Message from the Director

Message from the Director

Meet Dr. Lorrie Frasure, Director of the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center

Since 1969, the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies – founded as the Center for Afro-American Studies (CAAS) – has served as a national and global leader in the study, advancement, and preservation of Black life.

As director of the only such organized research unit within the University of California, I am excited to carry on the Center’s 56-year legacy of excellence in academic research and scholarship. Through longstanding and new collaborations, we continue to pioneer academic research and community-based initiatives that have broad impact for Black communities across California, the United States, and internationally.

Our wide range of over eighty (80) affiliated scholars, from law and the medical sciences to dance and the humanities, advance groundbreaking research that not only explores Black communities and their experiences, but also puts a critical lens on important policy issues to create a more equitable state for all. Further, our library maintains one of California’s most significant collections of artifacts, testimonies, and historical texts documenting the Black experience.

The Bunche Center continues to support faculty-led research and programs, including the Bunche Fellows Program, the Black Policy Project, Million Dollar Hoods, and the Hip Hop Initiative. The Bunche Center also supports new partnerships such as the Mark Q. Sawyer Summer Institute in Race, Ethnicity and Politics – a UC-Historically Black College and University (HBCU) collaboration with Howard University in Washington, DC. This six-week summer research program provides undergraduate students with training in empirical research methods and coding skills, preparing them to be competitive graduate school applicants. Our summer program also partners with the UCLA Academic Advancement Program/McNair Research Scholars Program. Additionally, the Bunche Center supports the Ethnic Studies Summer Certificate Program for K-12 Teachers, designed for teachers interested in expanding their knowledge of and training in ethnic studies curriculum. This program is a collaboration between the Institute for American Culture (IAC), the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Sciences, and UCLA Extension.

Now housed within the Bunche Center, the fifth election cycle of the Collaborative Multiracial Post-election Survey (CMPS) – a cooperative, multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, post-Presidential election online survey in the United States continues to promote a better understanding of civic health and socio-political life, through high-quality survey data collection among hard-to-reach populations.

In January 2025, we welcomed the Arthur Ashe Legacy Project to the Bunche Center. This project is dedicated to honoring the tennis and humanitarian great’s legacy with substantive actions for today’s students and scholars. From offering funding and academic development opportunities for students to conducting an international oral history initiative, the project highlights Arthur Ashe’s enormous impact and showcases lessons for today.

The Center is gearing up to launch the new Global Black Studies Research Initiative in fall 2025. This serves as our listening and learning year to better understand our UCLA community of faculty, students and staff who engage in, or support, research projects and initiatives on Black life outside of the United States and/or from a comparative perspective to the U.S. We seek to build a collaborative set of opportunities, resources, and experiences through the Bunche Center for UCLA, Los Angeles and the State of California, supporting research and programs in the field of Global Black Studies.

We also provide support for several departments and programs across campus, including the UCLA Institute of American Culture (IAC), the UCLA Department of African American Studies, the UCLA Prison Education Project and a host of Center-sponsored research and events from affiliated faculty, departments and units.

As we celebrate nearly six decades of the Bunche Center, we are committed to continuing to build upon its rich legacy of research, scholarship and community-based programs centered on Black Studies through a wide range of research, events and featured speakers who exemplify the spirit of equity and excellence upon which the Bunche Center was founded. We invite all our supporters to join us on the Center’s journey as we continue to uplift the needs, experiences and untapped potential of Black communities across the diaspora.

About the Director

Dr. Lorrie Frasure is the inaugural Ralph J. Bunche Endowed Chair and a Professor of Political Science and African American Studies.

Frasure joined the faculty of UCLA in 2007 and became the first woman of color and the first Black female to earn tenure and become full professor in the Political Science department. From 2019-2022 she served as Vice Chair for Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at UCLA. She also served as the Acting Director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA from 2019-2020.

Frasure’s research examines racial and ethnic political behavior, African American politics, women and politics, immigrant political incorporation, and state and local politics. Her first book, Racial and Ethnic Politics in American Suburbs (Cambridge University Press) is the 2016 winner of two national book awards by the American Political Science Association (APSA), including the Best Book about Race Relations in the United States from the Race, Ethnicity and Politics (REP) Section, and the Dennis Judd Best Book Award in Urban and Local Politics.

She is also the co-author of the 2024 textbook, Uneven Roads: An Introduction to U.S. Racial and Ethnic Politics (CQ Press; 3rd Edition), which brings the historical narrative to life by addressing contemporary debates and challenges affecting U.S. racial and ethnic politics.

Additionally, Frasure is the Principal Investigator of the Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), the first cooperative, multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, post-Presidential election online survey in the U.S. With major funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the CMPS and the CMPS Scholars Research Network includes a consortium of nearly 250 researchers, from nearly 100 colleges/universities, across multiple academic disciplines including the social sciences, psychology, public policy, public health, education, law, and other fields. The CMPS is considered one of the most impactful survey-based data projects in the social sciences. She is the recipient of the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, the university’s highest recognition for superior teaching. Frasure is also the recipient of several other awards, including the Ford Foundation Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellowship Awards, and the Clarence Stone Young Scholars Award of the American Political Science Association’s Urban Politics Section.

A first-generation college graduate born and raised in the South-side of Chicago, Frasure received her B.A. from the University of Illinois-Urbana, a Master in Public Policy from the University of Chicago, and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland-College Park. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Cornell University prior to her faculty appointment at UCLA.