The Journal of African American History is planning a 2026 special issue titled “The Roots and Routes of Black Power.” During the past few decades, the field has proliferated with scholars fundamentally reshaping the temporal, leader- ship, and ideological bounds of the movement and its key players. Students and newcomers to the traditional Black Power period (1960s-1980s) now have a wealth of books, articles, archival repositories, and digital sites to help them understand the period and its impact like never before. However, as the field has matured, it has shifted shape and in some instances splintered, leaving lingering questions about the current and future states of the field.
As we approach the sixtieth anniversaries of Stokely Carmichael and others’ exclamations of “Black Power,” the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense’s founding, Kwanzaa’s creation, and the historic election of Black political leader Barbara C. Jordan in Texas, the 2026 special issue’s guest editors, Ashley D. Farmer and Hasan Kwame Jeffries, invite article manuscripts that assess or reassess the roots and future routes of Black Power and its history. The special issue provides an opportunity for scholars of African American history and culture to examine the state of the field-past, present, and future. The issue will explore, openly and frankly, what scholars have meant when examining Black Power as both a concept and a movement. The issue also will investigate whether scholars have worked from a common set of conceptual, linguistic, or methodical frameworks. Additionally, if the field has grown so diverse and disparate that scholars no longer share the same or similar grammars about the movement and its actors, how has such diversity and disparateness affected the understanding of Black Power?
The guest editors seek conceptual, historiographical, and original manuscripts about the following topics, among others:
- Black Power’s antecedents
- Chronological or temporal bounds of Black Power
- Concepts and definitions of Black Power
- International and transnational solidarities
- Right-wing appropriations of Black Power
- Black Power and Africana/Black studies
- The afterlives of Black Power
- The politics of writing about Black Power
- Gender, sexuality, and Black Power
- Grassroots organizing
- Global expressions of Black Power
- Black Power leaders and leadership
- Present state of the field
Authors should submit essays via the Editorial Manager® system at www .editorialmanager.com/ucp-jaah. Manuscripts, including footnotes, must be between 10,000 and 11,500 words (approximately 35-40 pages). July 1, 2025, is the due date. For inquiries, please contact Ashley D. Farmer (adf@austin .utexas.edu) or Bertis English ([email protected])
Submission deadline: July 1, 2021