Scholars and artists are trying to keep African American Studies alive during heightened political scrutiny and limitations to discussions on race and identity in education.
During a panel titled “Black Studies Teach-In,” hosted by Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, scholars and artists shared their strategies for protecting and transforming Black scholarship.
Dr. Felicia Harris, associate professor of communications at the University of Houston-Downtown, stressed the urgency of the moment.
“We are in an unprecedented moment of transformation in public education in this country and, in particular, our state,” Harris said. “We’ve seen several laws passed that will not only radically transform how we teach and learn about Black and American history, lives and culture, but we’ve also seen laws eliminate how institutions support and retain Black students, students of color and students from other historically excluded and marginalized groups.”
Reclaiming the academy and workforce
Dr. Toniesha Taylor, professor of communication and director at the Center for Africana Futures at Texas Southern University, offered a compelling response. Her work fuses Black Studies with workforce development through certification programs rooted in racial justice and digital literacy.
“Our goal here is to disrupt the role of gatekeepers that intentionally place black or marginalized folks in industries that don’t lead to professional success,” Taylor said. “This isn’t just job training. This is a way for us to remix Black Studies into the future of labor.”
Her center offers a production payroll certification that does not require a college degree but can launch students into high-paying entertainment accounting careers. But it’s not just about the paycheck. The center’s goal is to create a future where Black scholarship and technology can merge.
“Our curriculum is Black-centered, rooted in Black study traditions,” Taylor added.
“We discuss labor history, racialized capitalism, the political economy of corruption and the ways in which we can change that with participation.”
In her vision, the discipline is not merely surviving political attacks but evolving into a liberatory force that equips students with skills to combat a history of exclusion.
Black art as a time machine
Visual artist and professor Anthony Suber described his work as building “a time machine” through Afrofuturist art that connects past, present and future Black identity. As a longtime collaborator with Project Row Houses and a mentor to young artists, Suber emphasized that erasing Black history from classrooms will not erase it from the culture.
“We have to control and create our own opportunities, influence how history gets told and connect back to our ancestors,” he said.
Suber reflected on the significance of murals and music in preserving cultural memory, warning that cultural appropriation and erasure remain constant threats if Black communities do not actively protect their legacies.
Philosophy, love, and liberation
The stakes are existential for Dr. Annie Ring, assistant professor of philosophy at UH-Downtown.
“Unfortunately, in this anti-Black world, anti-Blackness shapes the collective unconscious,” Ring said, referring to French psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon’s work that revealed how anti-Blackness shapes both individual and collective unconsciousness.
She added that these are biological and socially constructed through culture and language. Also, without Fanon’s insights, scholars would not grasp how deeply context shapes the unconscious or fully understand it.
Drawing from Fanon and Angela Davis, Ring argued Black thought is central to disciplines like psychology, philosophy and political theory.
“Blackness shapes our understanding of perception, freedom, and existence,” she said. “Without it, philosophy is incomplete.”
Race as a system and a software
Offering a searing analysis of race as a technology, Dr. Vida Robertson, professor of English and Humanities and director of the Center for Social Inquiry & Transformation at UH-Downtown, said it is a social construct and also a system constantly evolving to maintain dominance.
“Racism is an ideological software that is quietly operating in the background of our society, organizing reality and facilitating its programmers’ objectives,” Robertson said. “Like modern technologies, race, racialization and racism require periodic updates to meet the challenges and the demands of their current users.”
Citing thinkers from James Baldwin to Wendy Chun, he argued that critical race theory and Black Studies must be embraced for historical understanding and to reshape how society organizes power.
Will Black Studies survive?
Ultimately, all scholars agreed that Black Studies should be perceived as a luxury but a necessity for Black students and all who seek to understand and rebuild the world.
Dr. Elizabeth Whittington, assistant professor of communications at Prairie View A&M University, shared how she redesigned her courses to center Black experiences and the impact of systemic racism. Incorporating works by Black authors like Clint Smith and Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the 1619 Project, she created a curriculum that deepened students’ understanding of Black history at the HBCU and transformed her course into one that centers Black love and relational dynamics.
Inspired by Bell Hooks and other Black thinkers, Whittington said her classes became spaces of emotional healing and cultural empowerment.
“Without Black Studies, philosophy would not understand the unconscious perception and the human freedom to create ourselves,” she said. “The popular narrative about philosophy, which minimizes the importance of Black thought, has got it all wrong. Black thought matters. It is necessary and we must include Black Studies in our curriculum. We can’t let people who don’t know better tell us otherwise.”
“Ending Black Studies is not just terminating grants, it’s terminating access and knowledge that folks have been trying to erase for centuries,” she added. “Terminating Black Studies means saying black experiences don’t matter.”
