African American Consciousness

Book excerpt: African American Consciousness focuses on ideas of culture, race, and class within the interdisciplinary matrix of Africana Studies. Even more important, it uses a methodology that emphasizes interpretation and the necessity of interdisciplinary research and writing in a global society. Worldview, culture, analytic thinking, and historiography can all be used as tools of analysis, and in the process of discovery, use pedagogy, and survey research of Africana history. Advancing the idea of Africana Studies, mixed methodology, and triangulation, the contributors provide alternative approaches toward examining this phenomena, with regard to place, space, and time. The essays in this volume include Reynaldo Anderson, “Black History dot.com”; Greg Carr, “Black Consciousness, Pan-Africanism and the African World History Project”; Karanja Carroll, “A Genealogical Review of the Worldview Concept and Framework in Africana Studies”; Denise Martin, “Reflections on African Celestial Culture”; Serie McDougal “Teaching Black Males”; Demetrius Pearson, “Cowboys of Color”; Pamela Reed, “Heirs to Disparity”; and Andrew Smallwood, “Malcolm X’s Leadership and Legacy.” The researchers in this volume investigate, explore, and review patterns of functional, normative, and expressive behavior. The past and present of Africana culture is represented, showing how reflexivity can be an adjustable concept to organize, process, and interpret data. Moreover, humanism and social science demonstrate how researchers establish, extract, and identify the limitations and alternative approaches to research of the historic conditions of black Americans.