H. Ikechukwu Okafor-Newsum (Horace Newsum)

Emeritus Professor H. Ike Okafor-Newsum (Horace Newsum) is a member of the Cincinnati-based Neo-Ancestralist artist collective founded in 1989. He grew up in the US South, in Memphis, Tennessee in the 1950s and 60s in the midst of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, both of which set the tone of an era often described as turbulent and bloody. He grew up in a family of artists. The son of parents who were local civil rights activists, his political awareness led him to the Black Arts Movement, to Marxism, and to a complex understanding of race and cultural heritage. These experiences inevitably led him to the African continent, to Nigeria where he served on the faculty at the University of Ife from 1978 to 1981. He has been identified with radical intellectuals fondly referred to by some as the “Ife Group,” but also known by its official name, The Socialist Forum Collective. As a teacher, scholar, activist and neighbor, Okafor-Newsum lived in Nigeria like he had a stake in what happened in the everyday affairs of the society. He was confident in his identity as an African American man with an Ibo name, living in the heart of Yoruba land, and his intellectual curiosity enabled him to immerse himself into the society’s culture(s) and politics. He refers to his experience in Nigeria as a life changing moment that, in part, shaped him into the person and artist he is today.

In addition to being a sculptor, painter, and installation artist, Okafor-Newsum served as Department Chair of African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University from February 2010 to August 2016. Having joined the faculty in 1988, he was Associate Professor of Literature and Political Economy, and from 1988 to 1991, Professor Okafor-Newsum served as Director and Program Manager of the OSU Department of African American and African Studies Community Extension Center, located in the heart of Columbus, Ohio’s African American community. He received a Doctor of Arts Degree from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) in 1977, a Master of Arts from Governors State University (Illinois) in 1974, and a Bachelor of Arts from Chicago State University in 1973. Professor Okafor-Newsum is the principal editor of Working Papers: The Black Woman, Challenges and Prospects for the Future (with Carlene Herb Young et al, 1991) and he is author of Class, Language and Education: Class Struggle and Sociolinguistics in an African Situation (1990). He has co-authored two books, The Use of English (with Adebisi Afolayan, 1983); and United States Foreign Policy Towards Southern Africa: Andrew Young and Beyond (with Olayiwola Abegunrin, 1987). His most recent book is SoulStirrers: Black Art and the Neo-Ancestral Impulse published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2016.

Okafor-Newsum’s artwork celebrates the creative expression of African people on the Continent and throughout the Black diaspora, honoring the everyday genius of common folk. Affirming that Black Lives Matter, his art advocates for social justice and equality, highlighting class struggle and racial injustice. Now retired, he is a full-time artist working out of his studio in Delaware, Ohio.

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