Nick Aaron Ford’s "Black Studies: Threat or Challenge?"

1973

This is one of the earliest published works analyzing Black Studies.

Nick Aaron Ford was a longtime professor at Morgan State University. His book, Black Studies: Threat or Challenge?, documents the history, growth, and institutionalization of Black Studies. Ford visited over 100 university campuses and conducted many interviews with students, faculty, and administrators. Black Studies: Threat or Challenge? helped define concepts like “Black liberation” and “soul” for scholars and lay readers.

The book’s title, “Threat or Challenge,” addressed two common views of Black Studies during its early years. Some believed that Black Studies was a threat, and many college administrators in the late 1960s and 1970s viewed Black Studies negatively. Others believed Black Studies was a way to challenge curricula that did not include African Americans. Ford argues that Black Studies effectively challenges the academic status quo.