FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 

Biography

Dr. Fred L. Hord is the Executive Director/Founder of the National Association for Black Culture Centers.  Fred Lee Hord (Mzee Lasana Okpara) is a full professor at Knox College, as well as Director of its Africana Studies Program.  He has also taught at Hunter College, Franklin College, Wabash College, Indiana University, Howard University, and North Carolina State University. In early 1988, Dr. Hord, as the first director of the Center for Black Culture and Research at West Virginia University, introduced the idea of a new organization to promote networking among centers and their institutions at an American Council on Education conference in Washington, D.C. and would found ABCC later that year. Moving to Knox College, he gained administrative acceptance to host an inaugural national conference. That 1989 conference (at Knox College) was followed by biennial and then annual events. Dr, Hord served two terms as its President, and has been the Executive Director since 2000; he is the editor of “Nommo,” the bi-annual newsletter of the ABCC.  Hord edited and contributed to Black Culture Centers: Politics of Identity and Survival, the only book available that focuses only on black Culture Centers, and will be editing it’s sequel.  He has written and/or edited seven books, has one in the galleys, and has submitted proposals to three major publishers for books on the New Negro, Psychological Issues of Black Students on White Campuses, and African American Views on the Reluctant Emancipator.  Hord has published several articles and poems in journals, made more than 100 presentations on college/university campuses, and served on the editorial Board of such national academic journals such as the Journal of Black Studies and the Western Journal of Black Studies.  He has also been a long-time member of the Board of the National Council for Black Studies.  He has been an activist in the Black and Multicultural community since the early Seventies.