About This Journal

Contributions in Black Studies: A Journal of African and Afro-American Studies (CIBS) was launched in 1977. Michael Thelwell of the Du Bois Department at UMass Amherst and Eugene Terry, at that time a faculty member at Hampshire College, served as the founding editors. CIBS was a Five College collaboration of Africana Studies scholars at UMass Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, Amherst, and Smith Colleges. that lasted over two decades. The journal ceased publication in 1999.

The W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies is pleased to place the journal in this electronic repository and hopes that it gives the fine scholarship CIBS contains a second life in the worldwide web. We offer it as an homage to the generous spirit of the co-founder of CIBS, Dr. Eugene Terry, who died on January 9, 2008, at his home in Amherst, MA.

Professor Ernest Allen and Amilcar Shabazz, Professor and Chair of the Du Bois Department, produced this electronic collection with technical assistance from Thomas Edge, then a doctoral student in the Du Bois Department; Marilyn Billings, Steven Folsom, and Isabel Espinal, with the UMass Amherst Du Bois Library; and Zane Mattingly with The Berkeley Electronic Press. Queries about this electronic collection of CIBS should be sent to the Du Bois Department (a link to the department's website appears on the sidebar).