Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

168 Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
for possible future Ford initiatives. In addition, it cannot be stressed enough
that any review of the field, no matter how extensive, can only scratch the surface
in terms of the myriad African American Studies units that one finds at
U.S. universities and colleges and of the many scholars working in the field,
often in relative obscurity and with scant resources.
In his portion of Three Essays: Black Studies in the United States, the
Ford Foundation report published in 1990, Robert L. Harris, Jr. breaks the
development of the field down into four distinct phases. The first runs from
the late nineteenth century until the 1940s and is marked by the rise of
“early Black literary and historical associations.” Harris dates the second
phase from the appearance of Gunner Myrdal’s study of African America
in 1944, and contends that it was characterized by an ultimately unfortunate
overemphasis on assimilationist models of racial interaction and on
alleged Black “pathology” resulting from slavery and subsequent oppression.
He suggests that the third stage, “from about the mid-1960s to the
mid-1980s, was a period of legitimization and institutionalization.” The
fourth, which Black Studies is just entering at the beginning of the final
decade of the century, is one of “theoretical refinement and more sophisticated
analysis and interpretation.” 2
Although this scheme might imply a linear development of inevitable
progress, Harris is quick to note the extent to which this last stage will depend
upon institutional stability and growth in curricula and faculty resources.
While the “theoretical sophistication” that Harris anticipated
continues apace through the excellent and diverse work of a broad base of
scholars, it is also clear that the structural stability requisite for institutionalization
of this work has, at many institutions, not been achieved. This
problem has resulted, in part, from the reluctance of some universities and
colleges to develop a strategy for moving Black Studies units into the mainstream
of the institutional structure. Some of these units occupy the same,
often unique status as when they were created—this, often as a result of
political pressure outside the normal academic structures of the school.
Few of the units that started out as interdepartmental programs have
achieved departmental status and, with that, the power and stability of departments.
The units created as departments from the beginning are often