William M. Banks, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, joined the Berkeley faculty in 1970. During the early years he served as Chair of African American Studies and guided the then Program into full departmental status in the College of Letters and Science. From 1987-1989 he served as Provost of Undergraduate Affairs for the Berkeley campus.
Professor Banks was selected as a Fellow at both the National Humanities Center and the Center for Advanced Study in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. After several years of research and interviews, Banks produced Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life (W.W. Norton, New York, 1996). The publication won the American Book Award in 1967. Transcripts and audiotapes of Banks’ interviews with selected intellectuals like Harold Cruse, Nell Painter, Clayborne Carson and Henry Louis Gates are housed in the John Hope Franklin Collection at Perkins Library, Duke University. His personal and professional papers can be found in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Department and Institution:
African American Studies Department, UC Berkeley
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