The Black Classicists were a group of African American scholars from the late 19th and early 20th centuries who specialized in Classical studies and made important contributions to the field of Classics while facing immense racial barriers and limited educational opportunities. These scholars mastered Latin and Greek, becoming experts in Classical languages, literature, and culture during a time when classical education was seen as the pinnacle of academic achievement.
The articles below introduce notable Black Classicists.
Fikes, Robert. “African-American Scholars of Greco-Roman Culture.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 35, 2002, pp. 120–24. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3133876. Accessed 4 Nov. 2024.
Ronnick, Michele Valerie. “Twelve Black Classicists.” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, vol. 11, no. 3, 2004, pp. 85–102. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20163940. Accessed 21 Oct. 2024. https://cerrocoso.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20163940
The Works of William Sanders Scarborough by
Introduction -- Military -- Speeches -- Journalism -- Introduction to books - Book reviews --Obituaries -- Biographies -- Travel narratives -- Education in general -- Education of Blacks -- Philology in general -- Classical philology -- Politics, policy, and prejudice -- Farming.
Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey by
Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Romare Bearden: A Black Odyssey, DC Moore Gallery, November 13, 2007 - January 5, 2008.
Homer in the Twentieth Century by 
Ulysses in Black by 
The World of Prometheus by 
Who Killed Homer by 
Crossroads in the Black Aegean by
Crossroads in the Black Aegean is a compendious, timely, and fascinating study of African rewritings of Greek tragedy. It consists of detailed readings of six dramas and one epic poem, from different locations across the African diaspora. Barbara Goff and Michael Simpson ask why the plays of Sophocles' Theban Cycle figure so prominently among the tragedies adapted by dramatists of African descent, and how plays that dilate on the power of the past, in the inexorable curse of Oedipus and the regressive obsession of Antigone, can articulate the postcolonial moment.
African American Literature and the Classicist Tradition by
This is a groundbreaking study exploring the significant relationship between western classical mythology and African American women's literature. A comparative analysis of classical revisions by eighteenth and nineteenth century Black women writers Phillis Wheatley and Pauline Hopkins and twentieth century writers Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, and Rita Dove reveals that Black women writers revise specific classical myths for artistic and political agency.
Black Athena by
What is classical about Classical civilization? In one of the most audacious works of scholarship ever written, Martin Bernal challenges the foundation of our thinking about this question. Classical civilization, he argues, has deep roots in Afroasiatic cultures. But these Afroasiatic influences have been systematically ignored, denied or suppressed since the eighteenth century--chiefly for racist reasons.
