AFAM Community

The Department of African American Studies welcomes 

Dr. Kiamsha Bynes, Assistant Professor

Dr. Kiamsha Bynes is an assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies at San José State University. Her research broadly examines the complex history of Black female athletes and sportswomen who helped shape Black women’s sporting culture across the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Moving beyond their athletic achievements alone, her work explores the social, economic, and political forces that shaped Black women’s experiences in sport and physical culture. As a former collegiate athlete and a high school basketball coach, her own experiences in athletics continue to inform and inspire her scholarship on race, gender, and sport. Beyond sports history, Dr. Bynes’s research interests engage broader themes in African American history, the history of Black education, Black cultural expression, urban life, and community memory. 

She is a member of numerous professional organizations such as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), Organization of American Historians (OAH), and the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH). 

Dr. Bynes received her Ph.D. in History from Rutgers University, where she also served as a postdoctoral associate fellow at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. A proud Jersey girl, she enjoys traveling and is a lover of all things hip-hop, R&B, and jazz.

Dr. Faith G. Williams, Assistant Professor  

Faith G. Williams is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies at San José State University. Her research examines how Black digital cultures navigate technological systems that often exploit and commodify cultural expression. Her working book project introduces the notion of “Black digital retreat,” which traces how Black creators engage digital media through aesthetic practices that render identity illegible to algorithmic recognition. Her article in Television & New Media titled “Circumventing Virality: The Illegible Sensibilities of Vernacular Black Digital Culture” demonstrates how Black cultural production thrives outside of attention economies and within marginal, non-viral digital spaces. Faith received her PhD in African and African Diaspora Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

Remembering Paul Francis Byrd

1918-1991

Paul Francis Byrd was a former Professor of Mathematics at San Jose State University. He worked for the Department of Mathematics at San Jose State University for thirty years and was one of the first black tenured professors at San Jose State. Mr. Byrd was known for his knowledge of applied Mathematics, his ability to learn independently, his readiness/willingness to transmit his knowledge to students and colleagues, and his capacity to fight for social justice.

Mr. Byrd graduated from Lincoln High School in Kansas City, Missouri. He then attended Northwestern University for two years and later received his Bachelor of Science Degree. He earned his Master’s degree from the University of Chicago where he eventually took a research sabbatical at the University of Hamburg in Germany. While attending the University of Hamburg he developed an outstanding collection of formulae related to the field of “special functions” of interest to both pure and applied Mathematics. He was working on a doctorate degree when World War II began and he enlisted in the Army, became an officer, and worked as a Meteorologist. In 1944, Mr. Byrd was wounded in Italy but recovered from his injuries.

Before his death, Mr. Byrd spent his time teaching and helping students. The Byrd Scholarship was established by his son, Bruce Byrd, in memory of Paul Francis Byrd. The scholarship aims at providing outstanding students with their academic endeavors.  Mr. Byrd’s legacy will continue to live on and the memory of his contributions to education will never be forgotten.