摘要：This paper focuses onHoward University and a distinguished group ofits scholars who, in the 1930s through 1950sacross various fields ofsocial science, brokeaway both fromthe mainstreamU.S. disciplinary approaches ofthetimeand fromtheinstitutionallimitations of black universities to engagein transformativescholarship and intellectualtheorizing on raceand empirein the United Statesand around the world. This paper roots the intellectual history of“the Howard School”in theinstitutionalarchitecturethey forged at Howard at thetime. Iarguethat,as part ofalargereffort to confront thecoloniality of knowledgeand forgean academicand activist decolonialagenda, the Howard scholarsestablished institutionsand academicspaces of knowledge production that were uniquein the American academy in their organization, mission, vision and methods of research,and played a vitalrolein sustaining critiquesand alternatives to mainstreamthinking on race.
