Since its formation in 1970, UC Berkeley’s African American studies department has been at the forefront of African diaspora scholarship.
According to Leigh Raiford, associate professor of African American studies, the department was born from the work of the Third World Liberation Front, a student movement that called for minority representation in academia.
“The Third World Liberation strike here on campus sought to create, basically, an ethnic studies college for the study of underrepresented minority groups,” Raiford said. “Once the ethnic studies program was started, a couple of years later, African American studies broke off and created its own department.”