Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African and African Americans and a time for recognizing the central role of blacks in U.S. history. ASU celebrates Black History Month by honoring the rich culture and history through a variety of student-led educational and engaging programs.

See Black History Month Events

BHM Archives | Past Events & Topics

History of Black Student Protest at ASU: A Roundtable Discussion

Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition - Dr. Joshua Myers Talk

Black History Month Distinguished Lecture with Dr. Lewis Gordon: Freedom, Justice and Decolonization

Understanding Racism Resources

This list of resources is designed to honestly and realistically encourage discussions about race and racism. Below you will find an incomplete list of books and articles to read and podcasts to listen to. Take the time to choose at least one of these resources to study carefully and thoughtfully. This list is meant to evoke informed discussion. It is also meant to be expansive. We invite you to contribute other resources that you think will be useful for our ongoing discussions about the destructive pandemic of racism. Our lives, our families, our communities, and this country depend upon our urgent and informed struggles to transform our world.
The following list was compiled by Stanlie James and Mako Ward.

Visit Office of Inclusion and Community Engagement

  • Carole Anderson - White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of our Racial Divide
  • Michelle Alexander - The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
  • Theodore W. Allen - The Invention of the White Race
  • James Baldwin:
    • The Fire Next Time
    • The Evidence of Things Not Seen
  • Adrienne Maree Brown – Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
  • Ta Nehisi Coates - Between the World and Me
  • Angela Davis – Freedom Is A Constant Struggle
  • Robin DeAngelo - White Fragility: Why it’s so Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
  • Matthew Desmond - Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
  • Kristina DuRocher - Raising Racist
  • Michael Eric Dyson - Tears we Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America
  • Reni Eddo-Lodge – Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
  • Marc Lamont Hill – Nobody: Casualties of America’s Ward on the Vulnerable, From Ferguson
  • Elizabeth Hinton – From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America
  • Bell Hooks - Teaching to Transgress
  • Ira Katznelson - When Affirmative Action was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth Century America
  • Ibram Kendi:
    • How to be An AntiRacist
    • Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
  • Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bendele – When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir
  • Ian Haney López – Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class
  • Wesley Lowery – They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America’s Racial Justice
  • Toni Morrison - Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
  • Alondra Nelson – Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination
  • Ijeoma Olu - So you Want to Talk About Race
  • Ersula Ore – Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric, and American Identity
  • Nell Irvin Painter - The History of White People
  • Imani Perry - Breathe: A Letter to my Sons
  • Patrick Phillips – Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America
  • Christian Picciolini - Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism
  • Barbara Ransby - Making all Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century
  • Jamala Rogers – Ferguson Is America: Rotos of Rebellion
  • Richard Rothstein - The Color of Law
  • Layla F. Saad - Me and White Supremacy
  • Sarah Smarsh - Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
  • Beverly Daniel Tatum – Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race
  • Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor – From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation
  • Cornel West, Race Matters
  • Mark Blyth and Eric Lonergan, Angrynomics
  • Darren Walker (Ford Foundation President), From Generosity to Justice
  • Isabel Wilkerson – Caste: The Origins of our Discontents
  • Ta Nehisi Coates - “The Case for Reparations (The Atlantic, June 2014)
  • Nicole Hannah-Jones:
    • The New York Times 1619 Project
    • “What is Owed” New York Times Magazine (June 28. 2020)
  • Caroline Randall Williams “You Want a Confederate Monument?  My Body is a Confederate Monument” New York Times OpEd, June 26, 2020
  • Isabel Wilkerson - “America’s Enduring Caste System” New York Times Magazine, July 6, 2020
  • 13th (Netflix, YouTube)
  • I Am Not Your Negro (Amazon)
  • Whose Streets? (Hulu)
  • LA 92 (Netflix)
  • Teach Us All (Netlfix)
  • Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise (PBS)

Culture, inclusion and diversity on campus are an important part of your student experience at ASU. We asked prominent members of ASU’s African-American student groups to share what Black History Month at ASU means to them.

Explore African and African American Studies

Online Bachelor of Arts in African and African American Studies

Students African and African American studies


Examine African and African American history, culture, politics and art in the African American and African Studies online degree. You’ll study global issues that impact African descended people including racial formation, institutional racism, African migration, art, literature, religion and education to learn how to lead the change for a more equitable society.

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Bachelor of Arts in African and African American Studies

AAAS Open House

Follow your passions by taking a broad selection of courses addressing many of the critical issues facing African-descended peoples. Explore important issues from different historical, cultural, sociological, political and psychological perspectives. Many people who earn degrees in this area go on to study law, business or medicine.

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African and African American Studies Minor

African and African American Studies Minor

Explore the culture and history of African-descended peoples with a dynamic group of faculty from a wide variety of backgrounds. Students with this minor frequently go into areas such as law, business and medicine.

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African and African American Studies Certificate

African and African American Studies Certificate

The certificate program in African and African American studies examines the culture, arts, history, politics, economics and current status of Africans, African Americans and the larger African diaspora, especially in Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The goal is to prepare students for lifelong learning, advanced study in a variety of fields, successful careers and productive public service in an increasingly diverse society.

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