Reflections on Mapping an A–Z Philosophy BlackList

Introduction

First launched in 2025 as part of Black History Month programming, the project has grown into what is now titled the A–Z Philosophy BlackList, an expanding intellectual archive that currently features 158 names and counting. Led by Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse alongside two Southwestern undergraduate students, Jayden Dawson and Raven Waugh, this list names Black intellectuals whose contributions have informed both philosophy and wider academic fields. While not exhaustive, the list is designed as an invitation to engage with a diverse range of thinkers whose ideas continue to shape knowledge production. Moreover, we acknowledge that any such project reflects the situated perspective of its producers and may inevitably leave some folks out. Importantly, Blackness in this project is framed as a political identity drawing from the South African Black Consciousness philosophy as espoused in Bantu Steve Biko’s I Write What I Like, and N.C. Manganyi’s Being-Black-In-The-World. Each thinker respectively defined Blackness as a political identity, a radical humanism that aimed to reject the idea of blackness as non-white, qua non-human as classified by the Apartheid regime. In this sense, Blackness names a shared modality of being-in-the-world as Blackened people who are aware of their being as Black in an anti-Black, sexist, and ableist world, rather than a biologically fixed identity. It marks a commitment to liberation, self-definition, and the intellectual labor of refusing oppressive systems. 

Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse

When I first began compiling this list in February 2025, my impulse was both archival and affective. I wanted to document the names of Black thinkers whose work has shaped, sustained, and challenged me; those who have been foundational to my intellectual journey as a Black philosopher whose interests traverse disciplines, traditions, and geographies. In drafting the list, I was also intentional about including my contemporaries, peers, colleagues, and emerging scholars. Too often, the names elevated as the “influential Black philosophers” are limited to folks who are situated within the so-called global North, which subsequently minimizes, and erases, the intellectual labor of Black thinkers who work outside these centers of power.

Part of the goal of this project, then, is to challenge precisely those forms of silencing and erasure; to make visible the thinkers whom institutions have often willfully ignored. In this sense, I take inspiration from Ellen Kuzwayo, South African activist-scholar, who ends her autobiography Call Me Woman (1985, 302–304) with two lists documenting South Africa’s first Black women medical doctors qualified between 1947 and 1981 and Black women lawyers qualified between 1967 and 1982. The A-Z Philosophy Blacklist follows in this spirit, as an act of remembrance and counter-archival intervention that aims to recognize the contemporary and “OG” Black philosophers that paved the way for many of us. Here, I am thinking about many like me who stumbled into philosophy by chance, where most, if not all, of our philosophy professors were white, and none of our readings included the work of Black thinkers. In my case, this occurred while I was an undergraduate student at the University of Johannesburg in 2012. Having earned my Ph.D. in Philosophy in 2024, one of the first ten Black South African women, I am acutely aware that such erasures are a deliberate structuring of philosophical curricula to exclude those whose existence disrupts the illusion of universality as white and male. In fact, the first time I was taught by a Black (African) philosopher was in 2015, as a master’s student at the University of the Witwatersrand, by Edwin Eietybo. And the first time I encountered a Black woman philosopher, Kathryn Belle, was in 2018 when I started my doctoral studies at Penn State University. That same year, South Africa celebrated its first Black African woman philosopher to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy, Mpho Tshivase. These moments are not mere personal milestones; they mark the slow, stubborn emergence of Black presence within a discipline that has conflated the human with the European and the rational with the white male subject, as Sylvia Wynter reminds us in “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom.”

A-Z Philosophy Blacklist as counterpart to the Greenbook

The title A–Z Philosophy BlackList is double voiced in two ways: first, it plays on the notion of being “blacklisted,” a term historically used to mark exclusion, suspicion, and disposability. The uptake of “blacklist” names such disposability while also refusing it. Secondly, the list works as a philosophical counterpart to The Negro Motorist Green Book (1936–1966), the travel guide created by Victor Hugo Green to help African Americans navigate the Jim Crow era. Like Green’s guide, A–Z Philosophy BlackList maps routes of intellectual survival, charting where and how one might find nourishment, kinship, and safety within the hostile terrain of the academy. If the Green Book offered directions for travelers, names of safe restaurants and so on, the BlackList aims to locate where one might find intellectual nourishment and inspiration for us to read beyond our geographical boundaries. It should be noted that in the current version A–Z Philosophy BlackList is only a start, the ultimate goal is to create a larger digital archive: the “Blacklist encyclopedia of philosophy” of sorts (already in progress). 

Like any other movement, this work is a culmination of collaborative efforts. With the research funds received from the Mellon Publicly Engaged Humanities grant (Southwestern University), I was able to compensate two undergraduate research assistants, Jayden Dawson and Raven Waugh (whose reflections appear below). Working with Jayden and Raven offered the rare opportunity to collaborate closely with Black students on a campus where one is often fortunate to have even one in a classroom, and this rarity made our time together all the more meaningful. We had weekly Monday meetings, which quickly became more than routine updates; they evolved into spaces of reflection and mutual learning; moments of Black study in the sense articulated by Fred Moten, where joy itself became a method of thinking otherwise within the university, especially in the current political climate of Texas. My office was filled with laughter, loudness, and audacity in ways that spilled over into the corridors of the department. Many thanks to Jayden and Raven for applying themselves; moreover, I would like to thank Mandisa Haarhoff who drew my attention to The Green Book. 

Jayden Dawson:

The first time I was taught by a Black philosopher was by Dr. Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse in their Introduction to Feminist Philosophy, during the Fall of 2024. It was in this class that I encountered Black philosophical works for the very first time—texts that spoke from and to experiences of colonization, gender, and resistance that mirrored aspects of my own lived experience. For example, one of the readings was Sylvia Tamale’s introduction to Decolonization and Afro-Feminism. For the first time, I was reading a philosopher who wrote not from abstract theorization, but from the lived realities of African women negotiating histories of imperialism and patriarchy. It was also a stark contrast to the “traditional” curriculum I had known before, one centered on thinkers like Kant, Descartes, or Plato—white European men whose ideas are often presented as objective and universal, wholly detached from the particularities of race, gender, or geography. Reading Tamale alongside Dr. Zinhle’s lectures made visible how the so-called “universal” has been constructed through exclusion. For the first time, I understood that philosophy is not only about ideas, but also about who gets to think and whose thinking gets remembered.

Importantly, working on this project with Dr. Zinhle has deepened my awareness and understanding of the extent to which Black thinkers remain marginalized in our intellectual imaginations. When I was tasked with researching the biographical information of the thinkers on the A-Z Philosophy BlackList, I was astonished by the wealth of information available on them—many with published works whose contributions remain excluded from some of my curricula. For example, the first time I ever read Julius Nyerere was while working on this list. While working on his entry, I learned how his political philosophy, Ujamaa, shaped Tanzania’s nation-building, education system, and economic policy. To this end, I was also enlightened to another geographical context outside my own, a context that was not included in my education. The extent of this omission is heartbreaking, as if Black students in the United States had the opportunity to study and appreciate the vast wealth of Black knowledge that is out there, many students wouldn’t have to wait for the privileged opportunity to seek higher education to be able to be exposed to Black epistemology and philosophy. This type of exclusion is not by accident and contributes to epistemologies of ignorance, more specifically what Charles Mills calls “White Ignorance.” 

Additionally, I noticed that my familiarity with a thinker almost always depended on whether white institutions or audiences had chosen to acknowledge them. One such example is Angela Davis, whom I admittedly only had a passing knowledge of prior to completing this list. This realization affirmed, in practice, Linda Martín Alcoff claims on how epistemology is political in three ways: (1) The conditions and contexts of knowledge production reflect social hierarchies which determine who is regarded as a legitimate producer of knowledge and whose work becomes influential. This insight is especially relevant to the historical exclusion and obscuration of Black thinkers, and serves as a core motivation for compiling this “list.” (2) Alcoff highlights how knowledge is never produced by abstract, disembodied minds; instead “theories and minds” cannot be separated from “theorists and bodies.” (3) Lastly, she points out how epistemic claims emerge within specific sociopolitical conversations and have the power to “legitimate or delegitimate given discursive hierarchies.” Each contributor in this “encyclopedia” participates in such interventions, whether through academic scholarship, public writing, or creative practice. For example, Miriam Makeba, also known as “Mama Africa,” used her artistry to oppose Apartheid and engage in anti-racist activism as noted in her music, autobiography, and more specifically, her address to the United Nations in 1963 where she spoke up against the Apartheid regime. While initially, Makeba may seem like an unlikely addition to this “encyclopedia,” her artistic expression was integral to her activism and epistemology.

Working on this project reminded me of Samora Machel’s claim that: “If one day you hear the Europeans praise me, know that I have betrayed you.”

Machel’s words capture the paradox of recognition in white-dominated spaces. There is little incentive for those systems to uplift Black voices because doing so destabilizes the foundations on which those systems rest. Indeed, Dr. Amir Jaima’s thoughts in his keynote address at the “Fanon at 100: Lessons and Legacies” event organized by Dr. Zinhle at Southwestern University point out that “those who think of themselves as ‘white’…often define themselves through disavowal by imagining themselves as wholly not Black. When philosophy is structured around that disavowal, there is no space for Black thought except as an object of study, never as a source of theory.”

Another particularly striking moment in my research was learning about Anton Wilhelm Amo. He was kidnapped and enslaved as a child, taken from what is now Ghana to Europe. Yet his story is often told as one of “European rescue,” as if he only became intelligent or valuable through European education. That framing erases the violence of his displacement and turns survival into gratitude. It’s a stark example of how—even in recovery—the narrative of Black genius is filtered through a colonial lens.

Ultimately, working on this project has been both illuminating and transformative. It has reminded me that the work of thinking is not only done in universities or textbooks; it is carried by those who resist erasure, who name themselves and others, and who continue to build worlds of thought against all odds.

Raven Waugh :

Before this project, I had encountered only a handful of the Black thinkers on this list. The few I did know came from courses I took during my undergraduate studies at Southwestern University, such as Introduction to Anthropology, Introduction to Sociology, Understanding Race and Racism, Black Politics, and Race and Ethnic Politics. In these classes, I was introduced to the works of Aimé Césaire, Angela Davis, bell hooks, Steve Biko, Charles Mills, Frantz Fanon, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Malcolm X, and Marcus Garvey.

However, the first time I was taught by a Black philosophy professor (let alone a Black woman) was in Fall 2024 when I enrolled in Dr. Zinhle’s ka’Nobuhlaluse’s “Introduction to Feminist Philosophy.” This class exposed me to various feminist thinkers outside of the Americas, such as Saba Fatima, Kristie Dotson, Ranjoo Seodu Herr, Serene J. Khader, and Stella Nyanzi. Their essay “Contested Terrains of Women of Color and Third World Women” was extremely impactful for me, as it highlights the existence of differences within Black Feminist philosophies. What struck me most was how each writer insisted on the specificity of her own experience and refused to let her reality be absorbed into someone else’s framework. For example, Dotson grounds “women of color” in particular historical and geographical legacies that give it meaning. And Herr speaks to colonial histories and anticolonial resistance that shape what “Third World women” signifies. Nyanzi, writing from Uganda, explains that neither term captures her experience because the structures of oppression she navigates look nothing like what these North American categories assume. By theorizing from their distinct locations and histories, they expose how dominant philosophical frameworks claim universality while actually reflecting white Western men’s standpoints. Reading them alongside each other opened my eyes to something I thought I already knew but perhaps only understood theoretically: there is no single Black experience, no universal Black philosophy. The terrain shifts depending on where you stand. This matters deeply for the A-Z Philosophy BlackList because Black philosophy is so often treated as monolithic, as if all Black thinkers are responding to the same conditions or asking the same questions. In the U.S., Black philosophical works are often filtered almost exclusively through an American racial lens, as if Blackness only means one thing, exists in one way. This project pushes back against that flattening, by gathering philosophers whose work emerges from radically different contexts—each shaped by their own histories of colonialism, migration, resistance, and imagination.

Another insight I gained while working on this project was how uneven the terrain of knowledge truly is. It was significantly harder to find information on some scholars than others. In general, American or widely recognized philosophers, such as Malcom X and Angela Davis, were easier to locate, while finding material on thinkers from the “Global South,” such as Khondlo Mtshali, required more time, care, and effort. This difficulty speaks directly to the terrain of epistemic injustice as echoed by Jadyen above, in ways that make me wonder: who is allowed to know, and whose knowledge is allowed to circulate? Whose intellectual contributions are illuminated, and whose remain obscured? Experiencing this imbalance firsthand made it unsurprising that so many people act as if Black philosophers do not exist. Even when one intentionally seeks out Black philosophical work, one often encounters gaps and resistance. This is why resources like the BlackList matter so profoundly—in that the list does more than collect names, but also attempts to reveal the vastness of Black intellectual life.

What also surprised me was seeing my own cognitive dissonance reflected back at me. In theory, I often speak about Blackness in terms of class, power, and intersectionality. But in practice, I noticed that I struggled with recognizing certain racially ambiguous thinkers, such as Romy Opperman and Naomi Zack, as Black, even when their lived experiences clearly situated them within systems of racial oppression. Confronting my own biases, particularly those shaped by American color lines, was uncomfortable but necessary. This project made me question how easily I take my Americanness for granted. Why should a global list of Black philosophers conform to the racial standards of a single country? I dislike when people treat whiteness as the default, yet I had to admit that I was treating Americanness as the default lens for interpreting race. Even though I am well-traveled and have visited more than ten countries—including Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, China, Korea, Mozambique, South Africa, Lesotho, Belize, Britain, and Micronesia—I still have much to learn and unlearn. Exposure to different thought systems and cultures outside one’s own is not only intellectually beneficial but can be transformative.

Being on this project has offered me the kind of intellectual stimulation I had been craving outside of my coursework load, while also becoming a space for my own growth and introspection. I loved our weekly meetings; they always opened into unexpected discussions that pushed me to think differently. I enjoy forming my own philosophical positions and comparing them with others, and having access to such a rich set of thinkers made that even more meaningful. My own thinking has been shaped by concepts like joy as resistance, drawing from thinkers like Angela Davis and Robin Kelly, who remind us that radical imagination is necessary for liberation, and Fanon’s insistence on the psychological dimensions of decolonization. I’ve also been drawn to Ubuntu and relational ethics as frameworks that center interconnection and collective humanity rather than Western individualism. Engaging with the A-Z Philosophy BlackList allowed me to see how the ideas I’ve been developing sit within broader conversations across continents as well as how Black philosophy offers alternative ways of understanding selfhood, community, and freedom that challenge dominant Western frameworks.