Shawn Alexander can recognize the look immediately. It’s one of surprise when a student enters his African-American studies class and finds, standing at the front, a white guy.
“Years ago, it happened more,” said Alexander, 38, who grew up near Rockford and teaches at the University of Kansas. “I’d see the kids walk into my room, look down at their registration cards and up at me, and then walk out to make sure they had the right classroom.”
Around the country this year, college campuses are celebrating the 40th anniversary of African-American studies programs. Although black scholars make up the majority of the faculty, white scholars increasingly are making their mark, including two teaching at Northwestern University.
It may be the ultimate in inclusion as well as irony in a discipline that emerged out of the Black Power movement of the late 1960s to challenge “the man” and the white status quo. If African-American history looks back at the black experience, African-American studies tries to examine it from the inside out and from every angle.
