English: The African-American Studies Department planning committee meeting in 1973 included Dr. Daphne Harrison (second from left). After Dr. Njaka stepped down, Dr. Harrison served as Acting Director of the department; a search was instituted that resulted in the appointment of Dr. Willie Bediako Lamous-Smith as the new department chair in 1975. The department revamped its curriculum and added new courses in the areas of the African diaspora in Africa, North America, and the Caribbean. In addition, the W.E.B. Dubois Distinguished Lecture Series was established. Harrison succeeded Lamous-Smith as chair, serving from 1981 to 1992. Harrison gained international renown for her book Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920 and later became the first director of the UMBC Center for the Humanities. On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the department in 1995, it was renamed the Africana Studies Department.