News

Congratulations to Dr. J.T. Roane and Dr. Teona Williams of the Black Ecologies Lab! Dr. Roane and Dr. Williams' Black Ecologies Lab received an honorable mention from the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes for the 2025 Public Humanities Network Award for Leadership in Practice and Community. The award recognizes and celebrates public humanities work engaged with communities.  For more about the award, Public Humanities Award Recipients 2025 For more about the project, Black...

Join us for our Continuing Paul Robeson's Legacy lecture featuring Michael Bennet on April 1st! Michael Bennett is a former NFL player, activist, author, and designer. He played defensive end for the Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles, and New England Patriots. He won the Super Bowl with the Seahawks in 2014, 2014. He has been an outspoken activist on racial and social justice- on the frontline of the BLM movements and Black-Palestinian solidarity. In 2018,...

Read Professor Noura Erakat's recent essay, "The Boomerang Comes Back", published in the Boston Review.  Learn more about Professor Erakat and her publications here: Erakat, Noura. 

Black Feminist Creativity Week Schedule of Events: Pivot Fellow Keynote—Tuesday, March 11 (4:30-6:30pm ET) | Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building You are cordially invited to a public conversation with RAGE Lab Pivot Fellow Rev. Charisse Tucker & Rage Lab Founder Dr. Brittney Cooper. A Black Feminist/Womanist Writers Workshop—Wednesday, March 12 (1:00-4:00pm ET) | Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building Rutgers affiliates and members of the greater community are encouraged to participate in a...

Congratulations to Professor Kim Butler Professor Butler received an NEH research grant for her project "Black Power in Brazil: The Blocos Afros of Salvador, Bahia." The NEH fellowship grant will support Professor Butler in research and writing her book. The book explores the Black power struggle in 1890s and 1980s Brazil and the Blocos Afros movement. 

Congratulations to Professor Alex Zamalin  Beacon Press just released Professor Zamalin's book Counterculture: The Story of America from Bohemia to Hip Hop, which explores the political history of American movements outside of mainstream culture.  Learn more about Professor Zamlin and his new book:- The Excerpt- Under the Tree: A Seminar on Freedom with Bill Ayers- Literary Hub

Learn about the Black Ecologies Summer Insitute, a program headed by Professor J.T. Roane and Professor Teona Williams.   For more info about the project: Black Ecologies

Congratualations to Professor Erakat Professor Noura Erakat was awarded the 2025 Amnesty International Chair for her scholarship and advocacy of human rights. For more about the award:  Amnesty International

Through the artistic work and life of Cardi B, Professor Rosado, and her co-authors engage with the topics of political engagement, racial and ethnic identity, and Black and Latinx femininity. Professor Rosao's book is essential reading for anyone interested in the intersection of Hip Hop, pop culture and women's studies. Learn more about the book here: Routledge

The Presumption of Guilt: Race, Class, and Crime in America – a documentary,5pm, Wednesday March 6, 2013,Lucy Stone Hall, Room A143, Livingston Campus

Professor Leonard Bethel was featured in The Intelligencer, a local Pennsylvania newspaper, for his efforts to ensure that the life and legacy of Layle Lane, a Black trade unionist and educator, is not forgotten. Click here to read article.

Caribbean Philosophical Association Conference, Rutgers University, Sept 29 – Oct 1, 2011

Civil Rights Activist Larry Hammto Speak at Rutgers, October 29, 2012, 5pm.

African-American musical traditions and expression have influenced music around the world. The Africana Studies Department, together with the New Brunswick Islamic Center and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, sponsored a film screening and panel discussion on the influence of rap music on contemporary musical expression in the African-American Muslim community. The program featured the screening of a documentary film, "DeenTight," which explored how Muslim hip hop artists living in the...

A filled-to-capacity crowd watched the New Jersey premiere of Mr. Alrick Brown’s award winning film Kinyarwanda at the Rutgers Student Center on March 28, 2011. Kinyarwanda won the World Cinema Audience Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Mr. Brown, a lecturer in the Africana Studies Department, wrote and directed the film, which tells the extraordinary story of courageous Rwandans who defied ethnic and religious divisions to save others during the genocide of 1994, which had claimed...

The Africana Studies 40th Anniversary Gala was held on Saturday, March 22 to commemorate 40 years of Africana Studies at Rutgers University. The 40th Anniversary also served as the perfect occasion to honor Dr. Leonard Bethel, one of the founding faculty members of the department, upon his retirement from Rutgers University. Dr. Gayle T. Tate and Dr. Edward Ramsamy presided over the celebration. In her introduction, Dr. Tate remarked on how impossible it is to talk about the Department without...

Matthew Bishop, American Business Editor of The Economist and author of the book Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World, examined the role of philanthropy in the contemporary period.

In spring 2009, Dr. Gerald Horne who holds the Moores Professorship in History and African-American Studies at the University of Houston in Texas, delivered a lecture at the Africana Studies department of Rutgers University.  In this talk, Professor Horne reflected on historical forces in Kenya and Hawaii as a background story for the election of the first African-American President, Barack Obama. Gerald Horne's many books include Fire This Time: The WattsUprising and the 1960s,(a finalist for the...