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40th Anniversary Celebrations

40th Anniversary Celebrations

Ancestral Footprints: The Legacy of Kwame Nkrumah – A lecture featuring Dr. Daryl Zizwe Poe

African-American political thought and practice has always emphasized the connection between the struggles for racial justice in the United States and the struggles of peoples of African descent in different parts of the world. This “pan-African” consciousness is an integral part of the intellectual and pedagogic mission of Africana Studies since its inception as a field of intellectual inquiry. In Fall 2009, Dr. Daryl Zizwe Poe, Associate Professor of Political Science and History at Lincoln University, spoke at Rutgers on the international dimensions of the African-American struggle as part of the 40th Anniversary celebration of the institution of Africana Studies as a discipline. Dr. Poe, the author of Kwame Nkrumah’s Contribution to Pan-African Agency: An Afrocentric Analysis delivered a lecture titled, “Ancestral Footprints: The Legacy of Kwame Nkrumah, in which he discussed the first Prime Minister of Ghana. Dr. Poe specifically focused on Nkrumah’s interactions with African-Americans and his undergraduate experience at Lincoln University, a historically Black College in Pennsylvania, which was essential to Nkrumah’s advocacy for Pan-Africanism.

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Twenty Years After Mandela’s Release: Critical Reflections on Educational Reform and Restructuring in South Africa: A Lecture Featuring Dr. Anthony Lemon

  • Event Type: Departmental Event
  • Event Location Type: In Person

The demise of apartheid and the transition to democratic rule in South Africa is one of the most significant events of the 20th century. February 11th, 2010 marked twenty years since Nelson Mandela walked out of prison. With great dignity and open arms, Nelson Mandela shepherded South Africa, a country tormented by racial inequality and conflict, through a peaceful transition to democratic rule. In conjunction with the Graduate School of Education’s South Africa Initiative, the Africana Studies Department sponsored a visit to Rutgers by a Dr. Anthony Lemon, as a distinguished lecturer on South Africa. Dr. Lemon is University Lecturer in the School of Geography at Oxford University and a senior fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford, with a lifelong intellectual and political engagement with South Africa. His book Apartheid: A Geography of Separation (1976) is a classic text in the study of the South Africa’s white ruling classes’ ambitious but futile attempt to structure that country’s social, political, and economic geography along racial lines. Dr. Lemon is also the author of four other books and a number of articles on the human geography of apartheid, urban segregation and desegregation, governance in multi-ethnic societies, elections and democratic consolidation, as well as the question of integration in region of Southern Africa.

Dr. Lemon spent three days at Rutgers sharing insights from his current research on the restructuring of post-apartheid education. The original architects of the apartheid order drew a sharp distinction between “citizens” and “subjects” in their blueprint for South African society.  South Africans of white ancestry were afforded rights and freedoms because they were regarded as morally autonomous “citizens.” The African majority and other non-whites, on the other hand, were designated as morally non-autonomous “subjects.” As such, they were denied basic rights and were segregated spatially, economically, and culturally from white society. Hendrik Verwoerd, one of the chief proponents of apartheid, blatantly stated that "there is no place for Africans in the European community above certain forms of labor." Apartheid affected all aspects of life for non-whites, but some of its most pernicious effects were on education. Whilst South Africa has made impressive gains since the transition to democratic rule in 1994, uneven and often poor quality education continues to plague the society. At present, the majority of the African population is still educated under very deprived conditions, according to Dr. Lemon.

Dr. Lemon’s visit enabled students, faculty, and staff and other members of the Rutgers community, and beyond, to interact with and learn from a leading scholar on South Africa’s complex transition to democratic rule. In addition to delivering a public lecture on educational transformation in South Africa, Dr. Lemon engaged with students in a number of smaller forums. The program also highlighted current efforts of the Graduate School of Education’s South Africa Initiative in assisting South African society in addressing the legacy of unequal education.

 

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NAACP President Ben Jealous speaks at Rutgers

The Africana Studies 40th Anniversary Celebration kicked off with a lecture and panel discussion featuring Mr. Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The event was a celebration of two milestones: In addition to marking the 40th anniversary of the Africana Studies Department at Rutgers (New Brunswick), 2009 also marked the 100 anniversary of the formation of the NAACP. The NAACP was a pivotal civil rights organization that waged a heroic campaign to chip away at the walls of segregation during the first half of the 20th century.  One of its most important victories was the overturning of the infamous Plessy v Ferguson decision in the historic Brown v Board of Education decision, which found the doctrine of “separate but equal” upheld by Plessy v Ferguson inherently unequal. In fact, Brown v Board of Education was the culmination of a series of legal battles waged by the NAACP which then created opportunities for the Modern Civil Rights Movement to advance the struggle and achieve tangible results. It was the momentum of these movements that resulted in the institutionalization of Africana/Black Studies departments throughout the country since the late 1960s.

Dr. Gayle T. Tate, Chairperson of the Department of Africana Studies, welcomed the participants and guests to the program, and discussed the significance of the 40th Anniversary of the Africana Studies Department at Rutgers. She then introduced Rutgers President Richard McCormick, who stressed the importance of the dual milestones being commemorated that evening. President McCormick introduced Reverend Bill Howard, Chairperson of the Rutgers University Board of Governors and long-time civil rights activist, to speak about the NAACP and introduce the evening’s speaker, Mr. Benjamin Todd Jealous.

Mr. Jealous was 35 five years old when he took over the leadership of the NAACP in 2008, becoming the organization’s youngest president. He has focused his energies on inspiring young people and getting them more involved in the organization. After highlighting some significant recent achievements of the NAACP, Mr. Jealous proceeded into his lecture, “Civil Rights in the Age of Obama,” in which he observed that the struggle for social justice is far from over, even with Barack Obama in office as the nation’s first Black president. The lecture was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Edward Ramsamy, Vice-Chairperson of the Department of Africana Studies. Dr. Ramsamy summarized the historical importance of the NAACP to national and international struggles for democracy and invited each of the panelists to comment on the lecture given by Mr. Jealous. The panelists were Mr. James E. Harris (President of the New Jersey Conference of the NAACP), Ms. Sharon Robinson-Briggs (Mayor of Plainfield), Mr. Theodore Carrington (Chairperson of the Environmental Justice Committee of New Jersey Chapter of the NAACP) and Ms. Nkechinyere Ugoji (a graduate of Africana Studies and Program Coordinator of TRIO Student Support Services at Rutgers). The panelists connected Mr. Jealous observations to specific civil rights challenges in New Jersey and commented on the implications for democratic struggles in the future.

The multipurpose room at the Student Center on College Avenue was filled to capacity, with overflow into other parts of the building. The enthusiastic audience, comprised of the Rutgers community as well as the wider public, had numerous questions for the speakers and discussions went on long after Mr. Jealous and the panelists left for the evening.

 

Professor Cornel West speaks on Race in the Age of Obama

Dr. Cornel West, Class of 1943 University Professor at the Center for African American Studies of Princeton University, visited Rutgers-New Brunswick on February 24th 2010 as part of the Africana Studies Department's 40th Anniversary Celebration. One of America’s most important and provocative public intellectuals, Dr. West is the author of over 15 books including Prophesy Deliverance (1982) and The American Evasion of Philosophy (1989). His bestselling and influential Race Matters (1993) offers a searing analysis of racism in American democracy. In addition to these important intellectual contributions, Professor West performs other roles in the public realm. He has released three hip-hop CDs, appears regularly on television, plays a council elder in two Matrix Movies. Describing himself as a “bluesman in the life of the mind” Professor delivers over 200 lectures a year to various audiences ranging from universities to prisons, and works with numerous political and social organizations. His writings, speeches, and teaching offer a unique blend of the quintessentially African-American traditions of the Black Baptist Church, progressive politics, and jazz music. The result is an all-embracing democratic ethos for our troubled times and a powerful call to action.

Professor West delivered a provocative lecture on "Race and Democracy in the Age of Obama" to a standing room-only audience at the Rutgers Student Center. While celebrating the importance of Obama’s victory as the nation’s first Black president, Dr. West questioned the claim that we are living in a “post-racial” era. He discussed the challenges facing the Black community in the contemporary period and encouraged students to adopt a critical attitude toward the political and economic status quo.

 

The Center for Race and Ethnicity’s African Diaspora conference

A one-day conference titled “Emerging Directions in African and African-American Diaspora Studies” was organized by the Center for Race and Ethnicity, the Africana Studies Department, and other units at Rutgers as part of the 40th Anniversary celebration of the establishment of the Africana Studies Department at Rutgers. The conference brought together scholars from a variety of disciplines to reflect on the achievements of Africana Studies in creating new spaces of intellectual inquiry, as well as deliberating on the future of the field.

 

  1. Africana Studies 40th Anniversary Celebration