Devyn Spence Benson – Russell Sage Foundation Grant

The Office of Grants and Contracts congratulates Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Latin American Studies, and Chair of Africana Studies, Devyn Spence Benson on a Presidential Authority grant from the Russell Sage Foundation.

The $50,000 Race, Ethnicity and Immigration program grant funds the project “Black Migration in a White City: Power, Privilege, and Exclusion in Cuban America.” Professor Benson, with collaborator Danielle Clealand of the University of Texas at Austin, will analyze oral histories, census, and archival data from Afro-Cubans to examine their socioeconomic status, educational trajectories, political attitudes, and voting behaviors.

Noting that “much of the literature in the social sciences and humanities treats Latinos as not only racially homogenous, but victims of exclusion and social and economic inequality.  Our book urges scholars to recognize that white privilege is relevant for Latino communities and that race matters for socioeconomic outcomes.” 

This prestigious award follows Professor Benson’s 2019 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, book-length study of Afro-Cuban intellectual life during the 1970’s, “Black Consciousness in Cuba:  The Untold Revolution, 1968 – 1978.” We congratulate Professor Benson on these prestigious awards for her research.