Moulite, J, Hall Z, Mohammed H, Ralph S, (2024). Dear Mama: Highlighting Environmental Pollutants on Black Maternal Health. The Dig

“In Fall 2023, two topics that students were passionate about in our Black Women in America course that had about 200 students were Black maternal health and environmental justice. So thinking about how these things intersect was something that was of interest to me,” said Quarkume, an  Africana Studies professor and graduate director of Howard University's Center for Applied Data Science and Analytics (CADSA) program. In the months since that semester, Quarkume and her “CORE Futures Lab" team , who range from Howard  undergraduate and graduate researchers and  high and middle school scholars,  have expanded their multi-year convergence research project to center on Black birthing people’s experiences across economic status and exposure levels to environmental toxins." read more

Her Truth and Service: Lucy Diggs Slowe in Her Own Words

Lucy Diggs Slowe (1885–1937) was one of the most remarkable and accomplished figures in the history of Black women’s higher education. She was a builder of institutions, organizing the first historically Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, while a student at Howard University in 1908; establishing the first junior high school for Black students in Washington, D.C.; and founding as well as leading other major national and community organizations. In 1922 Slowe was appointed the first Dean of Women at Howard, making her the first Black woman to serve as dean at any American university. Beyond her trailblazing career in higher education, she was a committed teacher, an ardent antiracist advocate, and even a national tennis champion.



Her Truth and Service showcases Slowe’s speeches, articles, and letters, illuminating her multifaceted accomplishments and unwavering dedication to the quest for equality and justice. In these texts, readers encounter Slowe’s powerful voice and keen intellect, witnessing her triumphs and travails as an educator, a leader, and a Black woman in a deeply exclusionary society. Slowe’s writings depict her personal and professional efforts to topple race and gender barriers and open up greater opportunities for Black women and girls, as well as the obstacles she faced in male-dominated institutions including the Howard administration. Her Truth and Service is an important document of a significant figure in the development of Black institutions and an inspiring testament to the lifelong struggle for social justice.

Quarkume, A. Y. (2023). Making Data Science Democratic (November 2023 ed.). New America.

There is the democracy we think we live in, and then there is the democracy we are actually living in. In the democracy we think we live in, individuals and communities have the power to shape their own futures, to define their own interests and act on them. In this scenario, the government is a supporter and protector of the public interest, providing infrastructure, education, public safety, clean water, and other basic needs. Data — how it is collected, managed, and deployed in public services — plays an increasingly important role in the public interest... more

Quarkume, A. Y., Campbell, S. (2023). Gracie on the Yard: University Ed Tech Researchers and Gracie’s Corner Creators Talk Black Edutainment. Washington, DC:. 12511 Rustic Rock Ln

In a question-and-answer session, Symone Campbell, Ph.D. and Amy Yeboah Quarkume, Ph.D., discuss the importance of Gracie's Corner with founders Javoris and Arlene Hollingsworth... more

Moulite, J., Jones, M. (2023). In A. Yeboah Quarkume (Ed.), Not Blowing Smoke: Howard University Researchers Highlight Earth Science Data Inequalities Amidst Canadian Wildfires. Washington: Howard University.

What happens when your local news station, state Department of Environmental Quality or the federal Environmental Protection Agency can’t disclose what is in the colored skyline and funny odor you smell in the morning—not because they don’t want to give you the information, but because they don’t know how to give you data that is specific to your community and situation?” Quarkume said.... more

Yeboah Quarkume, A. (2023). ChatGPT: a Digital Djembe or a Virtual Trojan horse? no. Washington, DC: Howard University.

We should critically engage and evaluate the expansion of artificial intelligence models and other content-generating technologies. Here’s why...

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Yeboah, Amy O. "Howard University & the Challenge of the Black University: A Conversation with Andrew Billingsley & Greg E. Carr"

During the 1960s Howard University held great promise, finding itself at a transformative crossroads as it related to the institutional study of Black life. On September 3, 1966 in a Washington Post article, Howard University President Nabrit declared “he would like to see enrollment eventually distributed between whites and Negroes on a 50–50 basis, and perhaps even 60–40.‘It will be good for the District, the University, and the US’ he said.” 1 The next year, concerns around questions of student governance surfaced as students were expelled for participating in protests against the on campus appearance of Selective Service Director General Lewis Hershey. 2 That summer, after dismissing a number of professors deemed “too close” to the student activists (including Nathan Hare, who is widely credited with Chairing the first Department of Black Studies at his subsequent institution, San Francisco State University...

Yeboah, Amy. “Why the West Couldn’t Hear Beale Street: Baldwin’s World-sense of Female Sexuality.” Humanities, no.8, 4 (2019)

While scholars have noted James Baldwin’s revisionary and transformative literary approach to social constructions of race, class, gender, and crime, there has been very little conversation in that vein regarding If Beale Street Could Talk (1974). Upon its publication, many critics issued negative reviews of the novel, failing to recognize how Baldwin’s view of female sexuality both embraced notions of the body and constructs from an African-centered world-sense. Using a range of theoretical resources from Africana Studies, this paper analyzes how moving beyond Western frameworks regarding knowledge, sexual discourse, and behavior offers a new interpretation of Baldwin’s aims that reclaims and re-imagines Black sexual politics.

Yeboah, Amy. "400 Years after the Coming: Daniel Black's The Coming: A Novel as a Guide for “we, a People” to Return to Africa." CLA Journal, 61, no. 3 (2018): 223-37.

Yeboah, Amy O. "Reflections on the Second Wave of “Make America Great Again”: A Glimpse from a Historically Black College and University." Women, Gender, and Families of Color, no. 1 (2018): 136-43.

Yeboah, Amy. “Reconceptualizing Black Students Going Abroad: Heritage Experiences in Theory and Practice.” International Journal of Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Higher Education, vol 4, issue. 1 (2019).

The lack of participation in study abroad programs by Black students is a topicof persistent concern yetincreasing opportunities has not yielded significant results. A closer look at study abroad programs identifies a gap in program offerings and experiences that Black students might actually desire. Reconceptualizing what Black people value from travel experiences and addressing students’ primary obstacles going abroad—the financial burden, fear of anticipated racism, and finding programs of interest (Gasman, 2013)—led Howard University to offer a heritage program approach. This article looks at how the Young AfricanA Leadership Initiative (YAALI) fellowship closes the cultural gap that exists for Black students in traditional study abroad programs.