Advancing Social Justice Through Scholarly Work

For the past several years, the Dr. N. Joyce Payne Center for Social Justice (CSJ) has been bringing together crucial voices and perspectives to positively impact Black life in American society.

And its impact on social issues has been dramatic, say scholars who add that the need for a social justice think tank, particularly with a focus on historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), is critically important.

“The Payne Center sees the challenges as well as the opportunities that exist for the Black community as being complex, defying simple solutions, but requiring the synergistic intellectual capacity of thought leaders across multiple fields of endeavor,” says Dr. Fred A. Bonner II, the Wilhelmina Delco Endowed Chair in Educational Leadership and the executive director of the Minority Achievement, Creativity and High-Ability Center, Prairie View A&M University, and a collaborator with CSJ.

Dr. N. Joyce Payne is founder of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), the national advocacy organization designed to support students who attend the 47 publicly supported HBCUs. In 2021, TMCF launched the CSJ to advance social justice for Black Americans. Rooted in the African American community, CSJ has become a recognized research center integrally connected to HBCUs. It brings together scholars, thought leaders, and community advocates to identify, evaluate, and study pressing issues and develop sustainable means of change that will have a positive impact on Black life.

“We intend to harness our collective resources to not only engage scholars at HBCUs in the research of the center, but to channel that pedagogy to the full range of human needs of the Black community,” says Payne in an interview with Diverse.

Purpose

CSJ has six primary areas of concentration: civic participation; economics and wealth; educational equity; the future of work; communities and environments; and organizational entities.

Those areas were developed through research and interviews with research scholars, thought leaders, and practitioners. “With this reservoir of information complemented by nearly 40 years of work at TMCF, we were able to define with clarity issues that disproportionately impact the ability of Black America and HBCUs to thrive,” says Payne.

Social injustice has been deeply embedded in policies and practices at every level of government and industry, says Dr. Harry L. Williams, president and CEO of TMCF. “Injustice literally costs lives and diminishes educational and economic opportunities for millions of African Americans and other members of historically marginalized populations,” says Williams.

Williams notes that, for more than a century, HBCUs have provided education for African Americans, bringing the world physicians, engineers, attorneys, inventors, politicians, and many other professions. They are hubs of innovation and upward mobility.

“As the country’s largest champion of the Black college community, it is imperative for TMCF to be engaged in the N. Joyce Payne Center for Social Justice’s initiative to advance social justice for Black Americans through research, resources, public policy, and intentional programming,” says Williams. “Through our ongoing partnership, we are committed to taking education and corporate America higher by advancing academic research, ensuring student success at publicly supported HBCUs and serving as a liaison to the federal government and local officials for our members and their students.”

Dr. M. C. Brown II, CSJ executive director and research scientist, says in recent years higher education research has shifted away from HBCUs to minority-serving institutions more broadly. The CSJ makes HBCUs the focal point in its higher education research because these schools have a distinct mission to educate and uplift African Americans.

Dr. Harry L. Williams“It’s not just about the work that we do here, but about raising visibility of the work on the member campuses and other HBCUs,” says Brown, who previously served as president of Alcorn State University and Kentucky State University.

Research topics are driven by the mission and by the Agora Strategy Council of which Dr. Christopher B. Knaus, a race scholar and critical race practitioner, is a member. A long-time collaborator of Brown’s — in 2016 they co-authored the book Whiteness Is the New South Africa: Qualitative Research on Post-Apartheid Racism — they recently began conversations about a related project.

“The Agora Strategy Council represents an incredible range of practitioners and scholars,” says Knaus, a professor in the School of Education at the University of Washington/Tacoma. “Part of the task for bringing us in was that we have agendas that we’ve essentially centered through the Payne Center. It’s a beautiful way to tap into and support the work that all the members are essentially doing but do it in concert with the Payne Center.”

He notes that the members of the council have a broad range of backgrounds, but the research is of direct relevance to Black communities. CSJ also advances racial equity and advises public officials and policymakers on effective policies and services for communities of color.

“Our work is very community and practitioner-oriented,” Knaus says. “[Some of the] projects we’re uplifting are not eligible for traditional academic research funds.”

Power

The Payne Center provides a ‘safe’ intellectual space for HBCU scholars to problematize and deconstruct problems that plague Black communities within and external to the academy, says Bonner. “What is most important about the Payne Center is how HBCU scholars are given the opportunity to authentically tell their own stories,” he adds.

The research of many HBCU scholars is fueled by aspects of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), says Bonner. His most recent book, co-edited with Drs. Nicholas D. Hartlep and Terrell L. Strayhorn, Belonging in Higher Education: Perspectives and Lessons from Diverse Faculty, is being released in mid-July. It is part of Bonner’s “Diverse Faculty in the Academy” series with Routledge. He says the CSJ facilitates scholars creating synergy and seamless intersectionality.

“The beauty of the Payne Center is to galvanize all of the best creative, intellectual work that is going on by way of DEIB, and they allow us to crystallize that good work in one place and space,” says Bonner.

Brown agrees.

Dr. Fred Bonner II“We’re at a juncture nationally where we’re trying to redefine and define what does equity look like,” says Brown. “How do we wrestle with the progressive versus conservative tensions around DEI, around school choice, around segregation/desegregation/integration? Our intent here is to remain focused on ‘just the facts.’ Our job is to stay behind the numbers and to provide the field and the public with good data so that they can make informed decisions about both public policy, social policy, and behavioral practice.”

The CSJ published “Black Thriving in America: 2023.” The five pillars of wellbeing are career, community, social, physical, and financial. Gallup conducted the study and the findings are a snapshot of the state of Black life in America. Brown notes this data available through Gallup gives voice to 40 million Black Americans on questions such as how they feel about work life, education, healthcare, and even their overall best life imaginable.

“We use pure social science research methods,” Brown notes. “We use traditional human science investigative techniques. We use large data sets, quantitative analysis. We avoid data interpretation. We just provide the facts, and that will allow policymakers, administrators, campuses, anyone to do their own analysis.”

The 2023 Black Thriving report was just a baseline. The intention is to ask the same questions each year and issue updated reports. CSJ now has the first run of the 2024 data. Preparations are underway for the report to be released in September, to provide insight into how African Americans are doing in advance of the Presidential election.

“We intend to challenge the status quo with disruptive ideas that not only change the quality and quantity of resources to Black America but dissect deeply rooted structural inequities in public and private policies and practices,” says Payne. “Today, more than ever, we need an America that truly believes in and is willing to invest in realizing the infinite possibilities of human potential as a pathway to the highest quality of education, social justice, and economic prosperity.”

Projects

CSJ has boasted several initiatives, including the Payne Center Book Series. The first book, Creating New Possibilities for the Future of HBCUs: From Research to Praxis, edited by Drs. Terrell L. Strayhorn, Michael Steven Williams and Royel M. Johnson, was recently published. “We’re now able to push into the marketplace some extraordinary ideas about the future of HBCUs,” says Brown. 

The launch of The Payne Center Journal on Race and Social Justice is forthcoming. This will allow scholars across disciplines and across institutions to bring research, new data, and scholarly ideas on a range of topics to the forefront. Plans are underway for a 2025 convening that will explore the topic of reparative justice in higher education. This does not mean financial, rather it means institutional access to funding and ensuring that philanthropies consider funding topics reflective of marginalized and disadvantaged communities.

Dr. N. Joyce PayneIn June, the CSJ joined Binghamton University’s Harriet Tubman Center for Freedom and Equity and the Kaschak Institute for Social Justice for Women and Girls to present “Black Communities, Climates, and the Environment: A Summit on Science, Systemic Inequalities and Solutions.” It was a day-long convening of leaders, policymakers, academics, and advocates from African American communities who want to address the racialized impacts of climate change and showcase how Black communities can be change agents in the fight for a sustainable future.

Knaus does a lot of work in South Africa, which has institutions that were founded during apartheid and parallel an HBCU model. He is working on a project around South Africa, with a U.S. based higher education infrastructure.

“What if we partner HBCU administrators with university administrators in Southern Africa?” he asks. “That can be ongoing, collaborative spaces. Thinking about how we strategize globally would be an interesting space for the Payne Center.”

One of CSJ’s functions is providing professional development. Bonner’s association with CSJ began when Williams asked him to conduct a workshop titled, “Framing and Maintaining a Research Agenda,” which Bonner designed to provide critical insight to support faculty development around research, tenure, and promotion.

“I lean on the foundational principles of what it means to be a faculty member and what it means to show excellence,” says Bonner, who anticipates these workshops will continue and expand. “Faculty have to be developed based upon the context that they’re in.”

In July, Williams speaks at the “Listening and Leading: The Art and Science of Peace, Resilience and Transformational Justice Conference” in Rwanda, where he will discuss the TMCF’s partnership with Descendants of Truth and Reconciliation Foundation to build a fund to support college education for descendants of slavery.

“The goal is to, one, do good research and translate that into usable information for public and social policy,” Brown says. “Then, two, to hold convenings that allow scholars to marry research to real life questions. The Payne Center has become sort of a hub for matching the great work of HBCUs, the communities that they intend to serve and the best available social science research and evidence.”