Contemporary Black Freedom movements—from #BlackLivesMatter to #SayHerName, #TrustBlackWomen to #BlackTransLivesMatter—have laid bare the importance of Black Studies worldwide. As Black Studies scholars, in the first Black Studies Department in the University of California system (founded in 1969 in response to student protests), we are committed to emancipatory knowledge to change the university and society. Back then, student activists envisioned Black Studies as “an important expression of the hopes and creative expression of Black people” and the keystone of a larger Black Freedom movement, declaring that “Black studies represents an individual and community need, the one inseparable from the other.” In the 21st century, UCSB Black Studies is reaffirming and expanding its intellectual mission to support the “hopes and creative expression” of Black Freedom. Our teaching is inseparable from our everyday commitment to livable futures for Black people and for all. For instance, in 2020, when the murder of George Floyd sparked the most extensive civil rights protests in U.S. history, UCSB Black Studies attended the call from the streets. Solidarity protests took over hundreds of cities in North and South America, Europe, and Australia, generating the world’s largest recorded global call for Black Freedom. As this call continues, UCSB Black Studies centers social justice as well as intellectual rigor in our courses and programs of activities. Our faculty represent disciplines including History, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Political Science, Performance Studies, and Comparative Literature. We demand intersectional justice by examining how gender, sexuality, class, religion, nationality, and disability shape Black lives globally. The department brings together scholars studying Black lives in the United States, the Caribbean, South America, and Europe as well as on the African continent, fostering a transnational understanding of race, place, gender, and freedom.