Sisters of the Academy promotes growth of black women in academics

Yaba Blay doesn’t let herself become bound by her work in the halls of academia.

She is a writer, producer and researcher on black culture, having delved into such topics as “skin-color politics,” and even authored a book that examined the meaning and identity of blackness.

She’s examined the practice of skin bleaching in Ghana, Africana cultural aesthetics and the impact of hip-hop on society.

On Wednesday night, Blay held captive an audience of more than 100 women as she shared her latest social-media-driven project, #ProfessionalBlackGirl, a campaign to celebrate black females from youngsters to millennials to seniors. The multi-episode project has generated a following on YouTube.

 Blay’s appearance in Tallahassee was sponsored by Sisters of the Academy Institute, founded in 2001 at Florida State University by a group of students who bonded as they worked on their doctoral studies.

Nearly 100 women, including undergraduates, newly-minted post-graduates and professors, last week attended the institute’s Research Bootcamp. It is an intense weeklong gathering to teach skills and practices as they embark on research projects.

Blay’s lecture was one of the after-hour features of the program, which not only delves into the rigors of a successful pursuit in earning a doctoral degree but allows for networking, mentoring and helping black women better understand themselves.

“This is a project of my heart,” said Blay, who holds the Dan Blue Endowed Chair in Political Science at North Carolina Central University in Durham, N.C. “I love black women. I love black girls.”

Blay mixed her lecture with a video from the #ProfessionalBlackGirl series on black hair and identity. Her message and overall theme was black women don’t have to lose their self-identity and culture, even as they step into the halls of academia.

“I’m not your average academic,” she said. “I don’t get invited to a lot of academic conferences. I don’t speak the language. The academy is not where I worry about. It’s the outside world.”

Blay said the Tallahassee invitation was her first chance to present on #ProfessionalBlackGirl in an academic setting.

“The intention was to give them permission to be themselves,” she said while greeting participants. “Many of them are in the academy and the academy is not a friendly place for black women.

“For a lot of black women in the academy, they just do the task in academics. They don’t think about themselves.”

Over the years, Sisters of the Academy has developed into a national organization of women in higher education. Its partners include the College of Education at Florida