CELEBRATING BLACK GEOGRAPHERS
The Celebrating Black Geographers anthology was conceived, compiled, and edited by Dr. Demetrice “Dee” Jordan, a member of the American Geographical Society Council and a Black geographer whose focus is Health and Medical Geography. She is an alumnus of the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Science at MSU and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The anthology was inspired by the report titled Black Geographers in Institutions of Higher Education in the United States: Where They Are and a Selected Bibliography of Their Works, published in 2003 by Joe T. Darden and Lucia Terra. This anthology of Black Geographers is an expansion of the previous report, born out of the necessity to have a publicly available single source database that chronicles the contributions of Black Geographers to the discipline of Geography. This collection includes photographs, biographies, and interesting facts.
Black geographers are teachers, lecturers, or professors of African American or Black/African descent, who possess advanced degrees in geography, and who have a demonstrated track record of teaching and research in the discipline of Geography. The anthology was originally released as three cohorts, with the first cohort, those who matriculated 1900-2000, released in February 2021. A cohort of those who matriculated 2001-2010 was released in 2022, and those who matriculated 2010-2020 released in 2023.
Like the inspirational document noted above, we hope this collection brings awareness to the impacts, contributions, and legacies Black geographers have had on the discipline, their communities, and the world. Another aim of this anthology is to demonstrate the professional opportunities possible with an advanced degree in geography. We also hope this compilation will encourage potential students from underrepresented backgrounds to seek higher education opportunities in geography.
While we seek to celebrate Black geographers, we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge that even among Blacks in geography there exist underrepresentation of American born Black geographers compared to those of international ancestry.
As an African American woman geographer who graduated from the Department of Geography Environment and Spatial Science at Michigan State University in 2020 where we have produced a number of Black geographers, Dr. Jordan was only the second African American woman to receive a PhD. The first was Juanita Gaston some 43 years prior.
Programs like the Advancing Geography Through Diversity Program (AGTDP) at Michigan State University seeks to address the underrepresentation of African Americans, Latinx Americans, and Native Americans in geography graduate programs. Increased representation will have profound impacts on the discipline, scholarship, and society as a whole.
Lastly, though exhaustive research was conducted in order to locate all Black geography graduates for the stated time period, we recognize that the current list may still not be all inclusive. Therefore, if you know any Black geographers who should be included in this tribute, click the link below.
Below are displayed the first 12 entries in the database by year of graduate degree conferral. To see later entries please use the pull-down menu to search by year.
B. Ikubolajeh Logan
PhD, University of California, Los Angeles, 1983
James W. Harrington (JW)
PhD, University of Washington, 1983
Mohammed Babiker Ibrahim
PhD, University of Alberta, 1985
Ezekiel Kalipeni (1954-2020)
PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1986
Raban Chanda
PhD, Clark University, 1986
Ibipo Johnston-Anumonwo
PhD, Clark University, 1987
Jasper L. Harris 1948-2009
PhD, University of Michigan, 1983
Margaret Wilder
PhD, University of Michigan, 1983
Abdi Ismail Samatar
PhD, University of California at Berkeley, 1985
William A. Porter
PhD, University of Maryland College Park, 1986
Godson C. Obia
PhD, University of Oklahoma, 1986
Monica K. Nyamwange
PhD, Rutgers University, 1988