The Afro-American Association (AAA) was an influential organization founded in 1962 that started as a study group teaching

African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...

and

African American history African-American history began with the arrival of List of ethnic groups of Africa, Africans to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. Former Spanish slaves who had been freed by Francis Drake arrived aboard the Golden Hind at New Albi ...

, later hosting speakers, meetings, forums, and other activities. Historian Donna Murch has described it as “the most foundational institution in the Black Power movement.”

Organization

In 1962, a group of graduate and law students at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

started a reading group with the goal of educating themselves and their community about African and African American history. The founding members were Donald Warden, Donald Hopkins, Otho Green, and Henry Ramsey. Susan D. Anderson, a curator at the

California African American Museum The California African American Museum (CAAM) is a museum located in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, United States. The museum focuses on enrichment and education on the cultural heritage and history of African Americans with a focus o ...

, said "They read the black writers that the university was ignoring…(and) devoured Ralph Ellison, discussed Carter G. Woodson, debated W.E.B. DuBois. They talked about apartheid, about African decolonization, about liberation movements in the developing world, and about the history of racism in America." There were also chapters in other cities and universities. The Los Angeles chapter was chaired by

Maulana Karenga Maulana Ndabezitha Karenga (born Ronald McKinley Everett, July 14, 1941), previously known as Ron Karenga, is an American activist, author, and professor of Africana studies, best known as the creator of the pan-African and African-American holi ...

. Donald Warden visited Portland in 1963 and returned in February 1964, proposing to form a chapter of the Afro-American Association in that city. In the mid-1960s, students formed a chapter of the Afro-American Association at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

in North Carolina. At

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...

in Massachusetts in 1966, students dissatisfied with

Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...

formed an AAA chapter to advocate for African American students and political awareness on campus. Students at the University of Alabama established an Afro-American Association in 1968, which later became their

Black Student Union In higher education in the United States, a Black Student Union (BSU) is an organization of Black students, generally with a focus on protest. Historically functioning as a Black counterpart to the largely white organization Students for a Democrat ...

Impact

Donald Warden mentored

Huey P. Newton Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) was an African-American revolutionary, notable as founder of the Black Panther Party. Newton crafted the Party's ten-point manifesto with Bobby Seale in 1966. Under Newton's leadershi ...

and

Bobby Seale Robert George Seale (born October 22, 1936) is an American political activist and author. Seale is widely known for co-founding the Black Panther Party with fellow activist Huey P. Newton. Founded as the "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense", ...

, who were Afro-American Association members and co-founded the

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

in 1966. Another AAA member, Kenny Freeman, contributed to the party's

Ten-Point Program Ten Point Program may refer to: * Ten-Point Program (Black Panther Party), a set of guidelines to the Black Panther Party * PLO's Ten Point Program, the 1974 plan accepted by the Palestinian National Council for the liberation of Palestinian territ ...

. The parents of

Kamala Harris Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...

Donald J. Harris Donald Jasper Harris (born August 23, 1938) is a Jamaican-American economist and professor emeritus at Stanford University, known for applying Post-Keynesian economics, post-Keynesian ideas to development economics. He is the father of the 49th a ...

and

Shyamala Gopalan Gopalan Shyamala (December 7, 1938 – February 11, 2009) was a biomedical scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, whose work in isolating and characterizing the progesterone receptor gene stimulated advances in breast biolog ...

, were part of the study group that became the Afro-American Association. Several members became prominent cultural and political leaders. These included

Ron Dellums Ronald Vernie Dellums (November 24, 1935 – July 30, 2018) was an American politician who served as Mayor of Oakland from 2007 to 2011. He had previously served thirteen terms as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Californi ...

(congressman and Oakland mayor), Judge

Thelton Henderson Thelton Eugene Henderson (born November 28, 1933) is an inactive Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He has played an important role in the field of civil rights as a la ...

, and

Cedric Robinson Cedric James Robinson (November 5, 1940 – June 5, 2016) was an American professor in the Department of Black Studies and the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He headed the Department of Blac ...

(professor and scholar of Black Studies). Henry Ramsey became an

Alameda County Superior Court The Alameda County Superior Court, officially the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, is the California superior court with jurisdiction over Alameda County as established by Article VI of the Constitution of California. It functions ...

judge, member of the

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

City Council, and dean of the

Howard University School of Law Howard University School of Law (Howard Law or HUSL) is the law school of Howard University, a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is one of the oldest law schools in the country and the oldes ...

References

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Organization

Impact

References

Further reading