African American & African Studies

John Wright | Campus Protests, Representation, and Educational Reform

The civil rights struggles of the 1960s led to calls for establishment Afro-American and American Indian studies programs at the University of Minnesota. In 1969 the activism of African American and American Indian students and supporters led to the founding of Departments of Afro-American Studies (now African American & African Studies) and American Indian Studies (the first in the nation). The new intercollegiate Higher Education Consortium on Urban Affairs, or HECUA, soon followed.