Their Rhetoric Is That of Revolution

This chapter discusses Greensboro, North Carolina as the unofficial headquarters for the Black Power Movement in the south and the role that North Carolina A&T State University played in facilitating that development. Since the dawn of the turbulent 60s, A&T had been a force for change and an epicenter for student activism. With the dawning of the Black Power Movement, A&T students completely embraced the rhetoric of the era and followed it up with action. Those activists’ energies fed other Black Power initiatives across the state and soon led to the creation of a new national organization, as well as a powerful local organization that embodied the shifting agenda of the civil rights movement to address abject poverty throughout Black America. Those energies also attracted the attention of local law enforcement and the National Guard, which invaded the campus in May of 1969, shot and killed a student, and terrorized the predominantly black side of Greensboro. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the shifting landscape of HBCUs during the early 70s and the external and internal pressures that arrested the development of Black Power organizations during the decade.

Trouble in My Way

This chapter examines the strained history of Jackson State University during the aftermath of World War II and leading up to the modern civil rights movement. Located in the heart of Mississippi, Jackson State students carved out space to express their militancy as the war came to a close. However, they quickly felt that space collapse around them as segregationists tightened their grip on the Magnolia State as the burgeoning movement for black liberation challenged the oppressive traditions of the most socially and politically closed state in the country. Administrators such as Jackson State University president Jacob Reddix quickly fell in line with the expectations of his immediate supervisors and squared off against outspoken scholar-activists such as famed poet and novelist Margaret Walker. The standoff resulted in a campus environment fraught with tension yet still producing students and faculty determined to undermine Jim Crow.

Race Women

This chapter examines the fascinating history of Bennett College – one of only two single sex colleges dedicated to educating African American women. Although Bennett would not make that transition until 1926, the institution played a vital role in educating African American women in Greensboro, North Carolina from the betrayal of the Nadir to the promises of a New Negro Era. The latter period witnessed Bennett, under the leadership of David Dallas Jones, mold scores of young girls into politically conscious race women who were encouraged to resist Jim Crow policies and reject the false principals of white supremacy. Their politicization led to a massive boycott of a theatre in downtown Greensboro and helped to set the tone for Greensboro’s evolution into a critical launching point for the modern civil rights movement.

Black and Tan Academia

This chapter examines the peculiar history of Tougaloo College from its founding during the Reconstruction Era to the turn of the century. Tougaloo, is best known for being a haven for black militancy during the modern civil rights movement and one of the few safe spaces for Freedom Riders, marchers, and sit-in activists in the most notoriously violent state in the south – Mississippi. Yet its early years illustrate an institution in constant flux, trying to survive economic hardships, and under the thumb of conservative administrators and teachers who exposed Tougaloo students to the expectations of respectability politics. Nevertheless, black students carved out vital spaces for expression and utilized the pages of their student newspaper to display their expanding social and political consciousness and their desire to resist the oppressive and often violent hardships of America’s lowest point in race relations.

Introduction

The introduction familiarizes the reader with the concept of the second curriculum – a pedagogy of idealism, race consciousness, and cultural nationalism that flowed through all black colleges and made them formidable epicenters of black militancy and activism. The case for constructing a longitudinal history of seven different institutions is made. The author repurposes the theory of communitas, first introduced by anthropologist Victor Turner, and uses this concept to define black colleges as dedicated, racialized spaces that countered the ideology of white supremacy that permeated American society and sought to crush the social, political, and economic advancement of African Americans. In doing so, HBCUs served as a vital cornerstone of the black freedom movement in America.

Epilogue

The epilogue of this book examines the transformations that HBCUs have undergone since the mid 70s to present day. This era coincided with a migration of talented black family and students from black colleges to predominantly white institutions (PWI) as integration opened new doors and opportunities for black Americans. With years of underfunding and limited resources, HBCUs proved unable to match the facilities, infrastructure, and budgets of their PWI counterparts. Nevertheless, black colleges still experienced a cultural renaissance due to an embrace by American pop culture that was deeply influenced by the emerging sound and message of hip-hop. Black college life was dramatized on television and movies screens, and worn as a popular fashion brand by black entertainers and hip hop stars, which led to a fascination and often romanticization of HBCUs. The real challenge confronting black colleges was how to maintain financial solvency and repair a vast array of internal problems that resulted in public relation nightmares, while also continuing in their legacy of producing socially and politically conscious students who were prepared to serve as change agents in the black community.

We Can! We Will! We Must!

The chapter discusses the explosive history of Southern University in the years leading up to the Black Power Movement. Baton Rouge, Louisiana was the setting for one of the largest student protests in the country as thousands of students flocked to the streets in protests against Jim Crow policies. Prior to this emergence, students were nurtured for years in a space cultivated by Joseph Samuel Clark, who served as the school’s first president and was succeeded by his son, Felton Grandison Clark. Like many black college presidents, Clark enjoyed the reputation of a fervent race man who embraced the tenets of the second curriculum. Yet as the modern civil rights movement approached, Clark succumbed to the pressures of the state and transformed into one of the most notorious HBCU presidents during the era – expelling students, firing faculty, and running the campus with a vise-like grip. Nevertheless, the Southern student body powered through these obstacles and created one of the most radical spaces for black youth in the deep south.

Our Aims Are High and Our Determinations Deep

This chapter discusses the history of Alabama State University during the crucial period between the New Negro Era and the rise of the modern civil rights movement. It was during this period that Montgomery, Alabama became a launching point for one of the most important protests in American history – the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Yet few understand the crucial role that Alabama State University played in sowing the seeds of that movement by training the leadership that helped to carry it out, and generating a spirit of resistance long before the boycotts took place. It was the members of the Women’s Political Council, a group of educators teaching at ASU, that designed the ideas for a massive boycott, and it was their leadership on campus, alongside the college president Harper Councill Trenholm, that transformed that campus into one of the most militant centers for student activism in the deep south. The campus soon came under the watchful eye of Jim Crow legislatures who controlled the purse strings and held the keys to the institution, but not before the communitas of ASU summoned the vision and the will to carry out their own sit-in protests in downtown Montgomery.

A Seedbed of Activism

This chapter discusses the history of the first black college established – The Institute for Colored Youth (ICY). The ICY would later be renamed Cheyney State University. Founded in 1837, the ICY became a critical staging ground for both the abolitionist movement and the early civil rights movement. With key players such as Ebenezer Bassett, Octavius Catto, and Fanny Jackson Coppin leading the school, the ICY set the template for how black educational institutions would create a pedagogy and praxis that encouraged and radicalized generations of youth to serve their communities as agents for change. Tragically, the most pivotal event of the school’s early years was the assassination of its beloved teacher and alum Octavius Catto in 1871 who was murdered in the streets of Philadelphia after playing a critical role in organizing support for the 15th amendment.