Message from the Director 

Since 1969, the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA – 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 the new director of the only such organized research unit within the University of California, I’m excited to carry on the Center’s 55-year legacy of excellence in academic research and scholarship. Through longstanding and new collaborations, we will continue pioneering research as well as academic and community-based programs and 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, are advancing groundbreaking research that not only explores Black communities and their experiences, but 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 critical research and programs including the Bunche Fellows Program, Million Dollar Hoods, and the Black Policy Project, as well as research initiatives and units led by affiliated faculty. These affiliated units and initiatives included the Hip Hop Initiative, the African American Studies Department, the UCLA Institute of American Culture (IAC), the Prison Education Project, the Arthur Ashe Oral History Project, and the Center for the Transformation of Schools.

Through partnerships and collaborations, the Bunche Center will also support new research initiatives such as the Mark Q. Sawyer Summer Institute in Race, Ethnicity and Politics –a UC-Historically Black College and University (HBCU) partnership with Howard University. It is a six-week summer program which helps undergraduate students to develop empirical research methods skills and prepare students to apply for PhD programs. The Bunche Center will also support the Ethnic Studies Summer Certificate Program for K-12 Teachers, designed for teachers with an interest 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 that promotes better understanding of civic health and socio-political life. 

As we celebrate 55-years 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 next leg of the Center’s journey as we continue to uplift the needs, experiences and untapped potential of Black communities across the diaspora. Stay tuned for announcements about events and more to come.

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/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 textbook, Uneven Roads: An Introduction to U.S. Racial and Ethnic Politics (CQ Press; 3rd Edition).

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, the 2020 CMPS and the CMPS Scholars Research Network includes a consortium of nearly 250 scholars, across 100 universities/colleges. 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.