New York University. Institute of African American Affairs

The Institute of African American Affairs (IAAA) at New York University, which was initially called Institute of Afro-American Affairs, was founded in 1969 to research, document, and celebrate the cultural and intellectual production of Africa and its diaspora in the Atlantic world and beyond. The New York University Senate created the IAAA to coordinate the university-wide academic and service activities focusing on cultural programs for NYU’s Black students, faculty, staff, and larger New York community. The IAAA is affiliated and shares leadership, staff, and facilities with NYU's African Studies Program. Both organizations are committed to the study of Blacks in modernity through concentrations in Pan-Africanism and Black Urban Studies. The Institute also founded the first statewide organization of scholars in the field (The New York State Black Studies Conference) and played a pivotal role in the creation of the NYU Association of Black Faculty and Administrators. Along with many programs, panels, and conferences, the IAAA also each year hosts Artists and Scholars-in-Residence, who during their residencies participate in seminars, offer public presentations of their work, and meet with students. Past Artists-in-Residence have included author Walter Mosley; poet and essayist Amiri Baraka; actor, playwright, and performance artist Anna Deavere Smith; poet Jayne Cortez; actor and producer Danny Glover; and Malian musician Salif Keita. Scholars-in-Residence have included Nigerian author and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka; and David Levering Lewis, MacArthur Fellow and Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of History at Rutgers.