Faculty and Staff
Sundiata Cha-Jua
Associate Professor of History
Director of Afro-American Studies and Research Program
Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua's area of specialization is African America. Professor Cha-Jua is especially interested African American self-activity during the Nadir, 1877-1917 and contemporary political history, specifically the Black freedom movement, 1966 to the present. His research interests include African American community formation, radical and nationalist Black social movements, theories of race and racism, historical materialism, and culturally relevant pedagogies. He is the author of America's First Black Town, Brooklyn, Illinois, 1830-1915 (Urbana University of Illinois Press, 2000). He is currently engaged in a project that proposes a structural theory of racial oppression and offers a materialist paradigm for analyzing African American historical experiences.
His articles have appeared in the Black Scholar Journal of Black Studies and Research; Journal of American History; Journal of Black Studies; Journal of Urban History; Nature, Society & Thought; and Souls A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society. Selected publications include "Providence, Patriarchy, Pathology The Rise and Decline of Louis Farrakhan," New Politics 8 (Winter 1997), pp. 47-71(with Clarence Lang); "A Warlike Demonstration' Legalism, Violent Self-help and Electoral Politics, in Decatur, Illinois, 1894-1898," Journal of Urban History 26 (July 2000), pp. 591-629; "Racial Formation and Transformation Toward a Theory of Black Racial Oppression," Souls A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society 3 (Winter 2001), pp. 25-60; and "Slavery, Racist Violence, American Apartheid The Case for Reparations," New Politics 12 (June 2001), pp. 60-76