A Journal of Research in Africana Studies 

Freedom, Volume 1

Freedom: A Journal of Research in Africana Studies, Volume 1

Freedom: A Journal of Research in Africana Studies is a digital peer review journal published annually in June. Address inquiries to: BSU Du Bois Center, Freedom: A Journal of Research in Africana Studies, MLKC 2380, Department of History and Government, 14000 Jericho Park Road, Bowie State University, Bowie, MD 20715.

The purpose of Freedom is threefold: first, to emphasize the relevance of Africana Studies to contemporary life, focusing particularly on the experiences of communities of African descent in the Americas; second, to facilitate the dissemination of scholarship on Africana Studies; and third, to foster international perspectives in an era of increasing globalization and intercultural contacts. This issue addresses the question: how have Black people approached and engaged with liberational theory and praxis to secure self-determination both historically and contemporarily? This journal specializes in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research focusing on the lived experiences of the Black Diaspora.

 

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    • Managing Editor - Karen Cook Bell
    • Editor-in-Chief - Sheneese Thompson
    • Associate Editor - Festus Cole
    • Graduate Assistant - Zenobia Fenwick

    Editorial/Advisory Board

    • Benjamin Arah, Bowie State University
    • Karen Cook Bell, Bowie State University
    • Felicia Jamison, University of Louisville
    • Gina Lewis, Bowie State University
    • Janelle Pryor, Bowie State University

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    Africana Studies, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies

    • ISBN: 13 979-8-218-29958-3
    • ISSN Online : 2998-8330
    • ISSN Print: 2998-8322
    • Publication Date: June 2025
    • Language: English

    Published under the auspices of the Bowie State University W.E.B. Du Bois Center for the Study of the Black Experience and the Department of History and Government, Bowie State University, Bowie, Maryland 20715.

    Copyright ©BSU Du Bois Center

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    Frontmatter

    Statement from the Director, Karen Cook-Bell

    Statement from the Editor, Sheneese Thompson

    Articles

    Structural Disintegration and Race in the Sierra Leone Battalion, Royal West African Frontier Force
    Dr. Festus Cole, Bowie State University

    The Problem of the Color Line: Freedom and Black Progress in the Late Nineteenth Century South
    Dr. Karen Cook-Bell, Bowie State University

    Introduction to Africana Studies: Towards a Freedom Course Design
    Dr. Greg Carr, Howard University

    Washing Away Brokenness: A Narrative Reflection on Emblems of Black Education
    Kristin Kelly, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

    Non-Aligned Women Unbound: Transgressing the Feminism/Womanism Divide in Africana Studies
    Dr. Valethia Watkins, Howard University

    ‘Rock & Come in’: the Healing Power of Black Girlhood Communion
    Sadiyah Malcolm, University of Michigan

    Teaching the Sakhu: African Psychology as Liberational Theory and Praxis
    Otis Williams III, Mark A. Bolden, Marja Humphrey, Carolyn Thorpe, Bowie State University

    Liberation Theory and Praxis
    Masica Jordan Alston, Bowie State University, Angela S. Henderson, University of the District of Columbia, Stephanie Strianse, Jordan Peer Recovery

    “There’s No One Here That Looks Like Me”: Nationbuilding as a Response to African American Underrepresentation in the Sciences
    LaTasha Thompson, Independent Scholar, Jomo Mutegi, Old Dominion University, Julius Davis, Bowie State University

    Book Reviews

    Tara Bynum, Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America
    (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2023)
    Reviewed by Dr. Karen Cook-Bell (Bowie State University)

    John Swanson Jacobs, The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots A True Story of Slavery; A  Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography, Edited by Jonathan D.S. Schroeder
    (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2024)
    Reviewed by Dr. Sheneese Thompson (Bowie State University), Emile C. M. K. Jones, Fambul Dem, Una Kushε, O: 

    An Introduction to Sierra Leone Krio and Its Writing Systems
    (London: GLOM Publications, 2013)
    Reviewed by Festus Cole (Bowie State University)

    Announcements

    Freedom Volume II Call for Papers 179

    Conference Announcement: The Civil Rights Movement and the African American Quest for Freedom 181