Occidental College strives to be a leader among institutions of liberal arts higher education, and yet it has never had a Black or Africana Studies Program. In the 1960’s and 1970’s students across the nation began protesting and organizing to create programs of study that reflected the diversity of this country and their own schools. Nowhere was this more fervent than in the activism of students in California, who established major changes to curriculum and created new majors, including Chicano Studies, Asian Pacific Islander Studies, and Black Studies at institutions such as UCLA. Although students at Occidental have always been politically and socially engaged in challenging the administration and faculty, the prospect of creating a Black Studies Program is only now truly solidifying. The recent creation of a Latino/a and Latin American Studies Program has demonstrated the possibility for faculty, students and administrators to come together and create new programs of study.

For Black/Africana Studies at Oxy, the faculty support is already here, the courses are already taught and are widely attended- the key factor missing is a demonstration on the part of the student body of their interest and support for the creation of such a program. Our petition aims to show through numbers the support students have by the collection of their signatures as symbolic of their solidarity around this goal. We all benefit from learning about Afrocentric worldviews and the cultures and histories of people of the African Diaspora because we challenge ourselves to move outside of the mainstream narratives we are taught throughout life, and often they are the only narratives we learn. A program of study is necessary to organize the courses and faculty so that students will be encouraged to challenge themselves in these courses without the stigma and limitations produced by established majors. Many students are interested in Black Studies courses, but ultimately do not enroll in them because it is within another discipline. The College has determined for faculty and students alike that Black Studies here is housed within the American Studies Program, but that department only includes a few courses a year on specifically African Americans when there are so many more courses each year about Black peoples that are not included under this heading.

The strength of a liberal arts education is its interdisciplinary and holistic nature, which allows students to learn many different ways to think critically. Black/Africana Studies would span many departments, including Politics, DWA, History, ECLS, Sociology, CTSJ, just to name a few, but has the potential to be in any department. As an interdisciplinary and counter-mainstream program of study, Black/Africana Studies at Occidental College would propel the college into being more progressive and diverse, and becoming more competitive with other institutions that already have such a program.

For further questions about our proposal for a Black/Africana Studies Program,
please contact Brandi Locke at Locke@oxy.edu
Please sign this petition to show support for the creation of a Black/Africana Studies Program at Occidental College.

(Signing does not mean you would have to or even want to attend such courses or declare this major. It is merely to show support for those who do want the opportunity.)

***If you are interested in taking courses within a Black Studies Program, or if you are interested in Majoring or Minoring within this program of study, please leave your name and email address in a comment on the petition page in the "Supporters" section at the bottom****