The Politics of Applied Black Studies

Abstract

This article documents the activism and applied contributions of select African American social scientists whose applied methods from the mid-1890s to the present made contributions to understanding the black experiences, the achievement of civil rights, and the development of the contemporary Black Studies academic discipline. The resulting historical analysis indicates that black social scientists had initially been, and to some extent continue to be, the progenitors of applied social science methodology. While scholars have recently recognized the marginalization of black social scientists within their respective disciplines, I argue that black social scientists have been the underrecognized intellectual leaders that helped established what is now known as applied social science.