The African Heritage Studies Association (AHSA) was founded in 1969 as an association of scholars of African descent, dedicated to the exploration, preservation, and academic presentation of the heritage of African people on the ancestral soil of Africa and in the diaspora. For more than four decades it has been the major challenger of the Eurocentric view of Africa and African Studies and a leader of the struggle to ignite an African Renaissance. 

 

 

Our Mission

The mission of AHSA is to reconstruct, represent, and promote African history and cultural study along African centered and intergenerational lines while effecting the political, social, and economic union among communities of African people the world over.

Our Vision

The vision of AHSA is to be the preeminent African centered organization to connect the components of our heritage as an instrument of self-awareness and liberation.

As an organization, AHSA is creating a unique African centered leadership development process for youth, community organizers and scholar-activists committed to the liberation of African people everywhere.

 

Nia Winslow Closetartistry.com

2022 Membership Drive

Join today at 15% discount until December 31st, 2022.

AHSA is Dedicated to Change.

 

The African Heritage Studies Association (AHSA), proudly heralded an African-centered, African controlled professional organization committed to researching, analyzing and promoting the heritage and legacy of Africans in Africa and across the Diaspora.

The best and brightest African-centered scholars and activists have participated in annual AHSA conferences and have informed and inspired a generation of scholars who now take for granted African-centered scholarship and the place of Africa's heritage and legacy in world history.

53rd Annual Conference

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53rd Annual Conference 〰️

AHSA 53rd Annual Conference - October 22, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia

The African Heritage Studies Association (AHSA) is pleased to announce the 53rd Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 22nd. The 2022 theme is Afrofuturism: Building on our Heritage for a Better Tomorrow.

This forward-looking philosophy has been formed over the years by a myriad of writers, artists, musicians, scholars, and activists with the goal of widening the lens of how “Blackness”; is viewed. Specifically, Afrofuturism highlights how we can create more access as well as reimagine ways to communicate the Black experience globally through history, culture, digitization, and various technological platforms. The theme intersects with AHSA’s mission --to “reconstruct, represent, and promote African history and cultural study along African centered and intergenerational lines while affecting the political, social, and economic union among the community of African people the world over.”

 

The Legacy of John Henrik Clarke

 

“If we are carrying out a well designed plan for liberation any literate person can contribute and share leadership. So if the leader dies while you are on page 13 move to page 14 and continue the struggle. Bury the man, continue the plan. I think any person who calls them self a leader, preacher, policy maker of any kind, should ask and answer the question in his own lifetime... How will my people stay on this earth? How will they be educated? How will they be schooled, and how will they be housed and how will they be defended.

The answers to these questions will create the concept of enduring nationhood, because it creates the concept of enduring responsibility.”

― John Henrik Clarke

Restoration of the Tomb of Karakhamun

 

ASA Restoration of the tomb of Karakhamun, 25th dynasty on West Bank. Led by Dr. Anthony Browder.

 

"Africa's last walk in the sun."

-Dr. John H. Clarke

African Enslavement Revolts Map

AHSA is using technology to share our cultural and historical experiences!

Led by Dr. Ife Williams

Click the image to view the African Enslavement Revolts map. About this map, once you click on a marker you will see an image, click on it to see video or hear audio.

The Second Amendment comes from the right to protect themselves from slave revolts, and from uprisings by Native Americans. A revolt from people who were stolen from their land or revolt from people whose land was stolen from, that's what the genesis of the Second Amendment is.

— Danny Glover

Here we have an interactive digital map of revolts against European infringement into African societies and enslavement. By looking at the courage and fortitude of our Ancestors, we can eradicate myths about African resistance.

In an effort to make this project more communal, please send any comments, edits, and additional information on revolts to blackdiaspora.maps@gmail.com

Why AHSA is Necessary?

 

A review of AHSA's goals and former conference programs illustrate the importance of AHSA's role as the major challenger of the Eurocentric view of Africa and African Studies.  The 1968 protest against the marginalization of African descendant scholars and their scholarship during the African Studies Association's (ASA) Annual Conference in Los Angeles was the first salvo in the struggle.  ASA's unwillingness to acknowledge and address the just grievances of African descendant scholars led to their take-over of a major plenary session during ASA's 1969 Annual Conference in Montreal. This bold action and ASA's continued failure to appropriately address the scholars' grievances led to the incorporation of a separate organization in New York in 1969.

 The name of the organization, African Heritage Studies Association (AHSA), proudly heralded an African-centered, African controlled professional organization committed to researching, analyzing and promoting the heritage and legacy of African peoples.  By 1973, AHSA was able to successfully challenge the seating of ASA as the sole USA representative to the meeting of the International Association of Africanists (IAA) in Addis Ababa.

Due to this challenge, AHSA and ASA met and negotiated an arrangement wherein AHSA's President (John H. Clarke) was selected to head a joint USA delegation to IAA over ASA's President (Philip Curtin).  Both organizations made significant contributions to the meeting, but from that moment forward, AHSA's role in African Studies was recognized and respected by scholars around globe.

 AHSA Annual Conferences, beginning at Howard University in 1970 and Southern University in 1971, and, subsequently, at over 40 cities and universities across the US continued the organization's commitment to situating African history in its rightful place in the development of world civilization and to promoting African-centered scholarly research, teaching, publications and discussions about the ancient and contemporary heritage and legacy of African peoples.

AHSA's activist role in critiquing and pressuring elected officials on US policy towards Africa and its effective promotion and support of Black Studies and African Studies in US colleges, universities and pre-collegiate schools is a significant part of  the organization's legacy.

Ted Ellis tellisfineart.com

Ted Ellis tellisfineart.com

Countless newspaper, magazine and refereed journal articles, monograms, books and book chapters have been published by AHSA members over the past four decades. Additionally, the best and brightest African-centered scholars and activists have participated in annual AHSA conferences and have informed and inspired a generation of scholars who now take for granted African-centered scholarship and the place of Africa's heritage and legacy in world history. This is why AHSA matters and why it must continue to develop and expand.