Chronology

 

March, 1968
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., is invited to be the Class Day speaker and to discuss the questions of "Asian [Vietnam] conflict and urban crisis."

April 4, 1968
Assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr

April 9, 1968
A memorial service is held for Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memorial Church. Simultaneously, the Association of African and Afro-American Students, known as Afro, holds a memorial service outside on the church steps.

April 10, 1968
Afro publishes an advertisement in the Harvard Crimson calling for the university to:

• "Establish an endowed chair for a Black Professor.
• Establish courses relevant to Blacks at Harvard.
• Establish more lower level Black Faculty members.
• Admit a number of Black students proportionate to our percentage of the population as a whole."

April 14, 1968
Founding of the Ad Hoc Committee of Black Students. "Approximately fifty members of the Harvard black student community voted to establish a ten-member body to be the sole articulator of the demands of black students to the Administration on the issues of (1) black admissions, (2) black curriculum, and (3) black faculty" (Charles H. Curl, Jr.'s typescript, "The History of the Ad Hoc Committee (Spring '68).")

April 19, 1968
Ad Hoc Committee of Black Students modifies its demands and calls for (1) a chair in Black Studies instead of a chair specifically for a black professor; (2) the admittance of a greater number of qualified black students rather than a specific percentage; and (3) the establishment of an African-American Research Center.

April 29, 1968
The Admissions Department announces its intention to recruit and admit more black students to Harvard.

May 9, 1968
Dean Franklin L. Ford invites a group of nine faculty members to accept appointments on a select Faculty Committee on African and Afro-American Studies. The members of the committee are C. T. W. Curle, Daniel M. Fox, George W. Goethals, Alan Heimert, H. Stuart Hughes, Martin L. Kilson, Jr., the only African American committee member, Gary T. Marx, J. W. M. Whiting, and Henry Rosovsky, chairman. Two students nominated by the Ad Hoc Committee of Black Students are invited to join the committee as observers, Ernest J. Wilson III and Octavia Hudson. Dean Ford charges the committee with:
"(1)Clearer identification and better advertisement of courses on Africa and/or various aspects of the experience of black Americans, courses which are already in our catalogue; (2) the mounting of additional instruction in these subjects at Harvard; (3) the greater articulation of our offerings with those of other institutions in these subjects at Harvard; (4) movement toward a possible field of undergraduate concentration, necessarily cutting across disciplinary lines but held together by the centrality of concern for African and Afro-American subject matter" (Rosovsky Report).

May 16, 1968
The Committee on General Education's subcommittee on Social Sciences approves plans for a new middle-level course in Afro-American Studies, Social Sciences 5. Titled "The Afro-American Experience," the year-long course is to be taught in the fall by Frank B. Friedel and Daniel M. Fox.

May 20, 1968
Eleven black Harvard Law students confront Derek C. Bok, dean-designate of the Law School, and charge that black construction workers are not being hired in the building of a Harvard Law School dormitory.

Fall 1968
The Ad Hoc Committee of Black Students criticizes Social Sciences 5.

November 22, 1968
A statement released by the Ad Hoc Committee of Black Students calls for the creation of a Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard.

December 8-10, 1968
The Radcliffe Ad Hoc Committee of Black Students charges that the Radcliffe Policy Committee on Admissions has failed to respond to its demands for a reformed admissions policy. Following a sit-in by twenty-five Radcliffe students at Fay House, Mary L. Bunting flies back to Cambridge from a conference and announces several major changes in the college's admission policy, including (1) the admission of at least thirty black students to the incoming class; (2) the exension of the admission deadline, if necessary; (3) the hiring of a black admissions officer; (4) increased recruitment of black students.

December 12, 1968
A large group of students holds an anti-ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) sit-in at Paine Hall. As a consequence, nine are placed on probation and, in compliance with faculty rules, loose their financial aid.

January 20, 1969
Report of the Faculty Committee on African and Afro-American Studies ("Rosovsky Report") is issued. The report recommends: (1) the creation of a standing Faculty Committee on degrees in Afro-American Studies to develop and supervise a combined major in this field and to grant degrees starting with the class of 1972; (2) the establishment of a coordinating Committee on African Studies to oversee the increase of course offerings in African studies;(3) the building of a social and cultural center for black students; (4) the establishment of a Center for Afro-American Studies, which would "provide intellectual leadership, a physical locale and sufficient material resources for consideration of all asepcts of the Afro-American experience"; and (5) a major effort to increase black enrollment in the graduate school and to earmark fifteen to twenty fellowships per year for black graduate students.

February 4, 1969
The faculty votes to withdraw academic credit from ROTC.

February 6, 1969
A group of black students calls for the university to withdraw its course Planning 11-3b, titled "An End to Urban Violence." The group's statement charges that the course would "devise programs to further contain and suppress [black people]." The course is replaced with one on the development of an urban studies program.

February 11, 1969
The faculty accepts the recommendations of the Report of the Faculty Committee on African and Afro-American Studies.

February 19, 1969
Dean Franklin L. Ford appoints a search committee to identify candidates for faculty appointments in Afro-American studies. The committee includes three students selected by the Ad Hoc Committee of Black Students and three members of the faculty.

March 20, 1969
Members of the Harvard-Radcliffe chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organize about 150 students to protest the loss of financial aid by nine anti-ROTC demonstrators.

March 25, 1969
A group of students assembled by the SDS interrupts a closed meeting of the Student-Faculty Advisory Council to demand that ROTC be abolished immediately and that scholarships be restored to the nine demonstrators.

April 8, 1969
An SDS meeting of more than 400 people in Lowell Lecture Hall results in an agreement to present six demands to the University: (1) abolish ROTC immediately; (2) replace ROTC scholarships with equivalent Harvard scholarships; (3) restore financial aid to the Paine Hall Demonstrators; (4) return rents in university-owned buildings to the level of January 1, 1968; (5) block the destruction of University Road apartments to make way for the Kennedy School; (6) block the destruction of 182 black workers' homes in Roxbury to make way for Medical School expansion.

April 9-10, 1969
About seventy SDS members occupy University Hall on Wednesday, April 9, forcing all administrators off the premises. The number of demonstrators grows to more than 450 during the takeover. In the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, April 10, more than 400 police enter Harvard Yard and retake University Hall within half an hour. Of those taken into custody, 184 are arraigned on charges of criminal trespassing, of whom 145 are Harvard or Radcliffe students. Later in the day a standing-room-only crowd in Memorial Church votes for a three-day strike and puts forward five demands: (1) prevent any future police presence on campus; (2) disallow any criminal charges against the demonstrators, any administrative punishment stronger than probation, or any scholarship cuts; (3) restore financial aid to the Paine Hall demonstrators; (4) hold a binding referendum among students and faculty on the status of ROTC; (5) restructure the Corporation to include representatives of the entire university community. The group votes to ask President Nathan M. Pusey to resign if their demands are not met.

April 11, 1969
The Association of African and Afro-American Students votes to support the SDS demands and announces that the university has reneged on its promoise to design a "meaningful" program of black studies.

April 14, 1969
A group of approximately ten thousand people in Harvard Stadium votes to extend the strike for another three days.

April 15, 1969
African American students march on Dean Franklin L. Ford's office to reiterate their demands for student roles in setting up curricula for black studies and hiring tenured faculty.

April 18, 1969
Another large crowd in Harvard Stadium votes to suspend the strike after the Corporation announces its acceptance of a faculty vote the previous day that reduced ROTC to an extra-curricular activity. Afro declares its intention to continue the strike until its demands are met.

April 22, 1969
Overturning its earlier vote on the Rosovsky Report, the faculty approves students' demands to establish Afro-American Studies as a department and to have a voice in appointing faculty for the new department. Professor Henry Rosovsky, the committee chair, and Professor Daniel M. Fox resign from the committee.
In the same meeting, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences votes to expand the Standing Committee on Afro-American Studies to include three students chosen by the Association of African and Afro-American Students at Harvard and Radcliffe and three students chosen from and by potential concentrators in the field. The Standing Committee is to have the following functions:
To oversee expansion of library resources in the Afro-American Studies field;
To develop the Afro-American Research Institute;
To solicit funds for Departmental chairs;
To work towards a greater Boston consortium of university Afro-American resources;
To seek out and hire immediately, temporary consultants knowledgeable in Afro-American Studies and personally involved in the Afro-American experience to assist in the development of this program;
To nominate the first foure to six appointments in the department, two of which must be tenured.

As of May 1969
The Standing Committee on Afro-American Studies includes the following members:
Harold Amos (Bacteriology and Immunology)
Kathryn Bowser (Radcliffe '72)
Leslie F. Griffin, Jr. (Harvard '70)
Loretta G. Hardge (Radcliffe '72)
Clarence James (Harvard '72)
John F. Kain (Economics)
Myles V. Lynk (Harvard '70)
Juan Marichal (Romance Languages)
Talcott Parsons (Social Relations)
Mark Smith (Harvard '72)
Zeph Stewart (Classics)
Charles A. Whitney (Astronomy)
Richard A. Musgrave (Economics and Law School) - Chairman

September 22, 1969
The Standing Committee on Afro-American Studies issues a report-the so-called Musgrave Report-announcing nine faculty appointments and seven new courses for the fall term, with ten planned for the spring. The committee also proposes the establishment of a W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research. The faculty appointments included Dr. Ewart Guinier, Dr. Ephraim Isaac, Mr. Fred Clifton, Dr. Azinna Nwafor, Dr. Orlando Patterson, Professor Richard A. Long, Professor J. Newton Hill, Mr. Hayward Henry, and Mr. Harold R. Washington.

October 1969
Professor Ewart Guinier is named first chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies.

November 19, 1969
About fifteen members of the Black Students for Action (BSFA) join the SDS in entering University Hall for an "obstructive sit-in." The groups demand that painters' helpers-seven out of twelve are black-be promoted to painters and that " a minimum of 20 percent of the work force on all present and future [Harvard] construction sites be composed of black and Third World workers." The deadline is December 2. The University contends that the percentage is disproportionate to the number of minority workers available.

December 1969
Twice in December members of the recently formed Organization for Black Unity occupy University Hall protesting the university's minority hiring policies. The Corporation appoints Clifford L. Alexander, Jr., an Overseer and former head of the United States Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, to develop a plan to increase minority employment.

September 21, 1970
In the preface of his Report of the Afro-American Studies Department, Professor Ewart Guinier states that "we are building a program-graduate as well as undergraduate- which is being developed from a black perspective to serve the interests of the black community and thereby the interests of all." He further indicates in the introduction that the purpose of the department is "the development and use of appropriate tools with which to examine the Black experience in Africa and the New World in all its aspects and from a Black perspective." Guinier reports a total enrollment of 354 students in the department's 25 courses during the first academic year.

March 1971
The library of the Department of Afro-American Studies opens in Lamont Library. By this time, enrollment in the department has increased to 522 students in 20 courses. C. L. R. James joins the faculty as Visiting Professor.

July 1971
Derek C. Bok becomes the twenty-fifth president of Harvard University.

June 1972
The department graduates its first class of majors in Afro-American studies; they number fourteen.

October 6, 1972
The Committee to Review the Department of Afro-American Studies, under the leadership of U. S. Circuit Judge Wade Hampton McCree, Jr., issues its report. The report advises the university to "reaffirm in principle and practice that Afro-American Studies is an appropriate and important academic endeavor and that a permanently established department of high quality sharing equitably in the resources of the University is necessary." It expresses the committee's opinion that the department should place "greater emphasis on Afro-American rather than African Studies," that Afro-American studies should be available as a field of joint concentration," and that "the Department's primary focus should be academic, and community activity should be pursued essentially for the purpose of enhancing learning opportunities." The report criticizes the department's failure to make permanent appointments; recommends that students' right to vote on faculty appointment be rescinded; and urges the establishment of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute on a university-wide, not departmental, basis.

November 1972
In speeches delivered at Cornell University and in Cambridge, Professor Ewart Guinier rebukes the Review Committee's report. Guinier is quoted as saying, "Instead of putting the best minds of Harvard in the Administration to find ways to help our Department expand and carry out its mandates, the Administration is busy cooking up all sorts of maneuvers to handcuff us, put chains around our legs, and tell us 'run, so we can laugh at you.'"

1973
Preston N. Williams, Houghton Professor of Theology and Contemporary Change, Harvard Divinity School, is named acting director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research.

Spring 1974
The Harvard Advocate publishes a special issue, Black Odyssey: A Search for Home, based on the Alain L. Locke Symposium sponsored by the Advocate on December 1, 1973. Among the symposium participants were Nathan Huggins, Harold Cruse, Albert Murray, and Ralph Ellison. Romare Bearden created the cover art for the special issue.

May 1975
Founding date of what was initially called the William E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research.

January 1976
Eileen Southern, professor of Afro-American studies and music, becomes chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies. She is the first black woman to be appointed full professor with tenure at Harvard. When she assumes leadership of the department, the number of concentrators has fallen below ten, and many consider the department's curriculum to be below Harvard's standards. Martin Kilson, professor of government, is a vocal proponent of this position: "Black-studies programs, initiated by militant pressures from black students, are established with slight concern for the academic and intellectual standards that prevail at Harvard generally."

1977
Dr. Clyde C. Ferguson, former dean of Howard Law School and professor of law at Harvard, accepts the position of acting director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute

1979
Nancy Randolph, special assistant to the president for race relations, becomes acting director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute.

May 1979
In a confidential report to the Board of Overseers, a visiting committee recommends that the department be abolished. In its stead, the committee suggests a degree-granting interdisciplinary committee that would not have the authority to grant tenure or determine its own curriculum. Henry Rosovsky, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and former chair of the Faculty Committee on African and Afro-American Studies, implements a different solution. He selects a committee of five senior faculty members to administer the department and places it in what he called "academic receivership." Over the next eight months, the committee conducts searches for faculty to whom it could offer tenure.

April 14, 1980
Nathan Irving Huggins, professor of history at Columbia University, accepts Harvard's offer to become chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies. He also is named the first permanent director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research.

May 1980
Archie C. Epps III, dean of students and chair of a sixteen-member student-faculty publishes its report, A Study of Race Relations at Harvard College. The committee finds that (1) half of Harvard's black students had encountered faculty or teaching fellows who "question the ability of minority students to do outstanding work" and (2) one student in five doubted the academic ability of minority students.

April 1980
In response to a proposal from students in the Harvard-Radcliffe Third World Center Organization, President Derek Bok appoints a nine-member committee to examine the question of whether a Third World Center should be created at Harvard. The chair of the committee is Peter J. Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and minister in Memorial Church.

1981
Nathan Huggins, with the support of the Ford Foundation, establishes the W. E. B. Du Bois Lectureship in Afro-American life, history, and culture.

January 31, 1981
n a twenty-four-page report entitled To Enhance the Quality of Our Common Life: Discussion and Recommendations Concerning Race, Diversity and the College Experience, the so-called Gomes Report states: "We recommend that Harvard University establish a foundation devoted to the improvement of relations among racial and ethnic groups within the University." President Derek Bok praises the "committee's determination to uphold the University's commitment to an integrated and pluralistic community and to fashion recommendations which will further that commitment by helping to increase our understanding and appreciation of all people and our awareness of different cultural traditions and perspectives." The members of the Third World Center Organzation do not support this proposal.

February 1981
President Derek Bok releases his "Open Letter on Issues of Race at Harvard." In his carefully worded document, Bok stated: "We must do our best to maintain a vigorous program of affirmative action not only in making faculty appointments but in selecting tutors, proctors, and other staff and administrative personnel who have opportunities to work with students and offer them counsel and support."

July 1984
Nathan Huggins takes a sabbatical, and Werner Sollors, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of Afro-American Studies, becomes chair of the department, serving from 1984-87, and from 1988-90.

July 1985
The Ford Foundation published Nathan Huggins's report, titled Afro-American Studies, examining "the current status of Afro-American studies on American campuses in light of the early experience and future needs of the field."

1986
For the 350th Anniversary of Harvard College, the Afro-American Studies Department produces and disseminates Blacks at Harvard the first historical documentation of black faculty and student presence, later expanded and published by New York University Press.

1986-1989
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., chairs the Overseers' Visiting Committee to Harvard's Department of Afro-American Studies.

July 1988
Werner Sollors becomes acting chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies and assumes the role of acting director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute.

December 5, 1989
Following a brief illness, Nathan Huggins dies in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

May 18, 1990
In his annual report, Werner Sollors expresses great concern about increasing the small size of the Afro-Am faculty and, after extending offers to five senior faculty members at other universities, having to face difficulties in persuading candidates to accept appointments. Further, Sollors's report notes that the two junior members of Afro-Am's faculty have accepted positions elsewhere.

July 1990
Rev. Peter Gomes accepts the role of acting director of the Du Bois Institute.

Barbara Johnson, professor of English and American language and literature, is selected as interim chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies. At the initiative of President Derek Bok and Henry Rosovsky, Acting Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the university launches seven joint junior faculty searches as well as searches for a new chair of Afro-American Studies and a new director of the Du Bois Institute. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., professor of English and Afro-American studies, accepts Harvard's appointment as W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities and as director of the Du Bois Institute. Gates also agrees to take over as chair of the department. Of the junior faculty appointments that are offered, J. Lorand Matory accepts in anthropology and Philip Brian Harper accepts in English. At the level of senior faculty, K. Anthony Appiah accepts an offer as professor of Afro-American studies and philosophy.

July 1991
Neil L. Rudenstine becomes the twenty-sixth president of Harvard University.

July 1991
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., begins his tenure as chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies and director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research. K. Anthony Appiah assumes the position of head tutor. Invitations are extended to six professors to accept five-year appointments as affiliated professors, and all six accept. They are: Barbara Johnson in comparative literature; Randall Kennedy in law; Martin Kilson in government; Sara Lawrence Lightfoot in education; Orlando Patterson in sociology; and Katherine Tate in government. John Kain, professor of economics, requests and is granted joint affiliation with the Department of Afro-American Studies. During the 1991-1992 academic year, four Visiting Professors are in residence: Thomas Cripps, Julian Bond, Catherine Clinton, and Spike Lee. Gates pursues negotiations with the Menil Foundation to acquire the Image of the Black in Western Art Research Archive and Photo Archive. The number of concentrators rises to 21 and the number of people taking Afro-American courses increases from 245 to 579.

1992-1993
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham accepts an appointment as professor of Afro-American studies and divinity, with a specialization in women's religious history. The recruitment of Judge A. Leon Higginbotham for a primary appointment in the Kennedy School brings the added benefit of a biennial, undergraduate lecture course entitled "Blacks and the Law."

1993-1994
Cornel West accepts a joint appointment with the Divinity School. West's official duties are to begin in academic year 1995-1996, but he is to be on leave in residence at Harvard during 1994-1995. The Image of the Black in Western Art Archive is relocated to Harvard. Visiting Professors include Anthony Davis and Bruce Tucker in music; Stuart Hall in visual and environmental studies; Jamaica Kincaid and Darryl Pinckney in English; Spike Lee in film; and Barbara Solow in history. Fifty-two undergraduates choose Afro-American studies as their area of concentration.

1994-1995
Professor J. Lorand Matory is promoted to Associate Professor and is appointed the Hugh K. Foster Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies and Anthropology, an endowed junior chair.

1995-1996
William Julius Wilson is named Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy in a joint Kennedy School/Afro-American Studies appointment. Suzanne Preston Blier, professor of art history with a specialty in African art history, requests and is granted full affiliation with the Department of Afro-American Studies. Alphonse Fletcher, Jr. ('87) endows the Alphonse Fletcher, Jr., University Professorship.

1996-1997
Lawrence D. Bobo accepts a joint appointment with the Department of Sociology and the Department of Afro-American Studies. Dwight Andrews occupies the first Quincy Jones Visiting Professorship of African American Music. A committee composed of K. Anthony Appiah, Chair, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, and Werner Sollors prepares a proposal for a graduate program in Afro-American studies. The aim of the program is to combine an interdisciplinary training in African American cultural and social studies with a focus in a major disciplinary field, leading to the Ph.D. in African American studies.

June 9, 1997
With the opening of the Barker Center, the Department of Afro-American Studies and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research are united in a common physical space for the first time.

1997-1998
For the first time in the history of the Department of Afro-American Studies, a junior faculty member, J. Lorand Matory, is promoted from associate to full professor with tenure. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham becomes the first professor of Afro-American history within the History Department since the death of Nathan Huggins in 1989. Cornel West is named the Alphonse Fletcher, Jr., University Professor; William Julius Wilson is named the Lewis F. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor. The Houghton Library and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute acquire the papers of four major black writers: African writers Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate for Literature in 1986, and the African American writers, Albert Murray and John Wideman.

1998-1999
Gerald Levin announced that Time Warner will endow the Quincy Jones Professorship of African American Music, supported by the Time Warner Endowment.

February 15, 2000
The faculty approves unanimously the establishment of a graduate program in Afro-American studies.

April 8, 2000
Harvard University celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Department of Afro-American Studies and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research.

2000
Tommie Shelby accepts a joint appointment as Assistant Professor with the Department of Social Studies and the Department of Afro-American Studies.

July 2001
Lawrence H. Summers is named the twenty-seventh president of Harvard University.

2001
Ingrid T. Monson comes to Harvard as the Quincy Jones Professorship of African American Music, supported by the Time-Warner Endowment. Susan E. O'Donovan accepts a joint appointment as Assistant Professor with the Department of History and the Department of Afro-American Studies. Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw accepts a joint appointment as Assistant Professor with the Department of the History of Art and Architecture and the Department of Afro-American Studies.

Fall 2001
The Graduate Program in Afro-American Studies begins classes with its first six students.

March 2001
Lawrence H. Summers is named the twenty-seventh president of Harvard University.

2002-2003
Suzanne Preston Blier is named the Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and Professor of African and African American Studies.

Glenda R. Carpio accepts a joint appointment as Assistant Professor with the Department of Afro-American Studies and the Department of English and American Literature and Language.

Kimberly McCLain DaCosta accepts a joint appointment as Assistant Professor with the Department of Social Studies and the Department of Afro-American Studies.

Evelynn M. Hammonds accepts a joint appointment as Professor with the Department of the History of Science and the Department of Afro-American Studies.

Francis Abiola Irele accepts an appointment as Visiting Professor with the Department of Afro-American Studies.

2003-2004
The department and institute begin the 2003-2004 academic year as the newly renamed Department of African and African American Studies and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

Emmanuel K. Akyeampong accepts a joint appointment as a Professor of History and of African and African American Studies.

Micheal C. Dawson accepts an appointment as Professor of Government and of African and African American Studies.

Marla F. Frederick accepts a joint appointment as Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and of the Study of Religion.

Francis Abiola Irele accepts an appointment as Visiting Professor of African and African American Studies and of Romance Languages and Literatures.

Jamaica Kincaid accepts an appointment as Visiting Lecturer on African and African American Studies and on English and American Literature and Language.

Elvis Mitchell, the first African American film critic for the New York Times, teaches in the spring as Visiting Lecturer on African and African American Studies and on Visual and Environmental Studies.

John M. Mugane accepts an appointment as Senior Preceptor in African and African American Studies.

Kay Kauffman Shelemay becomes the G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and Professor of African and African American Studies.

Spring 2004

Tommie Shelby is named the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences and of African and African American Studies.

Nike S. Lawal accepts an appointment as Preceptor in African and African American Studies.

2004-2005
With the start of the academic year, concentrators in the department can choose to pursue a path of study within either the African Studies Track or the African American Studies Track.

Emmanuel K. Akyeampong becomes a Harvard College Professor and Professor of History and of African and African American Studies.

Jennifer L. Hochschild accepts a joint appointment as the Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government and Professor of African and African American Studies.

September 2005
The W. E. B. Du Bois Institute moves to 104 Mount Auburn Street, the first time in its history that all of the Institute's research projects and staff are housed within one physical location.