The SoulFolk Collective, a research lab within the Department of African American Studies at UW-Madison, engages in multidisciplinary research that prioritizes Black-affirming methodologies to amplify the voices, stories, and lived realities of Black communities.
Wisconsin leads the nation in Black incarceration rates as 1 in every 36 Black residents is in prison.
Wisconsin has the largest disparity in math and reading scores between Black and white students in the nation.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has the lowest Black student population in the Big Ten; it has never surpassed 3%.
These deflating problems in State of Wisconsin raise the question W.E.B. Du Bois famously asked of the Black community: “How does it feel to be a problem?”
Drawing inspiration from W.E.B. Du Bois's seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, The SoulFolk Collective (affectionately called “SoCo”) is a community of undergraduate and graduate researchers dedicated to positioning Black histories and futures in scholarly inquiry. In our solution-based research, we center Black-affirming spaces as a blueprint for resistance and liberatory futures. Our scholarship seeks to address the stark antiblackness in the State of Wisconsin. We aim to touch the very essence of the Black soul—acknowledging its pain, celebrating its joy, and committing to its freedom through every page of our scholarship.