Harvard University Annual Report 2012 W. E. B. Du Bois Institute Harvard University W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research Understanding our history, as Americans and as African Americans, is essential to re-imagining the future of our country. How black people endured and thrived, how they created a universal culture that is uniquely American, how they helped write the story of this great nation, is one of the most stirring sagas of the modern era. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Alphonse Fletcher University Professor Director, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University Annual Report 2012 Harvard University W. E. B. Du Bois Institute 104 Mount Auburn Street, 3R for African and African American Research Cambridge, MA 02138 617.495.8508 Phone 617.495.8511 Fax http://dubois.fas.harvard.edu About the Institute Institute’s Supporters The W. E. B. Du Bois Institute is the nation’s oldest The W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and research center dedicated to the study of the history, African American Research is fortunate to have the culture, and social institutions of Africans and support of Harvard University President Drew African Americans. Named after the first African Gilpin Faust, Provost Alan M. Garber, Dean of the American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1895), the Associate Dean for Administrative Social Sciences Institute was established in May 1975 to create fellow- Beverly Beatty, and Senior Associate Dean for ships that would “facilitate the writing of doctoral Faculty Development Laura Gordon Fisher. What dissertations in areas related to Afro-American we are able to accomplish at the Du Bois Institute Studies.” Today, the Institute awards up to twenty would not be possible without their generosity fellowships annually to scholars at various stages of and engagement. their careers in the fields of African and African American Studies, broadly defined to cover the expanse of the African Diaspora. The Du Bois Institute’s research projects and visiting fellows form the vital nucleus around which revolve a stimulating array of lecture series, art exhibitions, readings, conferences, and archival and publication projects. page 1: W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) Courtesy of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the University of Pennsylvania Press. Executive Committee Members Caroline Elkins, Lawrence D. Bobo, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 2 Executive Committee National Advisory Board Lawrence D. Bobo Glenn H. Hutchins, Chair Caroline Elkins Debra Tanner Abell Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Bennett Ashley Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham Frank and Carol Biondi William Julius Wilson Peggy Cooper Cafritz Gaston Caperton Kenneth I. Chenault Richard D. Cohen Ethelbert Cooper Norman Epstein Alphonse Fletcher, Jr. R. Brandon Fradd Richard Gilder Lewis P. Jones III Mitchell Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein Robert McG. Lilley Joanna Lipper Michael Lynton Mark C. Mamolen Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Henry W. McGee III Raymond McGuire Rory Millson Clare Muñana Donald E. and Susan Newhouse Peter Norton E. Stanley O’Neal Adebayo Ogunlesi Jennifer Ward Oppenheimer Nicole Parent Geryl T. Pearl Richard L. Plepler Andrew Ramroop Steven Rattner Lynda Resnick Danny Rimer Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Daryl Roth David Roux Douglas E. Schoen Larry E. Thompson George T. Wein Davis Weinstock II Linden H. Wise National Advisory Board Chair Glenn H. Hutchins and Institute Director Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Photo: Mark Alan Lovewell 3 Letter from the Director Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African class team in Afro-American Studies, we took up American Research at Harvard University has experi- residence at busy 1414 Massachusetts Avenue, over CVS enced a most colorful history since its establishment in and next to the Harvard Coop. In 1997, we achieved 1975. After a protracted struggle for its very existence, a dramatically new kind of status at the university, the first home of the Du Bois Institute for Afro- sharing a space with the Department of Afro-American American Research was in Canaday B, a new dormitory Studies in the newly refurbished Barker Humanities in Harvard Yard. After a few years, and a great deal of Center at 12 Quincy Street. lobbying, the Institute moved to somewhat more We still had satellite spaces at 69 Dunster Street, generous digs at 44 Brattle Street, over the Harvest 8 Story Street, and 14 Story Street, which housed the Restaurant. When Anthony Appiah and I arrived at Institute’s research projects, publications, and fellows Harvard in 1991 with our mandate to assemble a world- program. Through the 1990s, our field grew rapidly, 4 and Afro-American Studies – by design – became in the field of American journalism, moderated a panel inseparable from its sister field of African Studies and about disparities in education and advancement, research. In 2004, a name change reflected that called “Separate but Unequal: Closing the Education broadening of the scope of our work: we became the Gap.” The panel featured sociologists Lawrence D. W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African Bobo and Angel Harris, and child development expert American Research at the same time that the depart- James Comer, as well as Diane Ravitch and Michelle ment became the Department of African and African Rhee, two of the most visible players in the national American Studies. A year later, in 2005, the Department debate on education reform. In the first iteration of an acquired the space it needed to house fully our brilliant annual tradition, the panel was featured on NPR’s faculty and its newly minted Ph.D. program, when “Talk of the Nation.” the Institute left the Barker Center and moved to our In Cambridge, our academic year began when we current, glorious three-story home at 104 Mount presented the author Isabel Wilkerson with the Horace Auburn Street, where it occupies 20,000 square feet. Mann Bond Book Award for her magisterial volume, The It was the first time that all of our fellows, staff, Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great research projects, journals, historical art collections, Migration. The Institute and the Department libraries, and archives were housed under a single roof. of African and African American Studies award the Our three floors in the heart of Harvard Square are Horace Mann Bond Book Award in recognition of the home to our visiting fellows; the Image of the Black in year’s best nonfiction book about African American Western Art Photo Archive and Library, containing history and culture. We had the tremendous honor to 26,000 images of black people in Western art, starting have Julian Bond, one of the legends of the Civil with classical Greece and Rome; the Alphonse Fletcher, Rights Movement, present Wilkerson with this award, Jr. Office of the Director; the Hutchins Family Seminar named for his father, the great educator and inspiration Room and Library; the Martin L. Kilson, Jr./Archie C. for the prime movers in the Civil Rights Movement. Epps III Office of the Executive Director; the editorial The academic year brimmed with multidisciplinary offices of our journals, Transition and The Du Bois Review; talent as we welcomed the most diverse roster of the Neil L. and Angelica Zander Rudenstine Gallery; the lecturers that I can recall in the history of the Institute astonishingly vibrant and original Hiphop Archive; our to our four major lecture series. In the fall, the W. E. B. main research office; and the terrific staff without Du Bois Lecture Series presented Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., whom none of our work would be possible. Our unique the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African and quite valuable collection of African, Afro-Latin American Studies and the Chair of the Center for American, and African American art, historical film African American Studies at Princeton, who spoke posters, memorabilia, photographs, and artifacts grace elegantly and passionately on the strains that make up the walls on each of our three floors. In these next the experience and understanding of twentieth-century pages, I shall take the opportunity to review the year African American life and thought in “Pragmatic that just passed, and shall then look ahead to our bright Reconstructions: The Prophetic, the Heroic, and the and exciting future. Democratic.” In the spring, Sarah Tishkoff, David Our year began, as it always does, with our annual and Lyn Silfen University Associate Professor of gathering at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown on Genetics and Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, Martha’s Vineyard. Hosted by Glenn Hutchins, the carried us beyond our usual disciplinary focus with energetic and visionary Chairman of our National her energizing series on “Reconstructing African and Advisory Board, this event convenes a group of top African American History Using Genomics Data.” scholars, thinkers, and practitioners to discuss a press- Her exploration of the dialogue between DNA research ing issue of the day. In 2011, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and historical studies made it clear to all of us in the a groundbreaker in the Civil Rights Movement and room – social scientists, humanists, and biological 5 Letter from the Director scientists alike – that the potential for exchanges in life and interpreted through art. In the fall, Color between our fields is vast and demands further and Construction: The Intimate Vision of Romare Bearden, was attention. one of a constellation of shows around the country The Nathan I. Huggins Lecture Series recognizes celebrating the centenary of the birth of this seminal the most distinguished scholars who work in the twentieth-century artist. A panel discussion at Harvard’s expansive terrain of African American history.