Associate Professor

About

  • Office Hours

    Fall 2025, M 12:30-1:30, W 12:30-1:30 B/AACC (335 LSC)

  • Role

    Faculty

  • Position

    • Associate Professor

  • Concentration

    • African American Studies

  • Department

    • Ethnic Studies

  • Education

    • Ph.D. University of Chicago, B.A. California State University, Sacramento

Biography

An Associate Professor of African American Studies (history, arts, media, resistance and protest), and his research focuses on retention and graduation rates of African American students at Historically/Predominantly White Institutions (HWIs or PWIs), Critical Race Theory (CRT), equity in K-12 and Higher Education, and histories and theories of protest. He is an activist on removing School Resource Officers (SROs) from local middle and high schools, equitable access and treatment of students of color in K-12 and Higher Education, as well as other local issues.

Creator and coordinator of PHRASE, Professors Helping Raise Active Student Experiences. This program is part of Dr. Ray Black’s Faculty Student Engagement Project that will recognize and acknowledge high engagement faculty and provide students with connections for support for navigating classes and college. In the fall 2025 semester, PHRASE will host a series of lunches to bring these groups together and provide frameworks for them to support each other. To become involved with PHRASE, email ray.black@colostate.edu.

He is a WICHE Academy for Leaders in the Humanities, 2024-2025 Fellow, https://www.wiche.edu/collaboration-leadership/wiche-academy-for-leaders-in-the-humanities

CSU launches ‘Black Lives Matter’ programming with mural at Visual Arts Building

Publications

Black, R. (2004). Where Did We Go Wrong?: Bill Cosby and the Anxiety of Communal Responsibility. The Black Scholar, 34(4), 16–19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41069101

Black, R. (2015). BLACK ETHNICS: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream by Christina M. Greer. American Studies, 54(1), 135–137. https://doi.org/10.1353/ams.2015.0004

Black, R., & Bimper, A. Y. (2017). Successful Undergraduate African American Men’s Navigation and Negotiation of Academic and Social Counter-Spaces as Adaptation to Racism at Historically White Institutions. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 152102511774720. https://doi.org/10.1177/1521025117747209

Black, R. (2018). “What Is Said Here”: Reflections on an Informal Community for Black Men at an Historically White Institution. About Campus, 22(6), 10–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/abc.21308

Kim, J. K., Basile, V., Jaime-Diaz, J., & Black, R. (2018). Internal Orientalism and multicultural acts: The challenges of multicultural education in Korea. Multicultural Education Review, 0(0), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/2005615X.2018.1423540

Ferrell, A. L., & Black, R. (2019). Of the Coming of John: A Contemporary Counter-Story of Race and Gifted Education. Urban Education, 0042085919842628. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085919842628

Basile, V., York, A., & Black, R. (2019). Who Is the One Being Disrespectful? Understanding and Deconstructing the Criminalization of Elementary School Boys of Color. Urban Education, 004208591984262. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085919842627

First Generation Story

I left home with a one-way plane ticket, a duffel bag, radio, and about twenty dollars. I earned my bachelor's degree in English twenty years later after having gone through several community colleges and universities. My experience spans dropping out because of grades, not having the funds to continue, having incompetent advice as well as being awarded scholarships, being invited to particiapte in academic programs and being mentored by scholars who saw my future instead of my past. My research, teaching and mentorship attempts to honor and follow in the footsteps of those who saw me as a success.

Courses

  • ETST/HIST 250 – African American History

    This course is a general survey of some of the significant periods, events, places, and people in African American History. While covering sometimes difficult topics and events, this is a course about how a people have survived and thrived when there is no hope: how a people made a way out of no way. As a general survey class, this course is meant to be a beginning of your engagement with African American History, Black Studies and Ethnic Studies.

  • ETST 330 – African American Resistance and Self-Creation

    This course examines the conflicting and complimentary efforts of African Americans to counter their dehumanization in the United States. By exploring the people, events and movements they used to create positive imagery, the class will engage in African American’s struggle to become equal and full members of society.

  • ETST 242 – African American Creative Expression

    Through a survey and examination of African American Art (poetry, literature, music, and cinema), this course explores the African American Experience in the United States and provides an introduction to African American Studies. Drawing from a variety of primary and secondary sources, students will engage with some of the history, development, and circumstances of African Americans in the United States.

  • ETST 310 – African American Studies ETST

    This course is an introductory survey exploration of select political, cultural, economic, artistic and social themes and debates that form the academic discipline of Black or African American Studies in the United States.

  • 410 – Advanced Topics in African American Studies

    To prepare students for advanced studies, this course focuses on a contemporary topic in African American Studies to explore its origins, theory, development, scholarship and future directions.