Greetings, Members of the Association of Black Sociologists:

It is a new season, and I am honored to servant-lead as your 45th President. Your intellectual ingenuity and evidence-based advocacy for social justice deeply compels me and the broader society. It awakens and provokes organization, singularly and collectively, amid an increasingly tumultuous political climate.

Yet we stalwartly persist. The Association of Black Sociologists (ABS) has continued building upon a rich, prophetic tradition of scholarship, mentorship, service, and cultivated safe space for countless Black social scientists, and community activists, domestically and globally.

I am humbled by the brilliance of our members. As our communities face critical judicial rollbacks, adverse legislation, and more that negatively target our civil and human rights, locally, nationally, and globally, I stand in agreement that “we shall not be moved.”

Drawing from the wisdom of great sociological predecessors like W.E.B. Du Bois who stated, “It is today that our best work can be done…It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow.”

I call on ABS to (re)commit ourselves, without delay, to advancing freedoms in the legacy of our courageously bold ancestral traditions, colleagues, and Black sociology entirely.

Our role(s) and work are crucial and directly important in broad, cultural knowledge productions. We are frontline contemporary intellectuals, empiricists, expert investigators, and producers of knowledge and righteous action across all social spheres. More direct, our communal and humanitarian efforts are borne out of and foreground socio-historical truths, and much to be desired, widespread societal understanding and praxis for the betterment of Black lives.

Again, we shall not be moved.

You have already raised the bar, accomplishing much despite overlapping obstacles. I thank and celebrate you for staying the course. Your unwavering dedication to transformation and social change is noted. I also pay homage to the contributions of Black peoples generally and irrespectively, and wholly believe in the power of the collective. I am honored and looking forward to representing and ensuring the furtherance of this mission, along with welcoming new members. I warmly invite all who are devoted to liberation—student, faculty, and administrator sociologists, as well as non-sociologists and friends of sociologists across disciplines, professions, and other respective spaces—to partner with our Black-focused efforts. I am confident that we will continue to make revolutionary differences. May we continue to stand resolute in our rich collective pursuit of truth and social justice!

Yours In Solidarity,

Andrea S. Boyles