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Graham Heads Department of Africana Studies

Natalie Graham headshot

Professor Natalie Graham is dedicated to transparency, collaboration, and growth.  

The new head of the Department of Africana Studies is ready to bring it to the next level as a premier program. 

Natalie Graham joined UT as a professor in 2024 and had served as interim head of the Africana studies department since January 2025.  

In addition to teaching African studies, Graham leads poetry writing courses for the English department and has created an online writing course focused on popular music. She also developed a new Southern Food Cultures course.  

Focused on improvement and innovation in the department, Graham plans to position UT as a leader in Southern Africana Studies. “I’ve always been drawn to the power of education to transform us,” she said. “Africana Studies is centered on this transformation because we focus on creating creative and critical responses to the world around us.” 

Graham’s goals for the department include expanding co-curricular programs to support undergraduate and graduate students, enhancing their sense of belonging, research, and professional development. 

Long term, Graham wants to expand ongoing community partnerships, research development, and the overall student experience within the Department of Africana Studies. 

by Amy Beth Miller

The Supreme Court buliding against a bue sky and green lawns.

Supreme Court ruling: The latest in history of diminishing minority voting rights

Robert D. Bland, University of Tennessee

Divided along ideological lines, the U.S. Supreme Court on April 29, 2026, issued a ruling that severely weakens a provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. That provision, known as Section 2, prohibited any discriminatory voting practice or election rule that results in less opportunity for minority groups to exercise their political clout.

In her dissent on the ruling, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that it is the “latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”

The decision in the case known as Louisiana v. Callais struck down a Louisiana voting district drawn to consolidate Black voters into a district where they would be the majority. The court’s conservative majority deemed the drawing of the district an unconstitutional gerrymander.

That, wrote Kagan, will “systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power.”

I’m a historian of racial formation and electoral and cultural politics in the U.S. I see this decision by the nation’s highest court as the latest in a long line of successful attempts, by both state and federal authorities, to limit the political power of Black Americans and, most recently, to reverse the gains they won in two periods of civil rights advancement.

Etching away at voting rights

Back in 2013, the Supreme Court tossed out a key provision of the Voting Rights Act regarding federal oversight of elections.

In the Louisiana v. Callais case, the court seemed ready to abolish Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

While the conservative majority in Louisiana v. Callais did not explicitly strike down Section 2, the ruling appears likely to nonetheless open the floodgates for widespread vote dilution by allowing primarily Southern state legislatures to redraw political districts, weakening the voting power of racial minorities.

The case was brought by a group of Louisiana citizens who declared that the federal mandate under Section 2 to draw a second majority-Black district violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and thus served as an unconstitutional act of racial gerrymandering.

Initially designed to enshrine federal civil rights protections for freed people facing a battery of discriminatory “Black Codes” in the postbellum South, the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause has been the foundation of the nation’s modern rights-based legal order, ensuring that all U.S. citizens are treated fairly and preventing the government from engaging in explicit discrimination.

The cornerstone of the nation’s “second founding,” the Reconstruction-era amendments to the Constitution, including the 14th Amendment, created the first cohort of Black elected officials.

As I highlight in my new book “Requiem for Reconstruction,” the struggle over the nation’s second founding not only highlights how generational political progress can be reversed but also provides a lens into the specific historical origins of racial gerrymandering in the United States.

Without understanding this history – and the forces that unraveled Reconstruction’s initial promise of greater racial justice – we cannot fully comprehend the roots of those forces that are reshaping our contemporary political landscape in a way that I believe subverts the true intentions of the Constitution.

The long history of gerrymandering

Political gerrymandering, or shaping political boundaries to benefit a particular party, has been considered constitutional since the nation’s 18th-century founding, but racial gerrymandering is a practice with roots in the post-Civil War era.

Expanding beyond the practice of redrawing district lines after each decennial census, late 19th-century Democratic state legislatures built on the earlier cartographic practice to create a litany of so-called Black districts across the postbellum South.

The nation’s first wave of racial gerrymandering emerged as a response to the political gains Southern Black voters made during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant in the 1870s. Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina and Louisiana all elected Black congressmen during that decade. During the 42nd Congress, which met from 1871 to 1873, South Carolina sent Black men to the House from three of its four districts.

Initially, the white Democrats who ruled the South responded to the rise of Black political power by crafting racist narratives that insinuated that the emergence of Black voters and Black officeholders was a corruption of the proper political order. These attacks often provided a larger cultural pretext for the campaigns of extralegal political violence that terrorized Black voters in the South, assassinated political leaders, and marred the integrity of several of the region’s major elections.

Election changes

Following these pogroms during the 1870s, southern legislatures began seeking legal remedies to make permanent the counterrevolution of “Redemption,” which sought to undo Reconstruction’s advancement of political equality. A generation before the Jim Crow legal order of segregation and discrimination was established, southern political leaders began to disfranchise Black voters through racial gerrymandering.

These newly created Black districts gained notoriety for their cartographic absurdity. In Mississippi, a shoestring-shaped district was created to snake and swerve alongside the state’s famous river. North Carolina created the “Black Second” to concentrate its African American voters to a single district. Alabama’s “Black Fourth” did similar work, leaving African American voters only one possible district in which they could affect the outcome in the state’s central Black Belt.

South Carolina’s “Black Seventh” was perhaps the most notorious of these acts of Reconstruction-era gerrymandering. The district “sliced through county lines and ducked around Charleston back alleys” – anticipating the current trend of sophisticated, computer-targeted political redistricting.

Possessing 30,000 more voters than the next largest congressional district in the state, South Carolina’s Seventh District radically transformed the state’s political landscape by making it impossible for its Black-majority to exercise any influence on national politics, except for the single racially gerrymandered district.

Although federal courts during the late 19th century remained painfully silent on the constitutionality of these antidemocratic measures, contemporary observers saw these redistricting efforts as more than a simple act of seeking partisan advantage.

“It was the high-water mark of political ingenuity coupled with rascality, and the merits of its appellation,” observed one Black congressman who represented South Carolina’s 7th District.

Racial gerrymandering in recent times

The political gains of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes called the “Second Reconstruction,” were made tangible by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The law revived the postbellum 15th Amendment, which prevented states from creating voting restrictions based on race. That amendment had been made a dead letter by Jim Crow state legislatures and an acquiescent Supreme Court.

In contrast to the post-Civil War struggle, the Second Reconstruction had the firm support of the federal courts. The Supreme Court affirmed the principal of “one person, one vote” in its 1962 Baker v. Carr and 1964 Reynolds v. Sims decisions – upending the Solid South’s landscape of political districts that had long been marked by sparsely populated Democratic districts controlled by rural elites.

The Voting Rights Act gave the federal government oversight over any changes in voting policy that might affect historically marginalized groups. Since passage of the 1965 law and its subsequent revisions, racial gerrymandering has largely served the purpose of creating districts that preserve and amplify the political representation of historically marginalized groups.

This generational work is being undone by the current Supreme Court with its ruling in Louisiana v. Callais.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on Feb 3, 2026.The Conversation

Robert D. Bland, Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Natalie Graham, Interim Department Head of Africana Studies.

Graham Selected for Summer Poetry Residence

Natalie Graham, Interim Department Head of Africana Studies.

Natalie Graham has been selected to study under Tim Seibles in a prestigious 2026 summer residency.

Natalie Graham, professor of Africana studies, has been selected for a 2026 Poetry Residency by the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA). 

“I’m thrilled to connect with other writers and have dedicated feedback from a phenomenal writer and literary citizen,” Graham said. “I’m deeply honored to be able to participate in this residency and appreciate VONA’s longstanding commitment to craft and community.”

Graham, who also serves as interim department head for Africana studies, has been at UT since August 2024. She has been selected for the “Odes, Rages, Aubades & Elegies: Lighting the Heart’s Lamp” residency with Tim Seibles, where she will write and revise poems in topics of celebration, grief, memorialization, and joy. The course is led by Tim Seibles, a renowned, award-winning author of seven collections of poetry and numerous poems in literary journal articles and anthologies. 

VONA, established in 1999, is an organization rooted in social justice and created to support writers of color. The faculty and board of VONA is made of internationally renowned writers and poets of color, aiming to get voices of color heard, create community engagement, and expand writing opportunities. In this residency, Graham will get to work under distinguished VONA faculty through mentorship, editing, and writing programs. 

Graham previously served as Orange County, California’s Poet Laureate from 2021-2023. She has also toured nationally with her most recent collection of poems, Begin with a Failed Body. 

by Sloan Docekal

The Supreme Court buliding against a bue sky and green lawns.

Robert Bland in ‘The Conversation:’ The Supreme Court may soon diminish Black political power, undoing generations of gains

Robert D. Bland, University of Tennessee

Back in 2013, the Supreme Court tossed out a key provision of the Voting Rights Act regarding federal oversight of elections. It appears poised to abolish another pillar of the law.

In a case known as Louisiana v. Callais, the court appears ready to rule against Louisiana and its Black voters. In doing so, the court may well abolish Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a provision that prohibits any discriminatory voting practice or election rule that results in less opportunity for political clout for minority groups.

The dismantling of Section 2 would open the floodgates for widespread vote dilution by allowing primarily Southern state legislatures to redraw political districts, weakening the voting power of racial minorities.

The case was brought by a group of Louisiana citizens who declared that the federal mandate under Section 2 to draw a second majority-Black district violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and thus served as an unconstitutional act of racial gerrymandering.

There would be considerable historical irony if the court decides to use the 14th Amendment to provide the legal cover for reversing a generation of Black political progress in the South. Initially designed to enshrine federal civil rights protections for freed people facing a battery of discriminatory “Black Codes” in the postbellum South, the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause has been the foundation of the nation’s modern rights-based legal order, ensuring that all U.S. citizens are treated fairly and preventing the government from engaging in explicit discrimination.

The cornerstone of the nation’s “second founding,” the Reconstruction-era amendments to the Constitution, including the 14th Amendment, created the first cohort of Black elected officials.

I am a historian who studies race and memory during the Civil War era. As I highlight in my new book “Requiem for Reconstruction,” the struggle over the nation’s second founding not only highlights how generational political progress can be reversed but also provides a lens into the specific historical origins of racial gerrymandering in the United States.

Without understanding this history – and the forces that unraveled Reconstruction’s initial promise of greater racial justice – we cannot fully comprehend the roots of those forces that are reshaping our contemporary political landscape in a way that I believe subverts the true intentions of the Constitution.

The long history of gerrymandering

Political gerrymandering, or shaping political boundaries to benefit a particular party, has been considered constitutional since the nation’s 18th-century founding, but racial gerrymandering is a practice with roots in the post-Civil War era.

Expanding beyond the practice of redrawing district lines after each decennial census, late 19th-century Democratic state legislatures built on the earlier cartographic practice to create a litany of so-called Black districts across the postbellum South.

The nation’s first wave of racial gerrymandering emerged as a response to the political gains Southern Black voters made during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant in the 1870s. Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina and Louisiana all elected Black congressmen during that decade. During the 42nd Congress, which met from 1871 to 1873, South Carolina sent Black men to the House from three of its four districts.

Initially, the white Democrats who ruled the South responded to the rise of Black political power by crafting racist narratives that insinuated that the emergence of Black voters and Black officeholders was a corruption of the proper political order. These attacks often provided a larger cultural pretext for the campaigns of extralegal political violence that terrorized Black voters in the South, assassinated political leaders, and marred the integrity of several of the region’s major elections.

Election changes

Following these pogroms during the 1870s, southern legislatures began seeking legal remedies to make permanent the counterrevolution of “Redemption,” which sought to undo Reconstruction’s advancement of political equality. A generation before the Jim Crow legal order of segregation and discrimination was established, southern political leaders began to disfranchise Black voters through racial gerrymandering.

These newly created Black districts gained notoriety for their cartographic absurdity. In Mississippi, a shoestring-shaped district was created to snake and swerve alongside the state’s famous river. North Carolina created the “Black Second” to concentrate its African American voters to a single district. Alabama’s “Black Fourth” did similar work, leaving African American voters only one possible district in which they could affect the outcome in the state’s central Black Belt.

South Carolina’s “Black Seventh” was perhaps the most notorious of these acts of Reconstruction-era gerrymandering. The district “sliced through county lines and ducked around Charleston back alleys” – anticipating the current trend of sophisticated, computer-targeted political redistricting.

Possessing 30,000 more voters than the next largest congressional district in the state, South Carolina’s Seventh District radically transformed the state’s political landscape by making it impossible for its Black-majority to exercise any influence on national politics, except for the single racially gerrymandered district.

Although federal courts during the late 19th century remained painfully silent on the constitutionality of these antidemocratic measures, contemporary observers saw these redistricting efforts as more than a simple act of seeking partisan advantage.

“It was the high-water mark of political ingenuity coupled with rascality, and the merits of its appellation,” observed one Black congressman who represented South Carolina’s 7th District.

Racial gerrymandering in recent times

The political gains of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes called the “Second Reconstruction,” were made tangible by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The law revived the postbellum 15th Amendment, which prevented states from creating voting restrictions based on race. That amendment had been made a dead letter by Jim Crow state legislatures and an acquiescent Supreme Court.

In contrast to the post-Civil War struggle, the Second Reconstruction had the firm support of the federal courts. The Supreme Court affirmed the principal of “one person, one vote” in its 1962 Baker v. Carr and 1964 Reynolds v. Sims decisions – upending the Solid South’s landscape of political districts that had long been marked by sparsely populated Democratic districts controlled by rural elites.

The Voting Rights Act gave the federal government oversight over any changes in voting policy that might affect historically marginalized groups. Since passage of the 1965 law and its subsequent revisions, racial gerrymandering has largely served the purpose of creating districts that preserve and amplify the political representation of historically marginalized groups.

This generational work may soon be undone by the current Supreme Court. The court, which heard oral arguments in the Louisiana case in October 2025, will release its decision by the end of June 2026.The Conversation

Robert D. Bland, Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The University of Tennessee's Torchbearer statue holds a flame early in the morning.

Dery Publishes Study on Gender and Trust

Florence Dery, Assistant Professor.

A new study by Assistant Professor Florence Dery uncovered how gender differences influenced COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in Ghana. Dery and her colleagues found that men’s generally higher trust in institutions such as the Ministry of Health led to great acceptance, while women were often influenced by misinformation, social networks, and concerns about vaccine safety and fertility. Their paper in BMC Public Health recommends targeted interventions that build confidence through community engagement, transparent information sharing, and gender-sensitive health messaging.


A an orange Power "T" flag, for the University of Tennessee, waves against a bright blue, cloudy sky.

NEH Summer Institute Expands View of History

DeLisa Hawkes
DeLisa Hawkes

Exploring history alongside scholars from a variety of disciplines at sites in Richmond, Virginia, this summer brought new perspectives to DeLisa Hawkes, an assistant professor in the Department of Africana Studies.

Hawkes was part of a three-week National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for Higher Education Faculty titled “Towards a People’s History of Landscape: Black and Indigenous Histories.” 

“I have always had an interest in under-examined histories,” said Hawkes, who is also an affiliate faculty member in the Department of English and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Program. 

During the summer institute, scholars explored ways to teach place-oriented cultural histories. Hawkes and two dozen other selected participants from across the country also created modules with interdisciplinary perspectives for undergraduate and graduate-level courses aimed at “teaching in place.” The modules include perspectives from history, literature, architecture, dance, theater, landscape design, and political science, to name a few.

Each day, the scholars were assigned readings centered on Black or Indigenous histories, which they would discuss. They also met with local historians and visiting scholars. Field trips took them to sites in Richmond and surrounding cities.

The scholars went to Shockoe Bottom, once the site of the second-largest market for chattel slavery in the United States, and talked with Chief Anne Richardson while visiting the Rappahannock Tribal Center. They also visited historic African American cemeteries in Richmond, including the final resting place of Maggie Lena Walker, the first African American woman to found and lead a bank in the United States. 

Statue bust of Oliver Hill on a brick column
During a 2024 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, Assistant Professor DeLisa Hawkes photographed this bust of civil rights lawyer Oliver Hill in the historic Jackson Ward neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. Hawkes worked with others from across the country to create modules with interdisciplinary perspectives for undergraduate and graduate-level courses aimed at “teaching in place.”
Statue of Maggie Walker
Assistant Professor DeLisa Hawkes took this photo of a statue of Maggie Walker—the first African American woman to found and lead a US bank—during a tour of the Virginia Women’s Memorial in Richmond. The field trip was one of many during a 2024 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute focused on teaching place-oriented cultural histories.

Researching the histories of places and contesting viewpoints was a central feature of the institute.

“It was interesting to think about history and place and how certain narratives of people and places are uplifted while you have to look for others,” Hawkes observed.

While examining the landscape surrounding the state capitol, for example, she noted that the memorials to women who played prominent roles in Virginia’s history were smaller and positioned lower than those celebrating male military figures. 

Hawkes and a former colleague previously developed an Africana research methods course. Looking forward, Hawkes said she’d like to teach that course with archives of social action and the narratives of Knoxville’s African American historic sites at its center.

By Amy Beth Miller

DeLisa D. Hawkes stands next to a glass window with the words "Black Studies Project" written on it.

Hawkes Speaks on Black-Indigenous Stories/Studies Public Forum

DeLisa D. Hawkes, assistant professor in the UT Department of Africana Studies and affiliated faculty in the Department of English and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Program, was an invited panelist for Black-Indigenous Stories//Black-Indigenous Studies, a roundtable discussion at the University of California, San Diego, in March. 

DeLisa D. Hawkes

The roundtable, co-sponsored by the Black Studies Project and the Indigenous Futures Institute, asked panelists to discuss how their research considers the possibilities and limits of working at the intersection of Black, Native, and Indigenous Studies. Hawkes spoke about the possibilities within literary studies, while other panelists considered sociology and architecture as fields to discuss Black and Indigenous humanities research.

Hawkes also co-facilitated a research seminar on Black-Indigenous futurisms with Kathryn Walkiewicz (UCSD) on March 15, 2024, at the annual conference for the C19: Society for Nineteenth-Century Americanists, which is the first academic organization dedicated to nineteenth-century American literary and cultural studies.

“Being invited to speak on and share work from my manuscript-in-progress on the intersections of Black and Native/Indigenous Studies in literature was an enriching experience,” Hawkes said. “I got to connect with faculty working in education, communications, and history, to name a few. The work being done at the Black Studies Project and the Indigenous Futures Institute at UC San Diego shows how important it is to be thinking about these peoples’ histories and futures together.” 

Maria Takele

Young Alumni Spotlight

Maria Takele

Maria Takele (’21) received her BS in political science with an international relations concentration and minors in Africana studies and entrepreneurship. She was accepted in the International Radio and Television Society (IRTS) Foundation’s 2021 summer fellowship program. 

“It is an amazing opportunity,” said Takele, who interned with the streamlined media and communications team to help connect companies to cultures and generations through creative, strategic, and analytical art, education, research, and science. 

The IRTS Foundation is dedicated to bringing together the wisdom of yesterday’s founders, the power of today’s leaders, and the promise of tomorrow’s young professionals to build the next generation of media leaders, which they think should more accurately reflect the diverse demographic of today’s media consumers. 

This highly competitive fellowship is designed to connect students with each other and some of the largest names in media by providing education through access to a series of academic programs, industry events, and mentorship pipelines. 

“I hope to continue a career in communications, media & management and plan to one day obtain my master’s in these disciplines.”

Kwanbe Bullard Jr.

Africana Studies Graduate Shares the Importance of Identity

(Originally published on the UT Programs Abroad website.)

September 23, 2022 by Albrianna Jenkins

A photo of a man smiling on a bench
Kwanbe Bullard Jr., Class of 2022

Recent UT graduate and Knoxville native, Kwanbe Bullard Jr., is using his education and abroad experience from his time at The University of Tennessee to create a community where identity is valued, explored and understood.

To Bullard, identity is important because it shapes a person’s worldview. “We are who we are,” says Bullard, who self-identifies as a Black man, a Christian and a southerner. This past summer, in his final time at UT, Bullard chose to elevate his Volunteer experience with something more – an experience abroad to Ghana, Africa.

“I wanted to see [history] with my own eyes instead of seeing it on the Internet and in the books,” says Bullard. The UTK in Ghana summer program abroad, led by Dr. Amadou Sall, is one of many short-term, faculty-directed programs available for UT students to gain an international perspective while working towards their undergraduate degree.

Bullard shares that one of the experiences that resonated with him the most was the class visit to Elmina Castle. “That’s where the enslaved Africans were placed before they were shipped off to the New World,” explains Bullard. “Just listening to the tour guide and learning the history, being able to see the no return door- of how small the door was, and you’re losing your identity- who you are.”

From the conversation, Bullard grows somber. “That was a really big shocker. Just being in a room where enslaved Africans were,” Bullard admits as he describes the sights and smells of the stone dungeons of Elmina Castle.

Bullard with UTK in Ghana classmate, Avie Owensby

Culture Shock and Service-Learning in Ghana

This was among many of the resonating experiences Bullard and his classmates came away with. With previous classmate and Global Studies major, Avie Owensby, Bullard compares the culture of Ghana to that of the United States.

One thing that really shocked me,” shares Owensby, “was the market and bargaining culture, because here, we can just go to the store…They all go to the markets and get anything you can think of really or just on the streets with the ladies with the baskets…I thought that was crazy.” Bullard agrees, chiming in, “It’s like their mom, the dad, the granny, the granddaddy, down to the little kids and they’re all working…Here in the U.S. you don’t hardly see that.”

Two people talking while sitting on a bench
Bullard with UTK in Ghana classmate, Avie Owensby

The two continue reflecting on their experiences, sharing moments of culture shock and surprise, memories of bustling city markets and an impactful service learning project at Hopeway Orphanage.

“I enjoyed it,” says Bullard. “Building a relationship with the kids. Just being able to take pictures with them with the Polaroid camera.” Owensby, too, shares her experience. “It was really fun to… interact. Like, my girl that I was paired with was Blessing. Blessing was sweet.”

Owensby then reflects on a time when the group had to be flexible in their travel plans. “I really wanted to go on the Kakum National Park canopy walk,” says Owensby, “but because of the rainy season, the floods kind of made it hard to get there. So, we didn’t do it, but we got to go on the little one.” Bullard admits, “I was nervous about [it]. So, it was my first time being on a canopy walk and just being off the ground.”

Kwanbe Bullard Jr.: A Trailblazer, A Change-Maker, A Volunteer

The canopy walk was not the only “first” for Bullard. The international experience was Bullard’s first time leaving the country, and as a first generation college student, Bullard also navigated new terrain at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

“I attended a local community college before transferring to UT in the fall of 2020,” says Bullard. “This is home,” he adds with a smile. Moments later, The Pride of the Southland Band is heard playing in the distance, and Bullard sings along. “Good Ole Rocky Top. Whoo! Rocky Top, Tennessee,” he sings before breaking into a laugh.

When asked what drew him to UT and what barriers he faced, Bullard’s answer for both was the same: finances. Without financial assistance, Bullard admits that he would not have had the same educational opportunities nor the experiences. As a recipient of the Latasia and Donnell Priest Study Abroad Scholarship, Bullard was able to participate in the UTK in Ghana program without having to overcome the financial barrier.

“I am so thankful to the Priest family. Because of their generosity, I was able to have my first, and hopefully not last, international experience. The UTK in Ghana program was so impactful because I couldn’t have learned the same things or really understood them just by reading it in a book,” says Bullard.

Now, Bullard is able to draw upon his education and international experience from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as he works in the community to educate the public and address issues of civil rights.

Finding Identity in Community

Among the many components of his identity, Bullard lists “community activist.” Since his senior year at Austin-East Magnet High School, Bullard has served in both a volunteer and staff capacity at the Beck Cultural Exchange Center (Beck Center). With free admission to the public and home to over 50,000 artifacts, the Beck Center is the only organization in the region dedicated to local and regional African American history.

Now, Bullard uses his platform at the Beck Center to show that knowing one’s own identity helps to recognize and appreciate our unique differences. ”I’m very passionate about Black history,” says Bullard, “and so I wanted to learn more so I can teach… and show Black history since it’s not being taught as much in schools.” This is why Bullard chose to major in Africana Studies at UT.

Africana Studies has been a program for over 50 years at the University of Tennessee, and recently, the program developed into its own department. “I can see that great work is being done at the University of Tennessee for minority students and creating spaces for them,” said Bullard of this achievement.

Kwanbe Bullard Jr. was recently named the Africana Studies Outstanding Graduate of 2022. Bullard shares that he could not have done it alone. “My teachers, my community, myself and my family impacted me,” says Bullard. As students like Kwanbe Bullard Jr. use their platform to create tangible change in the community and throughout the world, the Center for Global Engagement challenges each Volunteer – current and graduated, student and staff person – to answer for themselves the question of what it means to be a global citizen and steward of the Volunteer spirit.

For more information on UT’s Global vision and CGE’s efforts to support this mission, visit https://cge.utk.edu/global-vision/ or contact the Center for Global Engagement at 865-974-3177. To learn more about faculty-directed program options or other opportunities to go abroad, visit programsabroad.utk.edu or contact Programs Abroad at 865-974-3177 or volsabroad@utk.edu.

To hear more about the experiences of Africana Studies graduate, Kwanbe Bullard, and Global Studies major, Avie Owensby, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzEFsemHCtQ

CONTACT:

Albrianna Jenkins (865-974-3177, ajenki58@utk.edu)

(Article originally published on the UT Programs Abroad website.)

Monica Brashears

Africana Studies Alumna Publishes Debut Novel

Monica Brashears

Writing Her Future, from 2019

Monica Brashears is a senior graduating with a double major in English and Africana Studies. During her time at UT, she has received the Robert A. Burke Creative Writing Award, the Eleanor Burke Award for Nonfiction, the Michael Dennis Poetry Award, and the Margaret Artley Woodruff Award. She also received the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship were she participated in study abroad traveling to Senegal.

Monica was also listed as summa cum laude, on the Dean’s List in the College of Arts and Sciences. Upon graduation, she will attend Syracuse University in fall 2019 to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (fiction).

House of Cotton

Brashears Publishes Debut Novel to Great Acclaim

Monica Brashears’ (’19) House of Cotton (Flatiron Books, 2023) has received positive press from many news outlets. The book was previewed on The Today Show. Brashears came back to UT to give a reading on April 17, 2023.

See the article published by Today

About House of Cotton, from Monica Brashears’ website:

Magnolia Brown is nineteen years old, broke, and effectively an orphan. She feels stuck and haunted: by her overdrawn bank account, her predatory landlord, and the ghost of her late grandmother Mama Brown.

One night, while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia’s luck around with a lucrative “modeling” job at his family’s funeral home. She accepts. But despite things looking up, Magnolia’s problems fatten along with her wallet. When Cotton’s requests become increasingly weird, Magnolia discovers there’s a lot more at stake than just her rent.

Sharp as a belted knife, this sly social commentary cuts straight to the bone. House of Cotton will keep you mesmerized until the very last page.

a photo of Africana Studies department head and professor Shayla C. Nunnally Violette and associate dean of students Crystal Hardeman-Ikem discuss the importance of Juneteenth and how it's celebrated.

Africana Studies Faculty Celebrate Juneteenth

Africana Studies Department Head and Professor Shayla C. Nunnally and Crystal Hardeman-Ikem, Associate Dean of Students and Director of Inclusive Excellence in the Office of the Dean of Students, share information on the history of Juneteenth and ways we can all celebrate the nation’s youngest federal holiday.

The 40th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parade

The 40th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parade will take place on June 20, 2022. The route will run down Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and end at the Dr. Walter E. Hardy Park, where the Beck Culture Exchange Center’s Juneteenth Celebration will start at noon. Line-up will begin at 8:30 a.m. at Chilhowee Park, 3300 E. Magnolia Avenue. Step-off is at 10:00 a.m. UT is registered as a group, so it is unnecessary to register individually. We ask that you sign-up here so that we know how many to expect. If you have questions, please email Quannah Washington at qwashing@utk.edu.

Parking will be available at Overcoming Believers Church and Tabernacle Church. Those who park at Tabernacle Church can board at Cruze Street to be transported to Chilhowee Park. Boarding starts at 8:30 a.m. at Harriet Tubman Street at the KAT bus shelter across from The Change Center for transport to Beaman Street near the Chilhowee Park entrance. The shuttle service will park at Cruze Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to return participants who parked in the Overcoming Believers and Chilhowee parking area. Participants will be shuttled every 15 to 20 minutes from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., stopping at the three locations for loading and unloading participants. The shuttle services will end at 12:30 p.m.

At the end of the parade, the UT bus will make one trip back to Chilhowee Park. If you park there and need a ride back, please feel free to get on the bus. The bus capacity is 35 people. We look forward to seeing you on June 20th!

Additional Information

For additional information about Juneteenth celebrations in Knoxville, please visit the MLK website and the Beck Center website.

DeLisa Hawkes

Hawkes Receives SHARP Development Grant 

DeLisa Hawkes

DeLisa D. Hawkes, assistant professor of Africana studies at UT, received a research development grant from the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP). The grant is for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) scholars and assists Hawkes with conducting research for her first book project tentatively titled Separate Yet Intertwined: Black and Native Bonds in the Ongoing New Negro Renaissance. Hawkes’s book project focuses on how literary works from the period known as the New Negro Renaissance of the 1920s to 1930s discuss the relationships between Black and Indigenous peoples.

“Support from SHARP shows a growing interest in the ongoing distinct yet similar experiences of Black and Indigenous peoples in the United States and the extensive history of their collaborative efforts,” said Hawkes.

Additionally, Hawkes was invited to participate in the 2022 First Book Institute hosted by the Center for American Literary Studies at Penn State University. The Institute consists of workshops geared towards helping the cohort of eight scholars from around the country to develop their book project for publication with a leading university press.

Hawkes’s research explores and brings attention to the experiences of Black and Indigenous people with topics such as enslavement and colonization. Furthermore, she turns her attention to overlooked topics in literature from the New Negro Renaissance.

“Separate Yet Intertwined invites audiences to imagine anticolonial relationships between Black, Indigenous, and people of color, as well as views of the self within these communities,” said Hawkes.

Hawkes is very engaged in community and scholarship at UT. She recently developed AFST 435, a course that explores literary representations of relationships between Black and Indigenous peoples in the United States. Additionally, Hawkesorganized the panel “A Sharecropper’s Dream: The Legacy of Black Farmers and Black Land Ownership” for Black Ecologies Week at UT. She also assisted in bringing the notable Tiffany Lethabo King to speak during Black Ecologies Week.

“I enjoy discussing my research and teaching with students, colleagues from multiple disciplines, and community members,” said Hawkes. “I look forward to more opportunities to bring scholars and community members to campus who are interested in the intersections between Black and Indigenous studies.”

—Story by Sarah Berry

Kwanbe Bullard

Student Spotlight Roundup

Mentoring Others: Kwanbe D. Bullard Jr.

Kwanbe Bullard

Kwanbe D. Bullard Jr. is a native of Knoxville, Tennessee, and a member of the Austin-East High School Class of 2017. Bullard also graduated from Pellissippi State Community College Class of 2020 with an associates of science in reaching. He’s continuing his education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville majoring in Africana Studies with a minor in sociology and is expected to graduate May 2022.

As a college student at UT, Bullard is a member of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Project Grad Knoxville, Tau Sigma National Honors Society, Gamma Beta Phi Society and National Society of Leadership and Success, and Campus Events Board. Bullard is a Project Grad Ambassador for UT. As ambassador, he helps incoming freshmen transition into college life.

Bullard currently works at the Beck Cultural Exchange Center as an executive staff member. In this role, he’s responsible for community outreach and engagement. He also serves as the lead contact for the Knoxville Community Step-Up program that focuses on reducing incarceration and the recidivism rate among Black males that operates out of Beck. Bullard has been working and/or volunteering with Beck since his senior year at Austin-East High School. Beck president, Rev. Reneé Kesler has served as his mentor throughout.

Advocating for Universal Daycare: Isabella Reed

Isabella Reed

Isabella Reed is a senior majoring in English with a concentration in rhetoric and writing and minoring in Africana Studies and business. 

As part of her minor in Africana Studies, Reed has an opportunity to conduct research with Professor Danielle Procope Bell, who is working on a project about Black women’s early involvement in advocating for universal daycare, starting in the late 19th century. 

Specifically, Bell examines how Black women’s unique relationship to paid labor drove many Black women activists to take a positive view of daycares and kindergartens, while it was still very taboo among white suffragists or considered something only “unfit” mothers should utilize. 

Reed will read sources related to the topic and assist Professor Bell to develop fully the historical breadth of her research. Findings will generate an article or book chapter that will bring awareness to the subject. 

Angelica Williams

Africana Studies Archives Project

Africana Studies Archives Project

Angelica Williams will spend the next semester digging through archival materials to uncover the history of the Africana studies program at UT.

A junior English literature major, Williams has experience with preserving materials. In addition to a previous job with the McClung Museum, Williams works as a student library assistant for rare books in the UT Hodges Library.

DeLisa D. Hawkes, a new assistant professor of Africana studies, chose Williams for the assistantship and will oversee her work of processing and curating an exhibit as part of the 50+ years of Africana studies celebration this spring.

Williams has a unique opportunity to review rare photographs – including one of Nina Simone, presumably on the UT campus. She will go through documents and other items, such as minutes from the East Tennessee Committee Against Racism and Apartheid.

“In the future, I would like to enter the field of rare books librarianship,” Williams said. “This assistantship will help to further equip me with the skills necessary to preserve materials for widespread use, to recognize areas of interest within rare materials that are going unattended to, and to utilize various research methods upon entering my prospective job field.”

Dr. Carolyn Hodges

Endowment Provides Study Abroad Opportunities for Students

In addition to classroom training, Africana Studies offers study abroad opportunities for students. In May 2022, Amadou Sall, lecturer in Africana studies, will resume the study abroad program in Ghana. 

The program takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of African traditions, cultures, religions, political economies, the impact of colonization, globalization, and the role of Africa in the contemporary world. Participants engage in service learning by working with local communities on issues related to poverty, social justice, race, and gender. Students also learn to speak basic African languages (Wolof and Fulani) and French. Students in any major with a 2.0 GPA or higher are eligible for the study abroad opportunity. 

headshot photo of Dr. Carolyn Hodges
Dr. Carolyn Hodges

Funding for study abroad in the Africana studies department is provided by the Dr. Carolyn R. Hodges and Dr. Amadou B. Sall Travel Endowment. In honor of Professor Emerita Carolyn Hodges and Africana Studies Lecturer Amadou Sall, the fund was established in 2019 to support the program within the College of Arts and Sciences and provide student funds for travel so they have the opportunity to participate. 

Hodges joined UT in 1982 as an assistant professor of German. Her 37-year-career at UT included several leadership positions. She rose from assistant to full professor and served as head of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures from 1999 to 2004. She was associate dean for faculty personnel and, in 2007, became the university’s first African American vice provost and dean of the Graduate School. She served in that position until 2016 when she rejoined the faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences as a professor of German and chair of the Africana Studies program. She retired from UT in 2019, but left a legacy of leadership and in November 2019, was inducted into the UT African-American Hall of Fame, housed in the Frieson Black Cultural Center on campus. She has written a number of articles and books, including the most recent book, Truth Without Tears: African American Women Deans Share Lessons in Leadership (Harvard Education Press, 2018), which she co-authored with Olga M. Welch. 

Amadou Sall
Dr. Amadou B. Sall

Sall has been part of the Volunteer community for more than 30 years and an advocate of internationalism and interculturalism on campus. As a lecturer of Africana Studies, Sall has been a leader in promoting diversity and multicultural understanding both within and outside the classroom. He regularly organizes events to broaden peoples’ understanding. Since the 1980s he has worked with the African Student Association on their annual production of Africa Week. He has been honored for his dedication with the University Citation for Excellence in Teaching, the Outstanding Adult Educator–East Tennessee College Alliance Award, and the Black Graduate and Professional Student Association’s Outstanding and Dedicated Service Award, to name a few. 

Both Hodges and Sall received the Hardy Liston Jr. Symbol of Hope award, which goes to a faculty member, staff member, or friend of the university who demonstrates a commitment to diversity, multiculturalism, and appreciation of the differences in people and cultures on our campus. Liston – the first African American member of the UT Knoxville central administration – came to UT in 1970 as the assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs and professor of mechanical engineering. He retired in 1990 and passed away in 2021 at the age of 91. Sall received the award in 2014 and Hodges received the award in 2017. The award is presented by the UT Commission for Blacks each year during the Chancellor’s Honors Banquet. 

Thanks to their generosity, UT students will have the opportunity to travel to Africa and experience the cultural richness of the area, as well as learn about issues impacting the local communities. If you are interested in supporting this opportunity for our students, please visit africana.utk.edu to donate to the endowment.

Shayla Nunnally

New Year & New Beginning: The Department of Africana Studies

We began celebrating the “50+ Year Anniversary” of the Africana studies program in spring 2021 and featured past directors and former and current students. We highlighted the history, strength, and visions of the past directors and their contributions to our program. We also welcomed presentations and discussions with renowned, mixed-media artist, Joe Sam and Oscar-award-winning costume designer, Ruth E. Carter, who is known for her most recent work in Coming 2 America. The UT Department of Theatre and the Clarence Brown Theatre co-sponsored these events.

We also hosted Ron McCurdy from the University of Southern California, who performed Langston Hughes’ “Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods of Jazz,” with the Langston Hughes Project. Jessica Johnson discussed the book, Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World.

We co-sponsored programs in honor of Frederick Douglass Day with colleagues in the Department of English; lectures featuring Abou-Bakar Mamah’s discussion of post-democracy in sub-Saharan Africa with colleagues in the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures. Koritha Mitchell conducted a workshop on responsible teaching in violent times. With our colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies, we featured the civil rights activism and journey of John Hodges, past chair of Africana Studies. We hosted panel discussions featuring several activists and scholars, who centered social justice issues, activism, and scholarship on the “carceral state” and criminalization in the Appalachian South, with other co-sponsors from the UT Departments of History and Sociology, and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Program. Finally, we participated in the Critical Race Collective’s Symposium on the impact of systemic racism and COVID-19 on higher education.

The celebration will continue as a two-year, commemoration in a virtual and in-person fête. We hope you will be able to join us for events this spring.

In other good news, Carolyn R. Hodges, former chair of Africana studies (2016-2019) and vice provost and dean emerita of the UT Graduate School, has committed to establishing the Dr. Carolyn R. Hodges and Dr. Amadou B. Sall Travel Endowment to support students participating in the Africana studies study abroad program. Hodges established the endowment to help support and enhance Africana studies, as well as honor the dedicated work of Amadou Sall, who initiated study abroad programs in Africana studies and who has led numerous study trips to Ghana, Senegal, and South Africa, since 2005. Sall’s excursive programs engage students in language learning, classes on African history and culture, and service learning. For more information or ways to donate to the Hodges-Sall Travel Endowment, visit us at africana.utk.edu.

We also have been closing the end of the 2021-2022 academic year, with the excitement of preparing for departmental status by hiring new faculty and planning for an inaugural leadership and civic engagement summer academy for rising high school students in the Knoxville area, in collaboration with the Office of Diversity and Engagement and Project Grad Knoxville.

Most importantly, with May being an exhilarating time of graduation, we invite all to join us in celebrating and recognizing our outstanding graduates. We congratulate our Class of 2021 Africana Studies major and minors and honor the achievement of Africana Studies major, Adanze Nwokochah, who is our 2021 Outstanding Graduate in Africana Studies with the College of Arts and Sciences.

Thank you for your support of our department.

Sincerely,

Shayla C. Nunnally Violette
Professor and Head
UT Department of Africana Studies