Africa-America Institute

Global Black

The Africa America Institute (AAI) was co-founded in 1953 by Horace Mann Bond, President of Lincoln University and Professor William Leo Hansberry, of Howard University, to provide financial assistance and hospitality to Africans studying in the United States. Consistent with Bond and Hansberry’s vision, AAI has evolved to serve as a bridge between Africa and the United States, by promoting enlightened engagement on issues of common concern to Africa and its diaspora, through education, training, and dialogue. AAI has been trusted—on both sides of the Atlantic—to support and enable policies of mutual benefit; to serve as a convenor; and to educate a new generation of Africans and African Americans. This award provides flexible support to AAI’s Global Black project, which is laying the groundwork to fortify the push for reparations at the domestic (United States) and global (Black Diaspora) levels; building awareness for reparations broadly; establishing and strengthening relationships with organizations engaged in reparations work; and developing a cohesive advocacy agenda for reparations that connects national and global contexts.

The Africa America Institute (AAI) was co-founded in 1953 by Horace Mann Bond, President of Lincoln University and Professor William Leo Hansberry, of Howard University, to provide financial assistance and hospitality to Africans studying in the United States. Consistent with Bond and Hansberry’s vision, AAI has evolved to serve as a bridge between Africa and the United States, by promoting enlightened engagement on issues of common concern to Africa and its diaspora, through education, training, and dialogue. AAI has been trusted—on both sides of the Atlantic—to support and enable policies of mutual benefit; to serve as a convenor; and to educate a new generation of Africans and African Americans. With its unique experience in Black-focused education, AAI is developing a customized K-12 curriculum on reparations, grounded in the history of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, Slavery in the United States, Jim Crow, Reconstruction and Colonialism, that will be publicly available. Drawing on its network of over 23,000 Alumni, policymakers, and partners throughout the United States and the global Black diaspora, AAI will host public education events and conversations to probe the substance and complexity of the issue of reparations, as well as honest and healing conversations on slavery, between Africans and people of African descent in the United States. This general operating award strengthens AAI’s organizational infrastructure, and supports its efforts to advance and elevate the issue of reparations in the United States and among the global Black diaspora.

To support the conference "Rethinking Strategies for Mozambique and Southern Africa," co-sponsored with the Superior Institute of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mozambique.

To support expanding African-American relations and contributing to African governments' economic recovery, development, and environmental protection programs.