Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Boston College’s Black Studies Program hosted a series of conferences on the history and lived realities of people of African descent in Boston—conferences of such high pro-file that they attracted prominent figures to deliver keynote addresses, including historians Lerone Bennett Jr. and John Hope Franklin, civil rights activist and politician Eleanor Holmes Norton, and journalist and narrative non-fiction writer Alex Haley. Last held in 2000, the confer-ence will return to the Heights in April 2016. Held in April 1983, the first conference, “Blacks in Metropolitan Boston,” was organized by the late Amanda V. Houston, the Black Stud-ies Program’s first director, and a twenty-eight person planning commit-tee. Nearly ten years removed from the conflicts over busing and con-cerned that the “vision of multicultural education for all students that was a legacy of the 1960s” was disappearing from Boston schools, Hous-ton and her colleagues set out to celebrate the history of communities of African descent in Boston, Cambridge, Medford, and Newton. But unlike most academic conferences, the conveners wanted “Blacks in Metropol-itan Boston” to have a significant public scholarship dimension. One of their intended audiences was secondary school teachers. They wanted to recuperate local black history that local black educators could integrate into their curriculum. But the public scholarship dimension went beyond this. The conveners also reached out to black churches and social welfare orga-nizations. They envisioned the conference providing a practical ser-vice—teaching skills so that attendees could collect, preserve, and write the histories of their own families, institutions, and neighborhoods. The public history aspect of the conference was additionally represented by the cosponsorship of the Museum of Afro-American History—which also curated an exhibit on blacks in nineteenth-century Boston that was displayed on campus—and its cohosting by Charles Street AME Church in Roxbury, which was celebrating its 150th anniversary.

voices of the diasporaBoston College’s African and African Diaspora Studies Program

news, events, and resources pertaining to african and african diaspora studies at boston college

at a glance

After Sixteen Year Hiatus, Blacks in Boston Conference Returnsby Martin Summers

In many ways, this past year has been one of new beginnings. I became the director of the program in the summer of 2014, taking over after four years of excellent leadership by Professor Rhonda Frederick. I am thankful for the commitment that she and Professor Cynthia Young have made over the past ten years to create and maintain such a robust and relevant minor and an intellectually vibrant community of scholars and students. Another important change for the program is that we have been joined by Professor Anjali Vats, who holds a joint position with the Department of Communication, and who, through her research focus on the rhetoric of race in law and popular culture, adds an important dimension to the program’s curriculum.

Message from the Director

voices of the diaspora | fall 2015

by AADS Staff

◊◊ Reflections◊on◊My◊Time◊as◊an◊AADS◊Minor

◊◊ AVH◊Fellows◊Travel◊to◊Ghana◊and◊Haiti

◊◊ AADS◊Minors◊Finalist◊and◊Recipient◊of◊Oscar◊A.◊Romero◊Scholarship

◊◊ 2015-2016◊New◊Directions◊in◊African◊Diaspora◊Studies◊Lecture◊Series

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Named in honor of the first director of the university’s Black Studies Program, the purpose of the Amanda V. Houston Traveling Fellowship (AVH) is to prepare Boston College students for leadership in the United States and the world by enriching their personal and educational development through travel. Consistent with the namesake’s lifelong role as an educator, community leader, and mentor, the fellowship underwrites travel and research opportunities for undergraduate students. Thanks to

the financial support of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Committee, as of 2011, AADS now awards two traveling fellowships each year. Each fellowship provides up to $3000 toward domestic or international travel, including transportation, lodging, meals and research-related expenses. The successful recipients can use the award for either an independent research project under the supervision of a faculty member or a research paper attached to an approved course in a BC-recognized study abroad program. The 2015 AVH Selection Committee received many impressive research proposals that addressed important topics in the areas of public health, social justice, and racial identity. AVH applicants proposed to conduct research on colorectal cancer, explore race & ethnicity in

Dominican literature, and study the portrayal of race in French hip-hop. This year’s recipients are two outstanding undergraduate students, Sophia Marseille and Sonia Chiamaka Okorie. Sophia Marseille (Class of 2016), a political science major and AADS minor, traveled to Port-au-Prince, Haiti to conduct research for a project entitled, “The Effects of Political and Cultural Ideology on Reporting of Sexual Violence against Women in Haitian Refugee Camps.” Sonia Chiamaka Okorie (Class of 2017), a nursing student, traveled to Humjibre, Ghana, where she pursued research on a project entitled, “Perceived Susceptibility to Malaria: An Evaluation of Bed Net Usage of Ghanaian Mothers and Children under Five.” Okorie will share her research at the International Conference on Child Rights & Sight at Yale University in October. With the generous support of the MLK Jr. Memorial Committee, AADS was able to partially fund the travel of a third finalist, John Gabelus, a theology major and AADS Minor, who is working on a comparative study of alternative healing practices in Haitian communities in Boston and Montreal, Canada. This is the twentieth year that AADS has awarded AVH fellowships and we look forward to continuing to be able to support the research endeavors of exceptional undergraduates. Our recipients continue to join the ranks of BC scholars who have traveled the world and added to the body of knowledge that our university produces.

AVH Fellows Travel to Ghana and Haiti

Reflections on My Time as an AADS Minor

When I arrived in Chestnut Hill from North Carolina in the fall of 2011, I knew nothing of the African and African Diaspora Studies Program. I declared myself a sociology major, then switched to history in the spring of my freshman year. In the fall of my sophomore year, two classes - African American Writers with Cynthia Young and Gender and Sexuality in African American History with Martin Summers - prompted me to declare a minor in AADS. That decision in October of 2012 was, undoubtedly, the most important decision I made at BC. I was attracted to the interdisciplinary nature of AADS, and relished the ability to move beyond my major into other departments. I loved how my classes interconnected in ways that began to capture the complexity of the diaspora. As I studied the photography of James Van Der Zee in concert with the history of the Harlem Renaissance, or the works of Toni Morrison alongside the history of American slavery and the sociological framework of intersectionality, my education felt truly integrated and well-rounded for the first time in my life. I loved how AADS shifted and expanded the conventional canon, centering the marginal in transformative ways that forever reoriented my approach to the history and culture of the world in which we live. In my freshman year Western Cultural Tradition class, I studied the works of thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Thomas Aquinas, and the apostle Paul and often found them irrelevant to contemporary society. In my AADS classes, on the other hand, I eagerly studied the works of thinkers such as Frederick Douglass, bell hooks, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Angela Davis, Julius Nyerere, Frantz Fanon, and Chimamanda Adichie and was exposed to a body of thought often repressed at universities like Boston College. My AADS classes and professors have been my favorite at BC, but more significantly, they’ve been the most important. They’ve asked the questions that went overlooked in other courses, initiated discussions that extended far beyond the classroom, provided me with intelligent and inspiring classmates, and forced me to consider my position within society and within the world at large more than any other class. I am eternally thankful to the AADS program for working to correct the curricular imbalances at BC, for making a space for the subaltern, and for broadening my perspective in each and every class session. When I reflect on my years at Boston College, it becomes apparent that AADS has, in many ways, been the driving force behind my most significant undergraduate experiences. My AADS classes and professors prompted me to travel to Tanzania in the summer after my sophomore year, to spend my junior year studying African history and literature at the University of Oxford, to intern at the Museum of the African Diaspora, and to write a senior thesis about the Civil Rights Movement. The AADS Program at BC has helped me grow enormously as both a student and a human being. I feel well equipped to enter “adulthood” as an informed, educated, and active citizen not because I have spent the past four years at Boston College, but more specifically because I am graduating as an African and African Diaspora Studies minor. AADS has profoundly altered the way I view the world, helping me develop a keen eye for injustice, an awareness of intersectionality, a historicized perspective, and a deep appreciation for the art and literature that lies outside of the hegemonic canon. In our senior seminar with Professor Jean-Charles this semester, we’ve often discussed the concept of “home” within the context of the African diaspora. Looking back as a senior, I realize that AADS has

By Grace West

By Richard Paul

become my home at Boston College. It is the locus around which my experiences have revolved, and more than any other component of my BC experience, it has molded me into the person standing before you. To the entire African and African Diaspora Studies Program, including the faculty members, staff, and students, I offer my unending gratitude. Thank you for giving me a place to grow academically, for irrevocably expanding and altering my perspective, and for making me more human.Grace West, class of ’15, was a Presidential Scholar, graduated summa cum laude, and received numerous honors, including the McCarthy Prize for best Scholars of the College honors thesis, and the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Brendan Connolly, SJ Award.

From left to right: Sophia Marseille, Tina Nadeene Anilus, Executive Coordinator of REFKAD “Rezo Fanm Kapab Dayiti”, Sandra Jean Jaques, Statistician for UNFPA Haiti

Sonia Chiamaka Okorie

The AADS Program at BC has helped me grow enormously as both a student and a human being. I feel well equipped to enter ‘adult-hood’ as an informed, educated, and active citizen.

“”

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And finally, a new beginning of sorts, is the promotion of Professor Régine Jean-Charles to associate professor with tenure. As anyone who has taken a class with her can attest, Professor Jean-Charles’s rigorous and nurturing approach in the classroom is one of the things that makes AADS such an awesome program to be associated with. The administration’s recognition of the quality of her scholarship, the excellence of her teaching, and the ardor of her service is one of the best things that has occurred in the program this past year. But 2014–2015 was a challenging year as well. There have been events that bear directly on communities of people of African descent that have unfolded beyond our campus and which have surely made us all recognize our own privilege, place what we are doing here at Boston College within a larger perspective, and think about how what we learn and teach in the classroom might contribute to the larger struggle against racial, economic, gender, sexual, and political injustice more broadly. The beginning of the school year was dominated by media coverage of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. We were not only confronted with the horrific scenes of illness and death in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. We were also reminded of the structural inequality that exists in the global South, the ways in which the ineffective Western response to the outbreak was an artifact of European imperialism, and the ease with which Americans are ready to racialize and dehumanize the victims of disease, those who are in most need of compassionate care. The Ebola crisis was soon eclipsed by the non-indictments of the police officers involved in the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and the popular mobilizations that resulted—on this campus and around the nation. In a year during which we should have been celebrating the fiftieth anniversaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we were consistently confronted with the persistence of institutionalized racism—in the deaths of Tamir Rice, Natasha McKenna, Freddie Gray, and countless others at the hands of the state—and white nationalist terrorism—in the massacre at Charleston’s Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and the apparent growth in the popularity and reach of white supremacist organizations. As I write this in July 2015, other parts of the diaspora are in crisis—from the rise of Islamist extremism in Nigeria to the racist- and nativist-motivated imminent deportations of people of Haitian descent from the Dominican Republic. Engaging Boston College students around these issues in our courses and in our programming is the raison d’etre of AADS. Through a variety of courses this upcoming year—“Reading Race at the Millennium” (Vats); “Haiti and the Dominican Republic” (Jean-Charles); “Understanding the Social Context of Violence” (C. Shawn McGuffey); “History of Medicine and Public Health in the African Diaspora” (Summers); “Genres of Black Women’s Writing” (Frederick); “New Orleans: Justice in the City” (Copeland)—AADS faculty will continue to encourage students to critically reflect upon some of the knotty social, political, and cultural problems and remarkable resiliencies that have shaped the formation and evolution of the African diaspora. In our New Directions in African Diaspora Studies Lecture series—the theme of which is “Geographies of the African Diaspora”—we will also strive to activate students’ intellectual thirst, imagination, and sense of ethical engagement. On behalf of the entire AADS faculty and office, I invite you to help us make 2015–2016 a positive and enriching year for our program, our university, and the African diasporic communities that extend beyond our campus.

Message from the Director, continued from Page 1

AADS Minors Finalist and Recipient of Oscar A. Romero Scholarship movements and how people fought for and advocated for social justice. They helped me form my own way of providing rights for others.” For both men, the minor shed new light on their global and local community service. The AADS minor will figure prominently in both Ricardo and Giancarlo’s post-graduation lives. Giancarlo is interested in public finance, law or economic development. He also hopes to be a voice for those who have been consistently marginalized by current and past institutions and policies. Ricardo plans to pursue public sector law, specializing in social justice and civil rights. He emphasized the current relevance of such a career: “With everything at the forefront of the nation’s mind, now’s a great time. I can make changes to the system.”

Giancarlo Sanchez and Ricardo Alberto

By Anne Donnelly and Julia MacMahon The African and African Diaspora Studies Program

is pleased to congratulate AADS minors Ricardo Alberto and Giancarlo Sanchez for their recognition by the 2015 Archbishop Oscar A. Romero Scholarship Committee. Among a field of superbly qualified candidates, both students made it to the final round of consideration, with Ricardo ultimately being awarded the top honor.

The Romero Scholarship recognizes a Boston College junior who has shown an exceptional dedication to academic achievement, extracurricular leadership, and service to the Hispanic/Latino community both on and off campus. Oscar Romero, the man who inspired the award, was Archbishop of El Salvador in the 1970s and was the personification of Christian charity and love. He was known for preaching and working for

justice for all of the poor and oppressed of the country and continued to advocate passionately, despite facing frequent threats from those opposed to his ideas. He was assassinated by a death squad while celebrating the Eucharist in 1980. Ricardo became interested in social justice during his freshman year, with his participation in the popular Jamaican Magis trip, where he and other Boston College students worked with school children, serving as teaching assistants. The trip was the first real spark for him. “I saw God in the children I was working with in Jamaica… our interactions were inspiring to me,” he recalled. Giancarlo also started early, embarking on the Dominican Republic Learning and Immersion Program in his first year. His group donated school supplies, clothes, and toiletries and visited the school they sponsored. He said it was an eye opening experience for him and his peers: “I saw many injustices in a lens that over there is very magnified… people don’t have equal access to water or education just because they’re a shade darker or because they come from a lower economic background.” During their sophomore year, both Giancarlo and Ricardo continued their community service and joined the Mississippi Delta trip, a program similar to Jamaican Magis, where they assisted teachers in struggling schools. Their engagement in community service also began to manifest itself more locally. Giancarlo got involved in the Dominican Students Association (DSA), often collaborating with the Haitian Students Association (HSA) on campus to foster discussion around the issues he was exposed to on his service trip. Ricardo joined the PULSE program, volunteering twelve hours a week for Jumpstart, an early education program for low-income students. In the fall of his junior year, Ricardo studied abroad, spending the semester in Buenos Aires, where he continued to become more aware of social injustices. He learned about the shantytowns existing on the fringes of the city, where the marginalized and impoverished of Buenos Aires lived. Giancarlo took a leadership position in the DSA, working with the HSA to bring in speakers. He also did an internship with DREAM, a non-profit organization that teaches high school students how to be financially literate. Both Ricardo and Giancarlo feel that the AADS minor informed their intellectual growth and commitment to social justice. Ricardo cited Juan Concepcion’s class, “Studies in Race, Law, and Resistance,” as the major reason he decided to pursue the minor. Giancarlo loved his class with Professor Jean-Charles, which explored Dominican and Haitian culture and relations through literature. Giancarlo reflected on his AADS classes, saying, “They gave me insight. They helped me learn about these social

With everything at the forefront of the nation’s mind, now’s a great time. I can make changes to the system.

“”

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This year’s New Directions lecture series’ theme is “Geographies of the African Diaspora.” We will be joined by five dynamic scholars whose work engages questions of space, place, and community in the African diaspora. The inaugural lecture by Professor Lynnell Thomas, chair of American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, will reflect on the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation it wrought on a place that is so closely associated with the heterogeneity and vitality of African diasporic culture.Thursday, September 24th, 7-8:30Professor Lynnell Thomas, Department of American Studies, University of Massachusetts at Boston“Race, Place, and Tourist Space: New Orleans Ten Years after Katrina”Devlin 101

Wednesday, October 14th , 4:30-6:00Professor Myriam J. A. Chancy, Department of Africana Studies, Scripps College“Dis(Af)Filiation: Spectatorship and Cultural Transmission Across the African Diaspora”McGuinn 121

Thursday, November 12th, 4:30-6:00Olive Senior, Writer“‘Like Soldiers Going to War’: The West Indian Builders of the Panama Canal”McGuinn 121

Thursday, February 25th, 4:30-6:00Professor Joshua Guild, Department of History, Princeton University“‘This Could Be You:’ Confronting the Specter of Racial Violence in Postwar New York and London”Devlin 101

Friday, April 1st, 4:30-6:00Professor Regine Jackson, Department of Sociology, Agnes Scott College“Boston Haitians: Between Symbolic Inclusion and Enduring Inequalities”Devlin 101

For more information, visit http://www.bc.edu/schools/cas/aads/events/newdirections.html

2015-2016 New Directions in African Diaspora Studies Lecture Series

The success of “Blacks in Metropolitan Boston” led to several follow-up conferences—“The History of Blacks in Boston” (1984), “Black History is a Family Affair” (1985), “The Struggle for Equal Education” (1987), “Law and Politics” (1989), and “The Caribbean Heritage” (1996). The last Blacks in Boston confer-ence was held in 2000. In collaboration with the Irish Studies Program, the Black Studies Program, under the direction of Professor Frank Taylor and Sandra Sandiford, organized “Black and Green: Encounters Between African Americans and Irish Americans in Boston.” In 2014, Professor Rhonda Frederick, director of the African and African Diaspora Studies Pro-gram, decided to revive the conference. In the midst of the raging debates over immigration, Frederick wanted the conference to explore “what black immigrants and immigration bring to this conversation.” The conference theme, “Black . . . and Immigrant,” is aimed at soliciting presentations on African, Af-ro-Caribbean, and Afro-Latino immigrant communities in Boston, the state of Massachusetts, and New England as a whole. The theme not only reflects the contemporary import of this issue, but also provides an opportunity to reflect on the fifty years that have transpired since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Some of the sub-themes that will be explored include: definitions of “black” in sending and receiving countries; citizenship and belonging for black Americans; and immigration as a black civil rights issue. Similar to its predecessors, “Black . . . and Immigrant” will host both academics and local activists and social service providers who work with immigrant communities in the Bos-ton area. According to Frederick, the conference “will once again assert the vital connection between intellectual and activist organizing across disciplines.” The keynote speaker for this year’s conference is Violet Showers Johnson, an alumna of Boston College’s History PhD program, and professor of history and director of Africana Studies at Texas A&M University. Professor Showers Johnson is the recent author of African & American: West Africans in Post-Civil Rights America (NYU Press, 2014). The conference will be preceded by a New Directions in Af-rican Diaspora Studies lecture by Regine Jackson, associate professor of sociology at Agnes Scott College, and author of Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora (Routledge, 2011).

Professor Jackson’s lecture will be Friday, April 1st, at 4:30 in Devlin 101. “Black . . . and Immigrant” will take place from 8:30-5:00 on Saturday, April 2nd, in Gasson 100. For more information, visit: www.bc.edu/centers/ila/events/blacks-in-boston

After Sixteen Year Hiatus, continued from Page 1

faculty news◊◊ M.◊Shawn◊Copeland’s◊article◊“Revisiting◊Racism,”◊published◊in◊America: The National Catholic Review,◊received◊the◊

first◊place◊Catholic◊Press◊Award◊in◊the◊category◊of◊Best◊Essay◊Originating◊with◊a◊Magazine◊or◊Newsletter.

◊◊ Rhonda◊Frederick◊published◊an◊article,◊“Making◊Jamaican◊Love:◊Colin◊Channer’s◊Waiting in Vain◊and◊Romance-ified◊Diaspora◊Identities,”◊in◊Small Axe: A Journal of Caribbean Criticism.

◊◊ Régine◊Jean-Charles’s◊book,◊Conflict Bodies: The Politics of Rape Representation in the Francophone Imaginary,◊was◊pub-lished◊by◊Ohio◊State◊University◊Press.

◊◊ C.◊Shawn◊McGuffey◊participated◊in◊a◊high-profile◊conference◊in◊Tanzania◊devoted◊to◊policy◊discussions◊around◊the◊International◊Criminal◊Court’s◊role◊in◊protecting◊human◊rights◊in◊Africa.

◊◊ Martin◊Summers’s◊coedited◊book,◊Precarious Prescriptions: Contested Histories of Race and Health in North America,◊was◊published◊by◊the◊University◊of◊Minnesota◊Press.

◊◊ Anjali◊Vats◊published◊an◊article,◊“Cooking◊Up◊Hashtag◊Activism:◊#PaulasBestDishes◊and◊Counternarratives◊of◊South-ern◊Food,”◊in◊Commmunication and Critical/Cultural Studies.

◊◊ Cynthia◊Young◊coedited◊a◊forum,◊“Whiteness◊Redux◊or◊Redefined?,”◊in◊American Quarterly,◊the◊flagship◊journal◊of◊American◊Studies.

◊◊ Amber◊Murrey-Ndewa,◊the◊2014–2015◊AADS◊Dissertation◊Fellow,◊successfully◊defended◊her◊dissertation,◊“Lifescapes◊of◊a◊Pipedream:◊A◊Mixed◊Tape◊on◊Structural◊Violence,◊Resistance,◊and◊Struggle◊in◊Two◊Villages◊along◊the◊Chad-Camer-oon◊Oil◊Pipeline,”◊in◊the◊School◊of◊Geography◊and◊Environment◊at◊the◊University◊of◊Oxford.◊

Congratulations Class of 2015!

The Blacks in Boston conference ‘will once again assert the vital connection between intellectual and activist organizing across disciplines.’

“”

African◊and◊African◊Diaspora◊Studies◊301◊Lyons◊HallBoston◊College140◊Commonwealth◊AvenueChestnut◊Hill,◊MA◊02467

Dr.◊Martin◊Summers,◊DirectorPhone:◊(617)◊552-3814Email:◊martin.summers@bc.edu

Richard◊Paul,◊Assistant◊DirectorPhone:◊(617)◊552-3238Email:◊richard.paul@bc.edu

www.bc.edu/aads

@AADSatBC

/AfricanAfricanDiasporaStudiesProgram