✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿BLACK STUDIES IS FOR EVERY BODY AND EVERY KIND OF BODY
Black Studies at Portland State thrives on innovation, reflection, and community engagement. Our subject areas and methodologies are not just academic; they are tools for activism, resistance, and transformation. Dedicated to confronting the legacies of colonialism and racism while celebrating the resilience, creativity, and agency of Black peoples across the African diaspora, we unapologetically center Blackness, Black voices, Black experiences, Black histories, and Black futures. We value community, spirituality, wellbeing, alignment, peace, sustainability, and collaboration as we each contribute to social change, and shaping the change-makers of tomorrow.
“I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am” is a foundational expression of the ancient African philosophy of Ubuntu. This is not merely a slogan — it is the heartbeat of how we teach, research, and live Black Studies at Portland State. For us, this means continually offering an inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary ‘homeplace’ where faculty and students' experiences, histories, and analytical frameworks are centered.
Visit Us: Our office in Parkmill 150 is open Monday-Friday, 9am - 5pm.