Journal of Black Studies

This study explores the relationship between the federal Title I program and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). In this study, I reviewed publicly available admission data across five HBCUs by reviewing websites, reports, and obtaining data from the Universities. The article examines the complicated origins of the Title I legislation and HBCUs and argues for a more intentional and strategic relationship given the historical and relational connection of the students served. The findings highlight a large number of students graduating from Title I schools are attending HBCUs. Furthermore, this article presents several policy recommendations to support the original intent of the Title I legislation while addressing some of the complex systems of oppression and discursive practices in the process of policy formulation.

A PipelineFor the Success of Underserved Students

In this study I analyzed the findings through the lens of Amartya Sen’s capability approach for social justice. Incorporating Amartya Sen’s capability approach when assessing the relationship between HBCUs and Title I provides a broader, multi-criteria framework that answers the need for a normative ideal. I propose Amartya Sen’s capability approach as a way of expanding the conversation around Title I and HBCUs as important to contributing to the quality of life and connecting this issue to a wider discussion centered around educating kids of poverty. Applying Amartya Sen’s capability approach to the HBCU-Title I enrollment data may provide a powerful framework for understanding social justice dimensions, as the capability approach integrates social justice into the list of priorities and prompts questions around building a more just society, while taking into account human dignity and well-being for all.

Literature revealed a decline among all marriages, with a noticeably higher decrease within Black populations. While research has explored contributing factors to the Black marital decline and examined mating and dating preferences among college students, few have amplified the voices of Black heterosexual cis-gender males to acknowledge what is preferred in a partner. The aims of this study were to explore Black males’ preference in a long-term and short-term partner. A total of 246 self-identified heterosexual Black males were asked to evaluate 36 characteristics/traits from the Romantic Partner Preferences Scales (RPP) and 18 additional preferences developed from the Black Scholars’ Partner Preferences items (BSPP) to comprise the mating and dating preferences of heterosexual Black males over the age of 25. Paired sample t-tests denoted greater importance was given to 43 of the 54 preference items for a long-term partner as compared to a short-term partner. Loyal, faithful, understanding, and responsible were highly valued characteristics in a long-term partner, while sex appeal, physically attractive, healthy, and sexually available were valued in a short-term partner. Honesty and stable personality were highly valued irrespective of relationship type. Black males who identified as Christian valued the domains of status and wealth, good parenting, and spiritual values regardless of relationship type. This study demonstrated Black heterosexual males preferred internal characteristics in a long-term partner. Understanding Black males’ partner preferences based on relationship types may offer insight into Black males desires despite a marital decline among the Black population.

For decades, the Black population has experienced a decline in marital rates. While researchers have investigated the underlying causes of this decline, there is limited knowledge regarding the preferences of Black males when dating or selecting a marital partner. This study sought to explore Black males’ preferences and determine if there are variations in their preferences based on whether the partner is long-term (marriage or mating) or short-term (dating). A total of 246 self-identified Black heterosexual cisgender males aged 25 and above completed the Romantic Partner Preferences (RPP) survey, which included character preferences such as loyalty, faithfulness, and healthy. In addition to rating the RPP items, participants rated items suggested by Black scholars (e.g., children from previous relationships, same race, shared culture). These Black scholars’ items were designed to enhance the RPP by incorporating items relevant to the Black community when dating or seeking a long-term partner. The results revealed distinct differences between what Black males desire in a long-term partner and a short-term partner. The article expands upon the discussion on marital decline by exploring the qualities that Black males value in both long-term and short-term partnerships. It provides a historical, contextual, and practical framework for understanding these preferences. This exploration may offer valuable insights for therapists who provide counseling to Black males and their female partners in both couples and individual therapy settings.

This paper presents the findings from interviews of renowned Black education scholars discussing the challenges Black students are facing in the K-12 educational system. The paper begins with an introduction outlining the “cultural war” that has been waged against Black youth, it provides an overview of Afrocentric theory as it is used in the field of education, provides the methodology used to glean data, offers an analysis from interviews, and provides implications and discussion for the ways in which Black students would be better served if education policy, research, and practice were positioned to acknowledge the successes that African centered education has had among Black youth. The findings include three interconnected themes, including: the need for a culturally centered and culturally responsive pedagogy as educational imperatives, the role of expectations and cultural centeredness in shaping educational achievement, and the significance of intergenerational learning and humanely equitable relationships in fostering the academic and personal growth of Black students.

The Cultural War: The Critical Need for African Centered Education

This article argues that Black students are often harmed by an educational system that ignores or devalues their culture, history, and lived experiences. Through interviews with leading Black education scholars, the study explains that African Centered Education (ACE) can help improve Black students’ academic success, identity, confidence, and sense of belonging.

The scholars emphasize that culturally centered teaching, high expectations, positive relationships, and community involvement are critical for helping Black students thrive. The article concludes that schools, teacher preparation programs, and policymakers should take African Centered Education more seriously as a pathway toward educational equity and empowerment.

This study examines how the #CROWNAct hashtag operates as a site of digital mobilization and racial justice discourse on Twitter. Originating from the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act, the movement extends anti-discrimination advocacy into online spaces where Black women and allies engage in collective resistance to hair-based bias. Using social network analysis (SNA), the study analyzes a dataset of 209 #CROWNAct tweets collected via DiscoverText and visualized through Gephi to identify patterns of interaction among government officials, corporations, celebrities, and non-celebrity individuals. Findings reveal a multi-nodal network anchored by The CROWN Act’s official account, activist leaders, and public figures. The analysis situates this network within broader traditions of Black feminist digital activism and considers how moments of mediated visibility—like the 2022 Oscars incident—catalyze renewed attention to systemic hair discrimination. Ultimately, the #CROWNAct Twitter network illustrates how affect, policy discourse, and digital culture converge to shape the ongoing struggle for racial and esthetic equity.

How Social Media Helped Build the Movement for the CROWN Act

The CROWN Act is a law designed to prevent discrimination against natural hair textures and protective styles such as braids, locs, twists, and bantu knots. Although the legislation focuses on workplace and school protections, conversations about hair discrimination have increasingly taken place online, where people share personal experiences and organize support for policy change. This study explores how #CROWNAct was used on Twitter to promote awareness of the law and discuss issues of hair discrimination. Using social network analysis, the study examines 209 tweets collected in March 2022 to understand who participated in the conversation and how messages spread across the platform. Findings show the conversation was anchored by a small number of highly visible accounts, including the official CROWN Act account and political advocates, while many users contributed by sharing personal stories or amplifying messages through retweets. The study shows how cultural events can shape policy conversations online. Here, the 2022 Academy Awards incident involving Chris Rock and Jada Pinkett Smith sparked renewed discussion about the policing of Black women’s hair and increased attention to the CROWN Act. The study contributes to Black Studies by documenting how discussions about natural hair reflect histories of racialized beauty standards and the policing of Blackness. By examining how these conversations unfold online, research highlights how Black women and their allies use digital platforms to challenge discrimination and assert cultural pride. The #CROWNAct illustrates how social media can function as a space where Black communities debate and mobilize around issues of identity, dignity, and racial justice. The study demonstrates how social media can connect personal experiences, cultural debates, and legislative advocacy.

This article explores the lasting impacts of slavery across the African diaspora, using insights from international symposia organized by the UNESCO Slave Routes Project and recent reparations summits in Ghana. The research highlights both positive and negative community legacies passed down through generations via socialization. Positive legacies include cultural continuity through music and spirituality, adaptable family structures, verbal ingenuity, economic independence strategies, and collective resistance mechanisms that supported survival and resilience. Negative legacies remain as obstacles to current well-being, such as harsh child discipline, colorism, systemic division and distrust, self-deprecation, problematic use of racial epithets, and patterns of intraracial violence. The article presents Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS) as a framework for understanding how these interconnected behaviors originate from unaddressed historical trauma and persist through community and family socialization. Drawing from therapeutic practices in Jamaica and Colombia, the authors suggest community psychological decolonization as a key approach to healing, supported by individual and family interventions that target the fundamental causes of trauma-related behaviors. While external racism continues to be the main obstacle to progress, addressing internalized oppression through systematic healing is crucial for genuine liberation and post-traumatic growth. The article emphasizes that lasting progress depends on both honesty about historical injustices and concrete actions to reform systems that sustain inequality, representing a continuous journey of healing, understanding, and systemic transformation across individuals, communities, and institutions.

Despite the profession’s commitment to multiculturalism and social justice, Black men are significantly underrepresented in counselor education programs. Although counseling literature has begun to address the experiences of Black students and counselor educators in recent years, the research specific to Black men as students remains scarce. This interdisciplinary critical literature review examines the scholarship on Black men in counselor education programs by centering their voices through the lens of Black Critical Theory to examine how anti-Blackness shapes their experiences. The review highlights salient themes of marginalization, lack of representation and the need for supportive environments. Findings reveal persistent gaps in the literature identifying the need for culturally affirming action-oriented reform in counselor education. Implications for professional and programmatic changes as well as future research are discussed with a call to reimagine counselor education as a space of belonging for Black men.

Understanding Black Men’s Experiences in Counselor Education Programs.

The COVID-19 pandemic, alongside the heightened racialized sociopolitical unrest following the murder of George Floyd, intensified longstanding structural racism, exacerbating racial stress, and trauma among Black youth. This scoping review synthesizes recent literature on culturally relevant interventions developed or implemented since the pandemic’s onset to address these challenges. Following PRISMA-ScR guidelines, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Academic Search Complete were searched for studies published from 2020 to 2024. Eligible interventions targeted Black youth from childhood through emerging adulthood, addressed racial stress or trauma, and included a therapeutic component or psychosocial skill-building component. Five studies met inclusion criteria, spanning family-based prevention programs, school-based counseling interventions, and culturally grounded arts-based and identity-focused approaches. Across studies that included empirical evaluation, reported outcomes included improved family communication about race, enhanced coping strategies, increased racial pride, strengthened ethnic–racial identity, and improved psychological functioning. Other studies contributed qualitative insights or programmatic frameworks relevant to culturally responsive practice. Interventions that supported caregiver-driven racial socialization, incorporated culturally grounded arts-based stress management, or intentionally fostered ethnic–racial identity development showed the most promise. Approaches involving caregivers or community engagement reinforced protective racial socialization messages and promoted resilience. Findings highlight the urgent need for scalable, sustainable, and culturally responsive interventions that address both the psychological and sociocultural dimensions of racial stress. An additional priority is evaluating these approaches with youth presenting more clinically severe or complex symptom profiles, as many studies do not assess severity in depth. Future research should rigorously evaluate these models longitudinally, refine culturally relevant strategies, and explore diverse socialization agents to optimize well-being among Black youth.

Helping Black Youth Heal from Racism: How Culturally Relevant Programs Can Reduce Stress, Build Pride, and Support Well-Being During and After COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic not only disrupted daily life but also highlighted and worsened existing racism in the United States. Black children and teens have faced unique challenges during this time, including more frequent exposure to racism, both in their own lives and through constant news and social media coverage of racial violence. These experiences can cause “racial stress”—emotional and physical strain related to racism—and sometimes lead to “racial trauma,” which affects mental health, self-esteem, and school performance. This review looked at five studies published between 2020 and 2024 that tested programs designed to help Black youth cope with racial stress and trauma. These programs took place in families, schools, and communities, and included activities like therapy sessions that addressed racism directly, music and arts programs that built cultural pride, and workshops that strengthened communication between youth and their caregivers. Across different approaches, the programs helped youth and families talk more openly about race, build coping skills, strengthen pride in being Black, and improve emotional well-being. Programs that involved parents, caregivers, or community members were especially effective, as they reinforced positive messages about racial identity and resilience. The results show that programs work best when they reflect the culture, history, and lived experiences of Black youth. They should also address both the emotional impact of racism and the everyday realities of navigating a racially unequal society. While more research is needed, especially to see which programs work best over time, these findings highlight the importance of creating and expanding culturally relevant programs that help Black youth thrive in the face of racism.

This article examines the NAACP’s campaign against police brutality from 1937 to 1965, drawing on over 90 case files from the association’s national archives. Using a Critical Race Theory framework, it analyzes how the NAACP developed investigatory, judicial, and media tactics to counteract systematic racial abuse in the absence of state accountability. The study identifies a shift from reactive legalism to a more expansive activism model that blended evidence collection, public exposure, and community-driven narratives to challenge official impunity. Despite the 1945 Screws v. United States decision, which theoretically expanded federal authority, the Department of Justice consistently declined to pursue prosecution, forcing the NAACP to develop alternative accountability mechanisms. This multi-level organizational approach, shaped by tactical adaptation and bureaucratic learning, demonstrates the power of administrative infrastructure in sustaining civil rights work beyond landmark court cases. By focusing on how the NAACP treated police brutality as both a constitutional and epistemic crisis, the article illuminates broader implications for understanding organizational memory, movement strategy, and the ongoing struggle for racial justice in hostile legal environments.

How the NAACP Fought Police Brutality Before the Civil Rights Act and What It Means for Today

Between 1937 and 1965, Black Americans faced routine police violence with almost no government accountability, and this study draws on more than ninety case files from the NAACP’s national archives to show how the organization responded. Early on, the NAACP relied mainly on legal action after incidents occurred, but over time it built a broader system: gathering and standardizing evidence, supporting community members in documenting abuses, and working with journalists to bring those stories to public attention. When a 1945 Supreme Court decision (Screws v. United States) appeared to give the federal government greater authority to prosecute abusive officers, the Department of Justice still refused to act, forcing the NAACP to deepen its own accountability infrastructure instead. What the case files reveal across these decades is careful, cumulative learning, as the organization kept detailed records, revisited earlier cases, and carried those lessons forward in ways that made it faster and more effective over time. By treating police violence as both a legal problem and a question of whose accounts were believed and whose were dismissed, the NAACP sustained a long campaign in a deeply hostile environment, offering lessons about organizational persistence and community-driven accountability that remain relevant to reform efforts today.

This study pays specific attention to co-parenting conflict in Trinidad, one of the countries that comprise a small twin island state (Trinidad and Tobago). Empirical research on co-parenting conflict in Trinidad’s cultural context remains limited particularly concerning the nature of Afro-Trinidadian co-parental conflict post-separation and divorce. This study explores the nature of co-parenting conflict among Afro-Trinidadian families following divorce or separation. Data was collected using qualitative methods that comprised 13 semi-structured interviews with co-parents who would have parented at least one child following the dissolution of the relationship. Participants were recruited via a flyer posted on social media, snowball, and purposive sampling methods. Thematic analysis was employed and themes derived formed soundbites that highlighted conflictual issues around co-parenting among Afro-Trinidadians. Findings reveal that while co-parenting conflict is often shaped by interpersonal tensions, it is also deeply influenced by broader issues such as finances, gender expectations, disciplinary practices, decisions about education and the cultural impact of social support, which all intersect with communication. This research contributes to a growing body of literature that seeks to contextualize co-parenting within culturally specific frameworks. By amplifying voices overlooked in mainstream discourse, the study provides critical insights into how conflict is experienced and navigated by Afro-Trinidadian co-parents and offers recommendations for promoting healthier co-parenting relationships and child outcomes within Trinidad. Further, there are implications for Trinidad and Tobago, to employ community programs around co-parenting and re-energize traditional family values, as well as engage in continuous research and collaboration with macro society to address co-parental conflict in a productive manner.

Domestic work is a pillar of Brazil’s racial capitalism. The profession is widely recognized as a legacy of enslavement that keeps approximately 7 million people—most of whom are black women—in social and economic captivity. Like in Anna Muylaert’s film Que horas ela volta? (The Second Mother, Anna Muylaert, 2015), Solitária (“Lonely” 2022), by Eliana Alves Cruz, depicts domestic work as a social evil to be eradicated. Moreover, Cruz fictionalizes the death of 5-year-old Miguel Otávio Santana da Silva, underscoring the tragic consequences of negligence by his mother’s employer. In this study, I argue that Cruz uses spatial images to advocate for the end of domestic work and to criticize nation-building projects that profit from the exploitation of Black women. I explore Afropessimist theories, which critique the foundational role of anti-blackness in sustaining social structures, alongside the works of Carolina Maria de Jesus, Beatriz Nascimento, and Lélia Gonzalez. I explore the discourse on Afropessimism in Brazil. Like the solitary confinement that gives its name to Cruz’s novel, spaces of containment can promote anti-Black violence. Afropessimism questions the liberatory capabilities of different spaces by recognizing Black suffering as necessary for the maintenance of current power structures.

Domestic Work and the Afropessimist Geographies of Suffering in Brazilian Literature

This study analyzes how the Afro-Brazilian author Eliane Alves Cruz’ Solitária (“Solitary,” 2022) uses spatial imagery to advocate for the abolition of domestic work and critique nation-building projects that profit from the exploitation of Black women. As Cruz’ novel fictionalizes the death of five-year-old Miguel Otávio Santana da Silva (2014-2020), I argue that Solitária helps unveil the foundational role of anti-blackness in sustaining social structures. Solitária shows the inescapability of Afropessimism, a theoretical framework on how societies are structured around anti-Black violence. Because Afropessimism is such a contentious theoretical framework, it is crucial that academia discusses its manifestations in other territories and establishes dialogs on the reality of it.

This study explores how the documentary Good Hair functions as a mediated counter-narrative, influencing the modern natural hair movement among Black women. Using multi-method qualitative approaches—textual analysis of viewer reviews, a focus group with Black women, and an interview with a natural hair care expert—we examine the film’s impact on perceptions of beauty, identity, and health. Findings reveal that Good Hair provided viewers with a sense of awareness, liberation, and validation, prompting cultural dialogue and in some cases, behavior change. The film challenged dominant beauty norms and inspired reflection on hair practices historically shaped by Eurocentric standards. Through these responses, we argue that Good Hair serves not only as a cultural artifact but as an educational tool that catalyzed change within Black communities. We position it within the framework of mediated counter-narratives.

This study examines how the documentary Good Hair influenced conversations about Black women’s hair, beauty standards, and identity. Using viewer reviews, a focus group with Black women, and an interview with a natural hair expert, the study explores how the film encouraged audiences to reconsider harmful beauty ideals rooted in Eurocentric standards. Findings suggest that Good Hair helped many viewers feel validated in embracing natural hairstyles while also increasing awareness about the cultural, emotional, and health implications of hair practices such as chemical relaxers. The study argues that the film contributed to broader discussions surrounding the natural hair movement and Black women’s representation in media.

This article offers a comparative analysis of Frederick Douglass and Phillis Wheatley, two pivotal figures whose divergent pathways to literacy reveal the multifaceted role of the written word as a tool of liberation. Douglass’s insurgent self-education, forged in defiance of slavery’s prohibitions, transformed literacy into a public weapon for political change. Wheatley’s poetic diplomacy, cultivated within the constraints of white patronage, employed classical forms, and theological rhetoric to subtly destabilize racial hierarchies. Drawing on Deborah Brandt’s theory of literacy sponsorship, this study examines how each navigated the opportunities and limitations imposed by their historical contexts, converting sponsored literacy into acts of resistance. Douglass’s strategy of public confrontation, through autobiographies, speeches, and editorial work, contrasts with Wheatley’s layered appeals to moral universality embedded in neoclassical verse. Both, however, asserted Black intellectual agency in spaces designed to exclude it. Their distinct approaches are situated within the broader Black Atlantic intellectual tradition, where African-descended peoples have balanced overt defiance and strategic subtlety in literary and rhetorical expression. The article also connects these historical models to contemporary debates on educational justice, curriculum censorship, and culturally sustaining pedagogy. By framing literacy as both a political project and a survival strategy, this study underscores its enduring significance for dismantling systemic oppression and envisioning equitable futures.

Insurgent Words, Poetic Diplomacy: Frederick Douglass, Phillis Wheatley, and Literacy as Liberation

This article explores how Frederick Douglass and Phillis Wheatley, two remarkable Black writers born into slavery in different centuries, used reading and writing as acts of resistance and freedom. For both, literacy was more than a skill; it was a way to claim humanity, build community, and challenge systems designed to keep Black people powerless. Douglass secretly taught himself to read and write in defiance of laws that punished enslaved people for learning. His words, spoken and written, helped inspire the movement to abolish slavery. Wheatley, taken from West Africa to colonial Boston as a child, became the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry. Her work used the language of religion and classical literature to question the moral hypocrisy of a society that preached liberty while keeping people enslaved. After emancipation, the hunger for education that Douglass and Wheatley embodied spread across Black communities. Freedpeople built schools, founded historically Black colleges and universities, and viewed learning as a pathway to freedom and equality. Today, their legacies remind us that literacy is never neutral. It is a form of power, one that continues to shape struggles for racial justice, educational equity, and self-determination. By writing themselves into history, Douglass and Wheatley opened doors for generations who understood that learning is both a personal victory and a collective act of liberation.

In this essay the author introduces the emergence of the paddy rollers as control forces to contain the black population during the enslavement of Africans in the United States. Soon after the end of the Civil War the police forces took over the activities that had been the purvey of the paddy rollers: keeping black people in place and out of the way of white people. However, the resistance to abuse, torture, and murder was never far from the active imagination and reality of African Americans who maintained their own humanity. Tracing, in a limited fashion, how the biologically unscientific race became the premise for racism and the attacks on black people by police officers who often took their perceptions of blacks, especially black men, as negative and inferior from the systemic and institutional character of the society’s understanding of superior and inferior humans. This, according to the author, is at the base of hatred, discrimination, and lynching of African Americans in current and previous occasions. He illustrates this by discussing the case of Mary Turner who was killed in the early part of the 20^th century for objecting to white mob attacks on her husband.

Few journals in the social sciences have published as much over the past twenty years on the reality of racial, cultural, and social inequality in law and practice as the Journal of Black Studies. In this special issue edited in the 50^th year of the journal we have initiated a series related to the evolution of human relations that considers where we have been and what we need to arrive at the place where we should be. In this issue we look at the presence of violence against African descended people, the mediations of people, laws, and processes intervening in the nature of our interactions in order to establish a more humane future. This issue should allow teachers, scholars and students to re-evaluate and re-examine their own set of assumptions, actions, and potentialities in regard to humanity.