Founding the First PhD in Black Studies: A Sankofa Remembrance and Critical Assessment of Its Significance

Abstract

Clearly, the founding of the first PhD program in Black Studies at Temple University under the leadership of Molefi Kete Asante is a major, defining, and transformative achievement in the advancement of the discipline and in the discipline’s continuous initiatives and struggles to expand intellectual and institutional space for a truly multicultural, global, and quality education beyond the existing dominant monocultural Eurocentric paradigm and practice. Its significance also lies in the Afrocentric culturally grounded, agency-focused, and transformative discourse and practice the program has engendered beyond the academy, and the seminal contribution it has made to grounding and cultivating generations of activist intellectuals and scholars who play and will continue to play generative and transformative roles in the academy, their communities, and their societies in this country and in the world. The governing interest of this essay is to critically assess the transformative significance of this historic achievement. Beginning with an introduction to the issue and an examination of the sociohistorical and intellectual context out of which this achievement emerged and grounded itself, the essay, then, discusses some salient factors that define its transformative significance. It concludes with a discussion of sustaining and expanding that achievement in the context of sustaining and advancing the Black Studies project, while maintaining the discipline’s founding emancipatory and transformative mission.