Africana Studies

It was August 28, 1963, when civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic I Have a Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in our nation’s capital. It was delivered in front of some 250,000 people at the "March on...

As the state’s flagship university, The University of New Mexico takes pride in being a “community of unique perspectives embracing divergence, letting the very things that divide us become the things that connect us to each other. What makes us...

From the moment the first African slaves were brought to the shores of Virginia and sold to the colonists there in 1619, the battle for education for African-Americans has been hard-fought and often cruel. As the groundbreaking New York Times 1619 series...

In detail, Myra Washington can explain the very moment media literacy seized her attention and never let go; it was during her years studying communication as an undergraduate, at Vanderbilt University where she vowed to never again consume media the...

Our country is currently experiencing a monsoon of fear, raining down in torrents day in and day out. Sometimes it looks like a pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Other times it looks like police aggressively restraining one man...

Charles Becknell Sr. and his son Charles Becknell Jr. carry not only the same names, but the same position as directors of the Black Studies program at The University of New Mexico. Although their terms as director are about 50 years apart, both have wrestled with similar social upheaval and outrage over racism....

To understand the power of a movement that began in 2013, we have to jump back nearly 400 years and grasp onto perhaps the same struggle the Black community fought then; the idea that all people should be treated fairly in the eyes of the law and in...

A wise man once said “if you don’t learn from the past (history) you are condemned to repeat it” to paraphrase the quote slightly. As UNM’s Communications and Marketing Department (UCAM) undertakes an effort to help educate the campus community involving...

In the wake of recent killings of Black citizens by police, protests have gripped the nation. In response to the current swelling of Black Lives Matter sentiment, the University of New Mexico African American Student Services is hosting a new series on...

At the University of New Mexico, the Census is very important, and the Welstand Foundation host the Census Data and the Black Experience event on June 4 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Census Data and the Black Experience will feature Director of Africana Studies...