Courtesy of Bowie State University
While efforts to dilute the study of African American history in classrooms spread across the country, the recently established Du Bois Center for the Study of the Black Experience at Bowie State University aims to enable scholars to expand the conversation on social justice movements and contemporary issues of race.
The center will launch its W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture Series with an address by Dr. Kaye Wise Whitehead, professor of communications at Loyola University (Maryland), on Thursday, February 23, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom. Dr. Wise Whitehead is no stranger to inequity and injustice. She is the founding director of the Karson Institute for Race, Peace, & Social Justice and in 2021, received the Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
“The center is named for W.E.B. Du Bois, writer, historian, sociologist, and political activist,” said Dr. Karen Cook-Bell, associate professor and chair of BSU’s History and Government Department. “We want the center to be a model that encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and critical reflection on injustice, oppression, and freedom with a commitment to developing solutions to eliminate injustice. That was the essence of Dr. Du Bois and what motivated him throughout his career.”
The Du Bois Center at BSU emphasizes the relevance of African Studies in contemporary life focusing on communities of African descent in the Americas. It will foster an international perspective on Maryland’s HBCU campuses and collaborate with other organizations, foundations, and institutes on University System of Maryland campuses. It will also explore Black politics, race and philosophy, and African government and politics.
The center is deeply rooted in humanities scholarship and will provide relevant information and research on enslavement and freedom in the United States. Dr. Cook-Bell noted the center’s partnership with the Maryland State Archives Legacy of Slavery Program, directed by Chris Haley, the nephew of Alex Haley, that will have Bowie State students document people seeking freedom in Maryland during the 1700s.
“Promoting and disseminating innovative research in African, African American and African Diaspora Studies is the primary initiative of the center,” said Dr. Cook-Bell. “It provides a forum for dialogue between the various academic disciplines and thought leaders.”
In addition, the Du Bois Center is engaged in a multi-year research initiative with the National Park Service Network to Freedom Project on Freedom Seekers during the American Revolutionary Era commemorating the 250th Anniversary of the birth of the United States in 2026.
The USM Board of Regents awarded Dr. Cook-Bell a Wilson H. Wilkins Professorship late last year to establish the W.E.B. Du Bois Center for the Study of Black Experience to encourage and disseminate research in African American and African diaspora.
