Throughout Black History Month and beyond, ACLS celebrates the vital role that Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have played in our nation’s history, nurturing generations of scholars and accelerating social change despite persistent discrimination and underfunding.
To better support faculty at these institutions, ACLS held an extensive series of listening sessions with HBCU faculty and administrators, leading to the development of the ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowship and Grant Program in 2023. Now in its second year, the program aims to attend to the unique teaching and service commitments faced by faculty at HBCUs through flexible financial support, research development assistance, and networking opportunities.
“Faculty at HBCUs are often keeping their research agendas vibrant and competitive amidst high teaching loads and limited resources, infrastructure, and support from relatively underfunded institutions,” said Trushna Parekh F’24, Associate Professor of Geography at Texas Southern University. “Funding that is specifically targeted to research at HBCUs, such as that provided by ACLS, addresses an essential need in the humanities and interpretive social sciences.”
Funding that is specifically targeted to research at HBCUs, such as that provided by ACLS, addresses an essential need in the humanities and interpretive social sciences. Trushna Parekh F’24Associate Professor of Geography at Texas Southern University
The program offers two types of awards to advance HBCU faculty scholarship: grants of up to $10,000 for research project development, and fellowships of up to $50,000 to support more sustained time and engagement with a significant research project. Each award also comes with an additional institutional grant of $2,500 to the awardee’s home institution to support humanities programming or infrastructure.
ACLS recently caught up with three 2024 ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellows and Grantees to learn about their research and experience with the program. Their projects continue the legacy of humanities research at HBCUs that directly responds to and includes the communities they serve.
Trushna Parekh F’24 was awarded an ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowship for her research on Mary’s…Naturally, the longest-running gay bar in Houston, TX, which operated from 1969 to 2009.
“Throughout the time it was open, the bar served as a grounding place for community building and political activism,” said Parekh. “When no funeral homes in the city were accepting bodies of those afflicted with AIDS, the ‘Outback’ area of Mary’s became a space where countless memorial services were held during the AIDS crisis, and the ashes of numerous individuals were spread or buried on site.”
Though Mary’s has been closed for over 15 years, LGTBQ+ communities in Houston continue to keep its history alive through community remembrances, including memorabilia, photographs, oral histories, social clubs, and more. Parekh is working closely with the local community organizations and members to create digital histories of Mary’s for the public, educators, and students—an experience she calls an “invaluable privilege.”
Her ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowship has allowed her to take a year-long teaching release to focus on the project while memories of the bar and its local impact are still able to be collected.
“As many individuals of the generation were lost to AIDS and are losing their remaining cohort quickly, receiving this funding provides critical support to this project when it is most needed,” she said.
Lamon B. Lawhorn G’24, Assistant Professor of Music and Coordinator of Percussion Studies at Virginia State University, was awarded an ACLS HBCU Faculty Grant for his research on the history of contemporary gospel drumming, including its technical evolution and the prominence of the style of drumming across popular genres.
“Gospel music and what I will loosely call ‘Church musicians’ have been influential to and intertwined with secular music for decades,” said Lawhorn. “Artists such as Ray Charles and Bobby Blue Bland were shunned and eventually praised for using chord progressions that mimicked music found within the church. Many church musicians have long served as touring musicians and music directors for major popular artists for decades.”
With degrees in both music education and music performance, Lawhorn navigates two lanes that are often pitted against each other: pursuing historical research and focusing on performance and technique. The ACLS grant has provided him with the extra resources needed to move forward with his long-desired research.
It is essential for HBCUs to remain financially and fundamentally supported as institutions of higher learning, instructing future leaders of this country, impacting societies globally, and leaving a historical legacy for generations to follow.
“Receiving the grant for my work has allowed me to secure editors, seek publishing for my document, and aid in specific tasks such as the purchase of items and documents,” said Lawhorn. “I have also been able to secure travel and attend conferences for research purposes as well as present my findings at future conventions and conferences.”
Lawhorn is a proud alumnus of Prairie View A&M University, which was founded on one of the last slave plantations to gain freedom in the US, formulating the eventual recognition and celebration of Juneteenth.
“HBCUs are vital to the education of the Black minority,” said Lawhorn. “It is essential for HBCUs to remain financially and fundamentally supported as institutions of higher learning, instructing future leaders of this country, impacting societies globally, and leaving a historical legacy for generations to follow.”
Ana Lucia Araujo F’24, Professor of History at Howard University and winner of an ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowship, is a scholar of the Global African diaspora and the Atlantic slave trade. Her work deals with the memory of slavery, as well as visual and material culture.
ACLS staff recently had the opportunity to see Araujo speak at the New York Public Library with Herman L. Bennett F’06 about her new book Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery. Described by Kirkus as “a sweeping and essential history of the slave trade, the book centers Brazil, the African continent, resistance, and enslaved women.”
Araujo is using her ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowship to focus on her next book, The Power of Art: The World Black Artists Made in the Americas. In contract with Cambridge University Press, the book explores the trajectories of enslaved artists and craftspeople, and their long-lasting contributions to the visual arts in the Americas.
“My work benefited in multiple ways from the ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowship, with released time from teaching and service to conduct research and writing and additional resources, especially travel support. In addition, the fellowship is an important recognition of the work I have been doing over the past twenty years,” Araujo said.
Supporting the scholarship of humanities and social sciences faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
