African Americans and Community Engagement in Higher Education: Community Service, Service-Learning, and Community-Based Research

This book discusses race and its roles in university-community partnerships. The contributors take a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and multiregional approach that allows students, agency staff, community constituents, faculty, and campus administrators an opportunity to reflect on and redefine what impact African American identity-in the academy and in the community-has on various forms of community engagement. From historic concepts of "race uplift" to contemporary debates about racialized perceptions of need, they argue that African American identity plays a significant role. In representing best practices, recommendations, personal insight, and informed warnings about building sustainable and mutually beneficial relationships, the contributors provide a cogent platform from which to encourage the difficult and much-needed inclusion of race in dialogues of national service and community engagement.

"This book validates the African proverb 'it takes a village to raise a child.' The topics are right on the mark and highlight the benefits of service-learning as an instrument of individual and community involvement and empowerment." - Festus E. Obiakor, coeditor of Culturally Responsive Literacy Instruction (From the Publisher)