Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

x Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
Indeed,the field 2 of AfricanAmerican Studies has been influential internationally,
and the scholarship produced has enhanced and expanded traditional
academic disciplines, especially literary studies, history, and sociology.
Although a number of scholars have been critical of the involvement
of major foundations in the development of African American Studies, few
would argue the Ford Foundation’s significance in helping to assure the
long-term stability and academic legitimization of the field. 3
With its ongoing commitment to the discipline and the need to assess
the impact of its grant making, beginning in 1982, the Ford Foundation
commissioned a series of four African American Studies reports:
Afro-American Studies: A Report to the Ford Foundation by Nathan I. Huggins
(1985); Black Studies: Three Essays by Robert L. Harris, Jr., Darlene
Clark Hine, and Nellie Y. McKay (1990); Evaluation of Ford-Funded
African American Studies Departments, Centers, and Institutes by Robert
O’Meally and Valerie Smith (1994); and A Review of African American
Studies Programs for the Ford Foundation by Diane Pinderhughes and
Richard Yarborough (2000).
Although the first two reports were released to the public, the second
two remained unpublished. The present volume collects all four reports for
the first time. Together they present an extraordinary portrait of the growth
and development of African American Studies as a discipline in American
higher education over a period of more than 30 years.
Entering the public domain as part of the proliferating scholarship on
African American Studies, this retrospective provides an appropriate occasion
to assess the Ford Foundation’s role in the institutionalization and legitimization
of African American Studies in the academy, to offer a critical
review of the four Foundation-sponsored reports, to assess the responses
of the Foundation to the suggestions of the authors as regards future support,
and to consider the consequences of the foundation’s funding decisions
over the last 25 years on the future of African American Studies. From
this review, the conclusions drawn suggest how the foundation might continue
its historic role in helping to support the field through its next stage
of development.