of African American women in the contemporary United States. Specifically, an examination of relationships between the...

Dr. Doris Derby was well-known for her role as an activist in the Civil Rights movement, especially in Mississippi, and as a photographer and artist who captured and conveyed the soul of the movement.  She received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Illinois and was active in many cultural arts programs on campus.  In 2016, she was nominated for an award from the Alumni Association,...

Dr. Bobby J. Smith II has been invited to give an in-person talk on Tuesday, April 19, 2022 at 1:00pm as part of the inaugural Planning Colloquium in the UIUC Department of Urban and Regional Planning in 223 Temple Buell Hall. The title of the talk is “Black Visions of Food Justice: A Triple Food Movement Analysis.” Here is the talk announcement link:...

Everyone is invited to the upcoming Staged Reading of Xtigone by Nambi E. Kelley, an African-American playwright.  Directed by Charence O'Higgins (MFA Theatre UIUC) and Paul O'Mahony (Founder and Director of Out of Chaos Theatre, London, U.K.). The actors are high school students from local high schools and will perform the reading on March 25, 6 p.m. at Combes Gym, Central High...

Professor Irvin J. Hunt will be presenting on Dreaming the Present: Time, Aesthetics, and the Black Cooperative Movement on Wednesday, March 16, 2022 at the Caxton Club in Chicago Illinois.  In-person and Zoom options are available, but you must register by March 11, 2022.  Click here to view the flyer. Click ...

Dr. Bobby J Smith II was invited to give a talk on April 14, 2022 at 6:00pm as part of the inaugural UIUC Metropolitan Food and Environmental Systems Student Association’s (MFSTSA) Talk Series: Reimagining Our Food Systems.  His presentation is titled "Food Justice in Black Communities".   The series is virtual and the flyer is below. Here is the free registration link:...

On Friday, March 4 at 3:00, The Center for African Studies is sponsoring, "Africa, Race and the War in Ukraine: An Open Discussion". This will be on Zoom and there will be an opportunity for people to share perspectives and ideas after introductory remarks by CAS director Terri Barnes and our colleague, Erik McDuffie. All are welcome to attend!   ...

Professor Esther Ngumbi, Assistant Professor of Entomology and African American Studies, has informed us of a recent publication milestone.  She shared the early manuscript of a recently accepted manuscript that resulted from her collaboration with Dr. Angela Kent (of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences), and her PhD student Sierra Raglin.  The article is titled “Herbivory protection via...

Dr. Harrison will be the Keynote Speaker at the 13th Annual Graduate Student Conference where she will present "Education as a Practice for Freedom". The theme of the conference is "Education in Unprecedented Times: Making Education Accessible to All" and will be held Friday, March 4, 2022 at the College of Education and via Zoom.  Admission is free but registration is required. 

Members of the African American Studies Department attended the LAS New Faculty and Newly Promoted Faculty Reception in the Fall of 2021.  Pictured left to right: AFRO Head Ronald Bailey, LAS Dean Venetria Patton, Assistant Professor Alexia Williams, and Professor Merle Bowen.  Not pictured: Professor Ruby Mendenhall.

For Land and Liberty is a comparative study of the history and contemporary circumstances concerning Brazil’s quilombos (African-descent rural communities) and their inhabitants, the quilombolas. The book examines the disposition of quilombola claims to land as a site of contestation over citizenship and its meanings for Afro-descendants, as well as their connections to...

Dr. Bobby Smith II has received the 2021 American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. Read the full article here. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Smith on all his hard work thus far!