Timeline – 50th Anniversary of DAAS

Timeline

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
1965

AY 1965-1966

First Black History studies course proposed by Black student : Richard Ross
1968
1968

AY 1968 – 1969

AY 1968 – 1969

April:

    • Martin Luther King Jr. assassination
    • Black students take over LSA building (at that time the Administration building)
    • Afroamerican Studies Program approved

August:

    • Harold Cruse appointed as a visiting professor, teaches Afroamerican History class
1969
1969

AY 1969-1970

September: Harold Cruse appointed Director of Afroamerican Studies Program

      • First Afroamerican Studies Major established 

March: Black Action Movement I 

      • 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
1970
1970

AY 1970-1971

September: Center for Afroamerican and African Studies is founded

    • 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
1971

AY 1971-1972

  • CAAS Speaker Series founded
  • CAAS Monograph and Report Series founded
1972
1972

AY 1972-1973

  • Director: Harold Cruse (1972-73)
  • CAAS Moved ==> Location: 1100 South University (1972-78)
1973
1973

AY 1973-1974

  • Director: Leslie Owens (1973-1974)
1974
1974

AY 1974-1975

  • Director: Ozzie Edwards (1974-78)
  • February: Black Action Movement II
1977
1977

AY 1977-1978

Harold Cruse appointed Professor of History and Afroamerican and African Studies

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
1981

AY 1981-1982

  • Director: Niara Sudarkasa (1981-84)
1982
1982

AY 1982-83

  • Walter Rodney Lecture and Essay Competition founded
1984
1984

AY 1984-1985

  • Director: Thomas Holt (1984-86)
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
1987

AY 1987-1988

AY 1987-1988
  • Nelson Mandela is conferred honorary doctorate by the University of Michigan 
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

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
1992

AY 1992-1993

  • Film Sessions Roundtable: “Spike Lee and the Black Agenda” (December 4, 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
1995

AY 1995-1996

  • Conference: CAAS Conference on Gender and Urban Poverty (May 17,1996)
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
1998

AY 1998-1999

  • Director: James Jackson (1998-2005)
  • Administrative and Programmatic revamp ensued
1999
1999

AY 1999-2000

  • CAAS 30th anniversary theme year: Sankofa: Looking Backward to Look Ahead
  •  Tower Takeover (March 2000)
2000
2000

AY 2000-2001

AY 2000-2001
  • South Africa Initiatives Office moves to CAAS
  • Pedagogy of Action Study Abroad Program founded
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

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
2004

AY 2004-2005

  • Symposium: Tribute to Teshome Wagaw (February 18, 2005)
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
2007

AY 2007-2008

AY 2007-2008

Building the Beloved Community by Acknowledging and Preserving Our Past (Speakers) CAAS faculty and members of the The African American Cultural and Historical Museum, Washtenaw County (January 15, 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

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

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

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)
2016
2016

AY 2016-2017

  • Africa-China Conference 2017: Infrastructure, Resource Extraction, and Environmental Sustainability (April 6-7, 2017)
2018
2018

AY 2018-19

AY 2018-19
  • Chair: Matthew Countryman (2018-)
  • Conference: American Portuguese Studies Association (APSA) October 18-20, 2018)
  • Symposium: Gender Consciousness Symposium for Young Women of Color (December 8, 2018)
  • DAAS@Trotter on State (April 17,2019)
2019
2019

AY 2019-2020

AY 2019-2020
  • The “1619 Project” podcast and discussion series (January 14,16,21,23,27, 2020)
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