Northwestern’s BA in African American Studies immerses students in the intellectual, cultural, and political histories of African-descended peoples across the Americas and the wider African diaspora. Anchored in Chicago’s vibrant Black communities, the program blends critical theory with archival research, oral history, performance studies, public policy analysis, and digital humanities. Students interrogate questions of race, power, gender, class, and resistance while building methodological versatility—equally at home in ethnography, statistical analysis, or creative production. A robust community-based research requirement ensures classroom insights translate into civic impact, preparing graduates for leadership in law, education, journalism, public health, and the arts.
Curate a digital archive of Chicago’s 1960s Black Arts Movement posters and playbills
Analyze racialized language patterns on social-media platforms during recent elections
Design a policy brief on reparations frameworks for Illinois state legislators
Produce a documentary short profiling Black midwives’ oral histories in the Midwest
Map historic red-lining and present-day health disparities using GIS visualization
Develop a community reading program centered on Afrofuturist literature for teens
Conduct ethnographic fieldwork on Black entrepreneurship in Bronzeville’s tech hubs
Create an augmented-reality walking tour of Northwestern’s campus reckoning with slavery ties
Quantitatively assess the impact of police consent decrees on minority neighborhoods
Stage a performance piece blending spoken-word poetry with archival audio from MLK speeches
Compile a comparative study of BLM protest art across five global cities
Evaluate Afro-centric pedagogy outcomes in local K-12 history curricula
Write a legal analysis of voting-rights case law post-Shelby County v. Holder
Design a podcast series on Black women’s contributions to jazz innovation
Use sentiment analysis to trace media framing of reparations from 1980–present
Lead critical conversations on race, culture, and justice with Northwestern’s interdisciplinary African American Studies degree.
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