"The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it," said George Kimble, a geographer born in 1912.
The same holds true today.
"Africa is something that everybody 'knows' about and they talk about, but there's not a lot of understanding of why Africa developed the way it did," said Ethan Trevino, adjunct professor of history and instructor for the course.
Intro to Africana Studies is a typical lecture course, but Trevino tries to encourage class discussion.
"There are three discussions," Trevino said. "I give them a reading from somebody who wrote it at the time, then they read it, and then we have discussion questions."
Students can choose one of those discussion questions about which to write an essay for the exam.
Students said learning the hows and whys of African development has been a revelation, helping them to understand the continent and its history.
"It's pretty interesting to see some of how the world political views came about and how they took effect and how that shaped how we are in this world today," said James Mitchell, junior in sociology.
Trevino is teaching the class for the first time.
"The person who was going to teach it, at the last minute, had to bow out, so I came in," Trevino said.
The class is required for the Africana history minor, and it counts as credit toward the history major.
"I polled the kids to figure out why they were taking it," Trevino said. "The majority of the class wanted to know about Africa in particular and how it got the way it did and how it functions the way it does."
Mitchell said he likes to learn about Africa as a continent and see how it developed into the state it is today and why they have some of the problems they have.
The class's main focus, however, has been economics.
"I'm trying to show them how money and profit moves the world, in a way," Trevino said.
Trevino said much of the history of Africa revolves around actions taken for monetary gain.
"The British seizing control of Egypt, or you know, South Africa, was in a lot of ways to control trade to and from India," Trevino said. "Getting control of Kenya was because they wanted to protect India, not because they were interested in Africa in and of itself, necessarily."
Ashleigh Davis, junior in psychology, said she took the class because she wanted to know more about Africa.
"I don't know that much about the history, but it's interesting to me," Davis said. "I might minor in it."
Trevino said he hopes this course will make students more aware of the history and development of Africa.
"The first thing I asked was, 'What is Africana studies?'" Trevino said. "And the students were like, 'Pfft, we hoped you would know.'
"I said, 'You know what, I'm not going to tell you because there's no good answer, but hopefully you'll have a better idea of what it is by the end of the course.'"
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