An Independent Approach to Black Studies: The Institute of the Black World (IBW) and its Evaluation and Support of Black Studies

The research on the history of Black Studies has not paid significant attention to the field's origins at Historically Black Colleges and Universities or to independent organizations. The Institute of the Black World (IBW) supported Black Studies programs by evaluating the theoretical and curricular foundations of the field. IBW was founded by faculty members at the Atlanta University Center and spent over a decade, as an independent activist think tank, evaluating Black studies in the desire to strengthen the academic basis of the field.