Afro-Am Department Chair Yolanda Covington-Ward honored at ASALH conference

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The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), is one of oldest and most prominent organizations for African American studies in the country. Founder Carter G. Woodson was also the founder of the week-long celebration that eventually evolved into Black History Month.

All of this is to say that when ASALH  takes notice of someone’s work, it matters — and why it’s so impressive that the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies saw not one but two of its members honored at the organization’s most recent conference in September.

Department Chair Yolanda Covington-Ward was one of six people and organizations to receive the Council Award of Special Recognition. Department alumna Dr. Stephanie Evans, Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Georgia State University, received the Woodson Scholars Medallion.

“It’s very meaningful to receive an award from an organization like this,” said Covington-Ward. 

Building Scholarship and Community

The Council Award of Special Recognition, according to the ASALH website, “acknowledges the contributions of individuals, institutions and corporations that make a substantial contribution to the success of ASALH in pursuing the mission of its founder, Dr. Carter G. Woodson.”

“I was told that I was nominated by several people who wanted to recognize my contributions to African-American life and history. I think this is coming out of my work as department chair for the W.E.B. Du Bois department and in really trying to continue to bring people together,” Covington-Ward said. In addition to her time at UMass, she has been a chair at the University of Pittsburgh. She is involved with the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD). She has reached out to other universities nationally to build community with other Black Studies departments to support each other during a challenging political climate, and she is leading an effort to revive a Five College Black Studies consortium. 

Her award, in short, recognizes both her scholarship and her work to strengthen her community. 

“It's part and parcel of what Black Studies is. Some people refer to it as the academic wing of the movement. I think (the award) is validation around the work that I am doing, and encouragement to continue doing it," Covington-Ward said.

She and Evans collaborate professionally and supported each other at the event. Covington-Ward expressed her delight to see Evans acknowledged, while Evans posted photos of Covington-Ward receiving her award.

Covington-Ward brought Evans to campus in the spring to host two writing workshops linked to her most recent book, which was on Black feminist writing. She noted that Evans was in one of the earliest Afro-American Studies PhD cohorts at UMass. 

Evans’ award recognizes her prolific writing career. The Medallion is given to “a scholar whose career is distinguished through at least a decade of research, writing, and activism in the field of African American life and history.” In addition to the books, Evans is the current national director of the Association of Black Women Historians, which brings together Black women historians across the country.

UMass is a regular presence at ASALH conferences, with a dozen faculty, alumni, and students attending. Covington-Ward explained that the gathering had a purpose beyond the intellectual, especially in a year when the external pressures on Black Studies are so great — that of finding community and strong leaders who have each other’s back. ASALH President Dr. Karsonya Wise Whitehead has been an active voice in speaking up against “efforts to erase Black history and to whitewash it in many ways. She is a very, very effective president, is what I can say, and a model for the kind of leadership that we need at this particular time,” Covington-Ward said.

Many of the attendees shared strategies for dealing with the current moment and staying mentally strong amid the pressure, which she valued.

“I walked away from the ASALH conference feeling revived, uplifted.”