The Department of 泛非洲研究 (PAS) is part of a field/discipline of “Black Studies,” which includes academic programs that examine the history, 文化, 政治, 经济学, and worldviews of people of African descent. 部门 and programs include: Black Studies, 非洲研究, African American Studies, African Diaspora Studies, Africology, as well as 泛非洲研究. The Pan-African approach to the discipline recognizes that although the Black American experience remains central to an understanding of Black people in the United States, teaching and research on the African continent and the African Diaspora must include the study of Black people from every continent, 语言组织, 信仰传统, and especially continental Africans and Africans in the Americas. 同时, PAS is central to the broader academic movement of Ethnic Studies, which includes Asian American Studies, 女奇卡诺人/ o研究, 拉丁/ o研究, and Native American Studies.
泛非洲研究 at 加州大学洛杉矶分校 is the second oldest Black Studies department in the nation, founded out of the 学生 struggles of the late 1960s. PAS was initially established as a program in 1967 and won departmental status in 1969, concurrently to the founding of the oldest Department of Chicano Studies in the nation, also at 加州大学洛杉矶分校. 像这样, the history of the Department 在很多方面 overlaps with the history of the discipline (Zulu 2006, 103页).
Black Studies, as a field, finds its roots in a community, rather than an academic effort. In 1966, the Black liberation movement firmly transitioned from the Civil Rights era to the Black Power era, with Stokely Carmichael delivering his classic “Black Power” speech on October 29, 1966 at UC Berkeley. While not fully articulated in Carmichael’s address, Black educational self-determination laid a foundation for Black Studies. 学生 and community organizing, especially in the Bay Area, 包括社区, 政治, 经济, 社会, and educational goals informed by a Black Power consciousness. The first Black Studies department and first and only College of Ethnic Studies was founded at San Francisco State in 1968 only after a 5-month long student and community strike, the longest student strike in university history, initiated by the Black 学生 Union and organized 在某种程度上nership with the Third World 学生 Alliance and the Black Panther Party (T’Shaka 2012, 19到24页). 类似的, the founding of 泛非洲研究 at 加州大学洛杉矶分校 was a response to student and community efforts with the Black 学生 Union and Black Power groups at the center. This history is distinct from that of academic units that are initiated by the university, rather than demanded from it.
That 泛非洲研究 was founded out of student and community struggle is key in its positioning as an intellectual effort rather than an academic one. This rejection of an academic positioning is a resistance to “institutional structures that are designed to contain ideas, 压制的想象力, and indoctrinate the mind,(胡克斯，2003), 186页). For Black Studies as a field, this has meant that the pedagogical and epistemological approaches must find their home in and be contributory to the larger community, support justice efforts, and understand 学生 as whole and complete people, whose temporary student status is transitory .
Since departmentalizing in 1969, PAS has experienced both growth and setbacks in its development. As a result of the 政治, 文化, and 社会 gains of Civil Rights and Black Power movement, the Department grew rapidly in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By 1974, there were over 9 full time 教师 members teaching in PAS. A slow decline in 教师 and student size occurred from the 1980s through the early 2000s. The size of the major began to increase in 2002, but was not supported by growth in tenure track 教师 until 2009 when the Black 教师 Caucus pushed for the hiring of a third tenure-track 教师 member. Support in terms of 教师 hiring diminished following the 2009 hire, with the low occurring in 2013 when only one tenure-line 教师 member was on duty. 学生, 教师 and community efforts, along with a shift in institutional positioning has resulted in the steady increase of 教师 size and course offerings since 2013. Over a four year period, the Department has grown to 4.5 tenure-line 教师, exactly half the number of its peak in 1974.
这些变化, 在很多方面, parallel the shifts in power held by the larger Black community and illustrate the continued legacy of Black community struggle. In addition to playing a vital role in the establishment of Black Studies departments and being enmeshed in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, the Department of 泛非洲研究 has also been central to many more contemporary struggles that include and expand beyond the university, 包括:
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黑人的命很重要 -- Considered the most important 社会 justice movement of the contemporary era, 黑人的命很重要 was founded, 在某种程度上, by 学生 and 教师 from 泛非洲研究 at 加州大学洛杉矶分校. Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the self-appointed community watchman who murdered 17 year-old Trayvon Martin, dozens of PAS 教师, 学生, and alumni were among the thousands of people who intuitively organized for justice in the days that followed and convened at the call of 黑人的命很重要 co-founder Patrisse Cullors to form the first 黑人的命很重要 chapter in the nation and intentionally organize for an end to state-sanctioned violence against Black people. 许多学生, 教师 and alumni continue their work as a part of 黑人的命很重要 and the larger Movement for Black Lives.
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The renewed struggle for Ethnic Studies -- In 2014, during semester conversion, when the entire university curriculum was being revised, PAS 教师 and 学生 lifted a demand for an Ethnic Studies requirement. They rationalized that 文化-competency was a necessary tool for all 学生 and especially needed on campus that is more than 90% 学生 of color. An intense debate ensued and 学生, 教师 and community organized several actions, including mass mobilizations to the Academic Senate, 校园抗议, and calls for support from elected officials, including the Los Angeles City Council, where the Council unanimously endorsed the demand. In the end, a modified “race and ethnicity” requirement was won. The 加州大学洛杉矶分校 struggle laid a foundation for larger K-12 and university demands, including the demand for Ethnic Studies in LAUSD. Many of the same 学生, 教师, and community members joined with LAUSD 学生, 老师, 父母, and stakeholders to win the historic victory that made Ethnic Studies a requirement in the second largest school district in the nation in 2015. 另外, a Task Force on the Advancement of Ethnic Studies in the California State University system was formed in response to the attempt to limit the autonomy of the Black Studies department at Cal State Long Beach. PAS at 加州大学洛杉矶分校 mobilized and supported the call for retained departmental status at Long Beach, the subsequent moratorium on elimination or down-sizing of any ethnic studies unit in the CSU, and served on the CSU system-wide task force, with recommendations currently being reviewed and implemented at all 23 campuses.
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The new Black 学生 Movement -- In 2015, Black 学生 all over the nation, beginning at University of Missouri, organized and issued sets of demands to advance the standing of Black 学生. 加州大学洛杉矶分校’s Black 学生 Union was key among the campuses that organized. The demands issued are posted on 来自.org and include the expansion of 泛非洲研究 and a demand for PAS to receive support in playing a vital role in Black student recruitment and retention. 其中一个要求是, for the establishment of a PAS-focused living-learning community, has resulted in the establishment of the “Halisi House” named in honor of the late department chair, Dr. C.R.D. Halisi. 第二个, for the creation of an MA program is in the pipeline and scheduled to be the first Pan-African/Black Studies graduate program in the California State University system, launching in Fall 2019, in time for the 50th anniversary of the Department.
总而言之, 泛非洲研究 at 加州大学洛杉矶分校 is firmly rooted in the history of Black Power and Black liberation struggle and continues in an intellectual tradition that ties curricular and campus-based efforts to broader justice struggles.