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That there is a strong historical intellectual tradition of African Americans studying Africa is news to some. That there remains a demand among African Americans in the United States to study Africa is also a surprise. That these ideas are challenging to some is ludicrous to others. For many African Americans in African studies, affirming our engagement with Africa over and over is not only a nuisance but also a waste of precious time and intellectual energy. After countless efforts, many African Americans have simply disengaged, refusing to have these futile conversations. Others bear witness in perpetuity to the defense of Black nationality and global Pan-Africanism for themselves, the race, and the enlightenment of disbelievers. Both groups act with calculated rationality, yet denials of African Americans' interest in, engagement with, and effect on African studies abound. The denial within the community of scholars comes mostly from White Americans but also from continental Africans and other African Americans.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: In the Whip of the Whirlwind -- Chapter 1. "Closed Doors" -- Chapter 2. For the Race in General and Black Women in Particular -- Chapter 3. Behind-the-Scenes View of a Behind-the-Scenes Organizer -- Chapter 4. "Tired of Giving In" -- Chapter 5. "Heirs to a Legacy of Struggle" -- Chapter 6. "We Wanted the Voice of a Woman to Be Heard" -- Chapter 7. "We Seek to Know . . . in Order to Speak the Truth" -- Chapter 8. African American Women in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party -- Chapter 9. Anger, Memory, and Personal Power -- Chapter 10. "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" -- Chapter 11. Black Women and Black Power -- Chapter 12. "Ironies of the Saint" -- Chapter 13. "No One Ever Asks What a Man's Role in the Revolution Is" -- Chapter 14. "Joanne Is You and Joanne Is Me" -- Chapter 15. From the Kennedy Commission to the Combahee Collective -- Chapter 16. The Civil Rights–Black Power Legacy -- Selected Bibliography -- Permissions -- Contributors -- Index

While the United States wrestles with a college completion crisis, the Division of Institutional Research at San Francisco State University found a high correlation between Ethnic Studies curriculum and increased student retention and graduation rates. Majors and minors in the College of Ethnic Studies graduated within six years at rates up to 92%. Those who were neither majors nor minors in Ethnic Studies also boosted their graduation rates by up to 72% by taking just a few courses in Africana Studies, American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, or Race and Resistance Studies. Faculty in the College of Ethnic Studies demonstrated significant levels of high impact instruction in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and senior exit surveys as compared with their colleagues across the university.

This collection presents papers on various issues of social development in Africa. The contributors are historians, philosophers, economists, legal experts, sociologists, literary specialists, linguists, educationalists and scholars of culture. (DÜI-Hff)