The Center supports scholarly research on the history and culture of people of African descent around the world, facilitates collaboration and aims to increase public awareness of the subject.
[2] It was named after the first African American to be awarded a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1895, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois.
It was established to create fellowships that would "facilitate the writing of doctoral dissertations in areas related to Afro-American Studies".
[3][4] The Hutchins Center supports scholarly research on the history and culture of people of African descent around the world, facilitates collaboration and aims to increase public awareness of the subject.
[9] The Center supported the establishment of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership at University College London.