A comprehensive and practical text on teaching, understanding and practicing African American Studies This book brings together chapters authored by leading African American Studies/Black Studies scholars in the USA and the UK. It focuses on the roots of the discipline, reaching back to early brilliant Black intellectuals, discusses the historical and epistemological development of formal Black Studies, setting these in their socio-political contexts, and presents research methodologies and guidelines that are appropriate and valid for people of African descent. A number of chapters direct attention to the discipline's longstanding commitment to social responsibility with chapters that focus on arts and activism, service learning and civic engagement, and present tangible examples for students. The book concludes with chapters on diverse research topics inclusive of history and gender, literature, sport, music, representation in comic books, afrofuturism, and the Black Studies Movement in the UK. Key Features and Benefits - Divided into four practical, teachable parts: History and Context of African American Studies; Theories and Methodologies; Social Responsibility, Service Learning and Activism; and Selected Areas of Scholarship in the Discipline - Includes new areas of research and scholarship integral to the contemporary social and political discourse about race - Showcases interviews with renowned actor and activist Danny Glover and Pulitzer prizewinning scholar the late Manning Marable - Focuses on contemporary women of the African Diaspora and their art, activism and identity - Tells the poignant story about the killing of Terence Crutcher by a police officer in Tulsa Oklahoma - Explores the experiences of people of African descent impacted by White privilege, through the lens of W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison - Discusses the story of the torture and persecution of the San Francisco 8, members of the Black Panther Party, targeted by COINTELPRO Jeanette R. Davidson is Professor, in the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies, at the University of Oklahoma. She was Director of African and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma for 15 years. She is a member of the Board of Directors for The National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) and is a member of the Executive Committee for the Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies, home of the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NCORE).