Twenty Years Later… The Narrative for Black Women in the Academy Remains the Same, or Does It?

Experiences of Black women academics bear remarkable similarities and transcend national boundaries, although with varying degrees of disparities across different socio-political contexts. In this chapter, the authors employ an international pan-African feminist lens to interrogate the experiences of Black women academics both in North America and in other parts of the world. Drawing from experiences Black women shared 20 years ago in the text, Sisters of the Academy, the authors juxtapose the current realities of what it means to be a Black academic woman in a global academic context. The authors extend beyond previous works to highlight the growing significance of context and identit(ies) in understanding Black women’s experiences in higher education. The authors interrogate current feminist theoretical frameworks around Black women’s experiences, to acknowledge the shared but distinct lived realities of oppression or liberation, and extend the framing and understanding of the Black academic woman’s experience in global contexts beyond North America.