Protesters of the 1969 Black Student Strike.

History

The Department of African American Studies (previously the Department of Afro-American Studies) was born of student activism. On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His murder sparked a wave of riots and protests on college campuses across the country. Black students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison reacted to the murder of Dr. King by orchestrating a series of strikes intended to force the university’s administration to institute a program of study about African Americans.

Our origins

The Black Student Strike of 1969 was a culmination of three years of meetings, negotiations, protests, and frustrations with the administration for their negligible response to the need to engage in anti­racist developments on campus. Students gave a list of 13 demands, the first of which was the creation an autonomous Black Studies department that was controlled and organized by Black students and faculty; this was a non-negotiable term. In April 1969, then Chancellor Edwin Young appointed a steering committee for what would become the Department of Afro-American Studies. The committee spent the following months working on a proposal for the department. It was approved in November 1969. The Department of Afro-American Studies offered its first classes during the fall of 1970. Dr. Charles E. Anderson, Professor of Meteorology (Cloud and Aerosol Physics), was the first Chair of the department.

The department admitted our first graduate students into the newly initiated M.A. program in the fall of 1980. Approved by the Academic Planning Council on April 20, 2012, the department established its Certificate program and opened this new opportunity to students in the fall of 2013.

The department officially changed its name from Afro-American Studies to African American Studies in 2022 to reflect contemporary developments in the categorizing of Black studies. For the last fifty-six years, the department has educated thousands of students on Black history, literature, art history, political theory, and sociology to develop critical skills in research, writing, and inquiry. The interdisciplinary department continues to align itself with its original goals to recognize the collective power of partnerships in organizing to actively seek growth and deliberate change within societies.

Crowd on Bascom Hill, protesting the UW-Madison administration, urging them for the creation of a Black studies department.
Protesters during the 1969 Black Student Strike.
Professor Freida High, photographed in the classroom in the late 1980s, served on the steering committee that created the Afro-American Studies Department. She later joined the faculty, becoming the department’s longest-serving faculty member at 41 years. (Courtesy of UW–Madison Archives)
Professor Freida High, photographed in the classroom in the late 1980s, served on the steering committee that created the Afro-American Studies Department. She later joined the faculty, becoming the department’s longest-serving faculty member at 41 years. (Courtesy of UW–Madison Archives)
From left to right: Kweku Andrews, William L. Van Deburg, Freida High, Alex Haley, and Tom Shick photographed together in the mid-7970s.
Kweku Andrews, William L. Van Deburg, Freida High, Alex Haley, and Tom Shick photographed together in the mid-7970s.
Leaders of the Black Student Strike of 1969 gather to speak at a rally. (UW-Madison archives)
Leaders of the Black Student Strike of 1969 gather to speak at a rally. (UW–Madison archives)