Center for Afroamerican and African Studies/Department of Afroamerican and African Studies Timeline
Timeline is listed in Academic Years (September – August)
In scrolling through the below timeline, you’ll notice orange dates. These represent academic years that included a student protest.
Timeline

1965
1968
1969
1969
AY 1969-1970
September: Harold Cruse appointed Director of Afroamerican Studies Program
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- First Afroamerican Studies Major established
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March: Black Action Movement I
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- includes demand for expansion of Afroamerican Studies Program
- 18 day student strike leads to settlement with President Flemming that included provisions for the establishment of the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies
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1970
1970
AY 1970-1971
September: Center for Afroamerican and African Studies is founded
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- Director: Acklyn Lynch (Sept. – Nov. 1970)
- CAAS ==> Location: 715 Haven Street 1970-1972
- CAAS Newsletter begins publication
- CAAS Library founded
- Study in the Black World and Exchange Program founded
December: Director: J. Frank Yates (1970-71)
March 14-20: Gloria Marshall (Niara Sudarkasa) organizes “Black Liberation Week” featuring Amiri Baraka
1971
1972
1972
AY 1972-1973
- Director: Harold Cruse (1972-73)
- CAAS Moved ==> Location: 1100 South University (1972-78)
1973
1974
1977
1978
1978
AY 1978-1979
- Director: Ali Mazrui (1978-81)
- CAAS moved ==> Location: 909 Monroe Street (Lorch Hall) (1978-85)
- Phil Bowman and Vonnie McLoyd appointed assistant professors of Psychology and Afroamerican and African Studies
1979
1979
AY 1979-1980
- DAAS Weekly Colloquium series founded
- Conference: The University of Michigan a Decade After the Black Action Movement (March 19-21, 1980)
1981
1982
1984
1985
1985
AY 1985-1986
- CAAS moved ==> Location: 200 West Engineering
- Post -Emancipation Societies Project is founded
- Letter of nomination for Nelson Mandela to receive honorary degree initiated by Thomas Holt
1986
1986
AY 1986-1987
- Director:Lemuel Johnson (1986-90)
- Ali Mazrui’s documentary series: The Africans: A Triple Heritage airs (October 1986)
- March: Black Action Movement III
1987
1988
1988
AY 1988-89
- DuBois/Mandela/Rodney Postdoctoral Fellowships founded
- From Margin to Center: Towards a New Black Scholarship project founded
- “Strengthening African Studies” pilot program initiated
1990
1990
AY 1990-1991
- Director: Earl Lewis (1990-93)
- Conference: Reflections and Revisions 1970-1990 (March 15-16, 1990)
- Voices of the African diaspora : the CAAS Research Review founded
- George Lamming CAAS Writer-in-Residence (October-November 1990)
- Vice Provost for Minority Affairs Charles Moody and CAAS Director Earl Lewis travel with U-M delegation to confer honorary doctorate to Nelson Mandela
- Study Abroad Program to Jamaica established
- African American Women In Defense of Ourselves manifesto published
- Inaugural CAAS Graduate Student Multidisciplinary Conference (February 1-2, 1991)
- CAAS Colloquium Series: Race, Culture and the Politics of Intellectual Inquiry
1991
1991
AY 1991-1992
- “Caribbean Eye” Video series
- Concluding conference for the Race, Culture and the Politics of Intellectual Inquiry with Cornel West, Bell Hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, Houston Baker (May 15-16, 1992)
1992
1993
1993
AY 1993-1994
- Director: Michael Awkward (1993-96)
- CAAS Research Project on African Peoples in the Industrial Age
- Inaugural CAAS Zora Neale Hurston Lecture for the Humanities (November 3, 1993; Speaker: Arnold Rampersand)
- Symposium: Film Noire: Five Films by Black Women with special guest Tricia Rose (December 9-10, 1993)
1994
1994
AY 1994-1995
- Symposium: The Remapping of Scholarship: African Peoples in the Industrial Age (October-November, 1994)
- Colloquium Series: Representing Gender in Black Popular Culture (October 1994-May 1995)
- Winter 1995 Colloquium Series: Exploring the Dimensions of Life In the Industrial Age
- Conference: “Race….” A Conference of Graduate Student Research Papers from Seminars in African American History and African Peoples in the Industrial Age (April 27-28, 1995)
- Cafe Noir, Caffe Mocha, Cafe Latte poetry series founded (April 1995)
- Colloquium series: Constructions of Manhood and Womanhood in African American Life and Culture
- Talking Books series founded
1995
1996
1996
AY 1996-1997
- Director: Sharon Patton (1996-98)
- Dialogue Series on South Africa founded
- CAAS Dissertation Fellows colloquium founded
- Workshop series : International Workshop on “Transformations of Power & Culture in Africa” (November 11,18, 25, 1996)
1997
1997
AY 1997-1998
- CAAS Collective student affiliate organization founded
- Black Images/Black Films series (Fall 1997)
- Conference: “Keeping It Real”: Authority and Authenticity in the Performance of African Americanist Scholarship (October 17-18, 1997)
- Symposium: Politics, Culture and Youth in the New Congo: a Symposium on Political Change in Africa (October 27-28, 1997)
- Symposium: “Performing Black….ness” (February 20, 1998)
- Conference: “The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual” Past, Present & Future: A Conference in tribute of Harold Cruse (March 17-18, 1998)
1998
1999
1999
AY 1999-2000
- CAAS 30th anniversary theme year: Sankofa: Looking Backward to Look Ahead
- Tower Takeover (March 2000)
2000
2001
2001
AY 2001-2002
- African-American Film Series: A Different Image
- Conference: RETHINKING THE BLACK TRANSATLANTIC: A DIALOGUE WITH BRENT EDWARDS, ISAAC JULIEN and NIKHIL SINGH (October 19-20, 2001)
- Conference: Archaeology of the African Diaspora (December 1, 2001)
- UMOJA book club for children founded
2002
2002
2002-2003
- CAAS CLR James Lecture founded (October 3-4, 2002) (George Lamming, speaker)
- Lecture: Ahmed Kathrada: “A Life of Political Activism and Robben Island as a Symbol of Reconciliation and Memory” (October 17, 2002)
- CAAS moved ==> Location: 505 S. State Street 4700 Haven Hall (November 2002)
- Ousmane Sembene Film Festival and Symposium (March 25-28, 2003)
2003
2003
AY 2003-2004
- Highlife for Lemuel: A Symposium to Celebrate the Life and Works of Professor Lemuel Johnson on the Second Anniversary of His Death (March 12-13, 2004)
- Lemuel A. Johnson Library
2004
2005
2005
AY 2005-2006
- Director: Kevin Gaines (2005-2010)
- Conference: CAAS at 35: the Future of Black Studies: A conference in honor of Harold Cruse and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies (April 13-14, 2006)
- When The Levees Broke Documentary Series and Conversation (October 2006)
- CAAS Graduate Certificate Program begun
2007
2008
2008
AY 2008-2009
- CAAS theme year: The End of the Beginning: The Worlds the Slave Trade Made
- Theme Year Lecture: CLR James Lecture (Hazel Carby, speaker) (September 25, 2008)
- Conference: The Common Wind: Conversations in African American and Atlantic Histories (November 14-15, 2008)
- Conference: CAAS and the Black Humanities Collective present Heart of the City: Black Urban Life on THE WIRE
- Theme Year Lecture (Roy Finkenbine, speaker) (March 9, 2009)
2009
2009
AY 2009-2010
- Conference: Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women (October 2009)
- Naomi Tutu KCP Visiting Professorship focusing on Truth and Reconciliation (November 2009)
- Symposium: Neoslaveries in the 19th Century Atlantic World: A Symposium (February 11-12, 2010)
- Conference: Growing Up Motown: Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and the Making of Motown (February 18-19, 2010)
- Conference: CAAS at 40: Research and Community Partnerships (March 18-20, 2010)
2010
2010
AY 2010-2011
- Director: Angela Dillard (2010-2011)
- Center for Afroamerican and African Studies Gallery opens (September 2010) (Jon Lockard exhibit Africentricity “Those Who Learn, Teach)
- Symposium: The Pedagogy of Action (2000-2010): A Symposium of 10 Years of the Pedagogy of Action Methodology of HIV Activism in South Africa, the Caribbean and the United States (December 3- 4, 2010)
2011
2011
AY 2011-2012
- Center of Afroamerican and African Studies becomes the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies
- Chair: Tiya Miles (2011-2014)
- ECO Girls Environmental Education group founded
2013
2013
AY 2013-2014
- DAAS Racial Climate Task Force founded
- Symposium: Community Engaged Learning Symposium (October 4, 2013)
- Aimé Césaire 100th Birthday Symposium “Negro I am, Negro I will remain” (October 8, 2013)
- #BBUM (Being Black at Michigan) twitter campaign begins (November 18, 2013)
- #BBUM movement begins (January 2014)
2014
2014
AY 2014-2015
- Chair: Frida Ekotto (2014-2018)
- Symposium: Lorna Goodison Farewell Reading and Conversation (October 30, 2014)
- Lecture: Zora Neal Hurston Lecture with Alice Walker (November 5, 2014)
- A Love Supreme at 50: John Coltrane, Malcolm X and the Sounds of 1965 (February 19, 2015)
- Symposium: Black Feminist Think Tank: A Symposium (March 19-20, 2015)
- Conference: Who Owns The Oil? Corporations, Heritage and the Politics of Claim-Making in Africa (April 3, 2015)
2015
2015
AY 2015-2016
- Symposium: Jon Onye Lockard: The Life and Journey of a Visual Griot (October 11-12, 2015)
- Lecture: “Blackballed: The Black and White Politics of Race on America’ s Campuses” with Lawrence Ross (February 13, 2016)
2016
2016
AY 2016-2017
- Africa-China Conference 2017: Infrastructure, Resource Extraction, and Environmental Sustainability (April 6-7, 2017)
2018
2019
2019
AY 2019-2020
- Symposium: “Mobilizing ‘Blackness’: From the Haitian Revolution to Now” (September 25-26, 2019)
- The “1619 Project” podcast and discussion series (January 14,16,21,23,27, 2020)