Celebrating Community and Culture at UMD’s Nyumburu Cultural Center

American Studies Professor Psyche Williams-Forson leads the center as it celebrates its 55th year.

By Kelly Blake ’94

In 2025, Professor Psyche A. Williams-Forson became the fifth person to lead the Nyumburu Cultural Center at the University of Maryland, a historic campus space founded in the years following the civil rights movement to foster community and belonging for Black students. After serving as the chair of the Department of American Studies in the College of Arts and Humanities for 10 years, she stepped into the role as part of a longstanding commitment to justice, community, access and student support.

Williams-Forson is the author of several award-winning books on Black history and food culture, including “Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food and Power” and “Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America,” which received the 2023 James Beard Award in Food Issues & Advocacy—the first time the honor was awarded in that category. She also co-leads Maryland's Ethnic Foodways, a course and public history project that documents the culinary traditions of immigrant communities across the state, and serves as co-principal investigatorof the Mellon Foundation-funded Breaking the Mold project supporting pathways to leadership for scholars of color and women in the humanities.

We spoke with Williams-Forson about her latest senior leadership role and her vision for the Nyumburu Cultural Center, now in its 55th year. 

Why did you decide to take on the role of directing the Nyumburu Cultural Center after stepping down as American Studies chair? 

I believe in the purpose and the need for Black cultural centers, coming out of the first civil rights movement in the 1960s. The early 70s was a period in which more African American men and some women were being admitted into university settings, particularly predominantly white institutions. And as one might expect on any campus or in any space when you are one of only a few, it is very difficult, from a humanistic point of view, to focus on the task at hand, because you tend to stand out. So the role of Black cultural centers historically has been to create a place where like-minded people with similar goals and with similar physical attributes could come together and feel a sense of community. 

Having these spaces gets reduced in some conversations to racism and discrimination, when in reality, it's none of that obviously. Whenever you are one of a few, you tend to bond with the people who look like you simply because of community and what you believe are shared affinities. That and the preservation and perpetuation of the cultures of people of the African diaspora are the real reasons behind Black cultural centers emerging on college campuses. 

When did the University of Maryland’s Nyumburu Cultural Center open? Can you share a bit about its history? 

We were founded in 1971. I believe that we were among the first Black cultural centers to be established. It was not until 1989 that the National Association of Black Cultural Centers was created. We hosted their 20th anniversary conference. Our center was founded by Dr. Julia Davidson who was a key architect of the Intensive Educational Development Program (now called the Academic Achievement Programs), which provides academic and financial support to students from diverse backgrounds. She had a vision for the need for a Black cultural center. The first director was Mr. Henry Jackson who taught, among other things, Swahili, from which the center draws its name Nyumburu, which means “freedom house.” Under the leadership of James Otis Williams (from 1972 to 1997), the center secured its current location adjacent to the Stamp Student Union, which opened in 1996. In addition to his leadership of Nyumburu, Williams helped found the D.C. Blues Society, which is dedicated to preserving and promoting blues music in the D.C. metro area. Following his untimely passing, our Associate Director Ms. Anne Reese Carswell assumed leadership until Dr. Ronald Zeigler was appointed to lead the center in 2000. He led the center for the past 25 years and retired last year. 

What does the Nyumburu Cultural Center look like and what does it do? Can you tell us about programming and activities people should know about?

Our space is on three levels, which includes administrative offices, a small art gallery, a conference room, computer labs, a multipurpose room and meeting spaces utilized by organizations including “The Black Explosion” newspaper, the Kappa Phi Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and no less than 20 different groups on campus.  

Newsbreak is one of our biggest programs and we would love to see more people come out for it. It takes place during the lunch hour and we serve food. The moderator will throw out a topic based on recent global, national and campus events, maybe play a video and then ask people to respond. We want folks to think as concerned citizens and engage in the issues of the day. How do these things affect your long term trajectory? Healthcare, financial literacy, career advancement. Your right to vote. Your right to have a free voice. Your right to select how you want to go about living your life. 

Then we have the barbershop that takes place a couple of times a month. It's usually every other Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Also, we host a juke joint periodically. If you have seen the movie “Sinners,” one of the central elements is that the movie takes place in a juke joint. It’s a really fun but also historical activity we do. 

Some of the programs being planned include an open mic series. We want to partner with the language house, because we're talking about a language that people don't often think about—African American vernacular English, or “spoken word,” as another form of language to be studied. 

Also, I'm really excited to be able to bring my knowledge as an academic leader to bear here at the center in various ways. One is through partnering with other units on campus, to bring in topics that need to be covered here and faculty members who can help us have those conversations. We're planning a series called “Let's Talk” in partnership with the Bias Incident Support Services. It will include two panels in February and April. 

On February 16 at 6 p.m. in Nyumburu, we're going to have a program called “Boo’d Up” to raise awareness about intimate partner and platonic relationships and the ways in which violence might be introduced. We also want to explore how do you undertake self-care when you're in a relationship? What does that mean? We're going to explore that topic also through music, through the counseling center and through a conversation around tenderness and what tenderness means. We also are partnering with the Office of Sustainability, who's going to be here showing participants how to make bath salts and body scrubs. 

In April, in celebration of Earth Day we will tackle the topic of the new data center that's coming to Landover and discuss issues of environmental injustice. We're also going to partner again with the Office of Sustainability to talk about upcycling. We hope to host a group from Baltimore who does pop-up shops around recycling and upcycling clothes and have them talk to us about the work they do in the community. 

Why is Nyumburu important to the University of Maryland?

I grew up in a Black liberation household and we were taught to love all people and to celebrate widely the cultures of all people. We also were taught what justice looks like. And what injustice feels like. So, my underpinning is around appreciating, celebrating and recognizing representations of Black people, and people of the African diaspora. Why is that important on this campus, especially in this cultural moment? 

We continue to exist. I've seen too many students, both in my background working in student affairs, and certainly as a faculty member, who look for a place to belong. And I understand the importance of that belonging because when you're in a college environment, as in any environment, isolation breeds challenges to your mental, emotional and physical health. And so my excitement about being at the cultural center is to continue to let everyone on campus know that we are here. 

And that we are here as a haven for all students. If you want to come and kick back and relax. It doesn't matter, you can find all of that at the Nyumburu Cultural Center. The fact is we are a welcoming space. And that's important for people to know. 

Photo courtesy of the Nyumburu Cultural Center.