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.
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
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.
Bachelor of Arts in African and African American Studies
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.
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.
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.