"All we want is our stories to be taught": Black Studies at BU

“You couldn’t miss the fact that something was going on in the nation, because there were just so many demonstrations on campus and demonstrations to the point where the school would close down."1

- Deborah Gray White, Harpur College '71 & President of the Afro-Latin Alliance

The concept of Black Studies emerged directly from the Civil Rights Movement and more specifically, the activism of students. Throughout what some call the “turbulent 1960s,” students across the country were organizing sit-ins to protest a variety of civil rights infractions, including within the arena of higher education. At the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) in particular, black students and their allies formed the Afro-American Student Union (AASU) to ensure that black voices were being heard. By the end of the 1960s, the AASU at UCB began to call for the creation of a black studies department. They demanded “a program of 'BLACK STUDIES,' a program that will be of and for black people.”2 However, this call for black studies would raise a number of questions - should courses be limited to African Americans? How much student control should there be? Should there be separate departments, or should black studies be integrated into existing departments?3 Some African American students felt that the creation of black studies should remain exclusive as it would become a safe haven for students of color to learn about their history and culture. Other prominent figures such as Broome County NAACP President Roy Wilkins and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin disagreed with autonomous black studies programs and dormitories. Wilkins argued that this type of program was “tantamount to setting up of racially-based Jim Crow schools."4

When Rodney Young enrolled at Harpur College in the late 1960s, he was “shocked to find out that out of 500 freshmen… there were only 6 black students.”5 Coming from a family that championed education, Young knew that Harpur would offer him an excellent education; however, he was disappointed to find that classes were geared toward Eurocentric ideas and values. “I had no idea that I would get involved as an activist coming to Harpur,” said Young, “but I was compelled to figure out ways to get involved.”6 And involved he got. Shortly after his arrival, Young met two other students who were equally frustrated with the lack of diversity on campus - John Reilly and William Luis. United by their experiences and determined to create a space in which people of color could interact, Young, Reilly, and Luis formed the Afro-Latin Alliance (ALA) in 1969. In recalling the motivation for the creation of ALA, Luis said, “I think we were visionary without really knowing what we were doing [through] we knew that it was a matter of survival to us, to find some sort of identity. We didn't want to assimilate, and we were proud of who we were.”7

In a letter to Stewart Gordon, Vice President for Academic Affairs, ALA members expressed their concern about the “grievous situation on the campus.”8 At the time the letter was written, there were fewer than forty black undergraduates, fewer than five black graduate students, only two black instructors, and no black administrators. Not only did they call for an increase in recruitment of black students, they demanded “professors who looked like us and courses that also had to do with our own particular experience.”9 In response, the University formed the Committee on Concerns of Black Students to address these concerns and work towards the creation of an Afro-American Studies Program. The committee was composed of five black students, two administrators, and three faculty including Ed Wilson, Professor of Art and Art History.10 “We met night and weekend and during the day, week after week,” Wilson recalled. “Some black students were so busy protesting and confronting, recruiting black high school students, that they fell behind in their academic work and became exhausted… four had to be hospitalized briefly because of exhaustion and high blood pressure.”11

On February 18, 1969, the Faculty Senate unanimously approved the establishment of the department of Afro-American studies and called for immediate implementation of the program to assure its launch for the 1970-71 academic year.12 The program called for a comprehensive approach to Afro-American studies that would take into consideration not only the black community in the United States but its relationship with other black people globally both in the past and present. While it was felt that black students should be actively involved in the program, it would not be racially exclusive.13

While the program eventually became well known and respected across the country, it had a shaky start. When the program initially began accepting students in the fall of 1970, it had two full-time professors, two part-time professors, and offered five courses: Black Political Thought, The Politics of Black Economics, a Black Humanities Class, and two dance classes. The campus was still predominantly white, and misconceptions circulated about what type of courses would be taught under black studies. “We are not here to provide soul food courses, as some individuals think,” Basil Ince, chairman of the new department said. “We are here to instruct the student community on serious matters on the Black experience at an intellectual level.” The attitude of most students, both white and black, was that black studies courses would be easy credits. Department members also found the attitudes of the administration and faculty from other departments somewhat unwelcoming. “Although we are a new department, we have been treated like an invisible department for the past two months,” said Ince.14

Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the department in 2020, the Afro-American Studies department - now Africana Studies - has been researching its own origins and creating an archive of various groups involved in advocating for its formation as a department. Department members combed through university archives and held a series of Zoom talks, inviting alumni from those pivotal years to return and speak about their time as students at Harpur College.

On October 14, 2020, the current chair of the department, Dr. Titilayo Okoror, and assistant professor Nathaniel Mathews organized a webinar entitled “Black Education Matters: Fifty Years of Black/Africana Studies at Binghamton” to recount the department's storied past. Reilly, Young, and Luis were invited to speak about their experience at Harpur College, the foundation of the ALA, and their role in the creation of the Africana Studies department. The following year, the department invited Dr. Deborah Gray White, Professor of History at Rutgers University, to speak not only about her time as a student at Harpur College and her tenure as president of the Afro-Latin Alliance but also about her groundbreaking scholarship in the field of African American women's history. You can watch recordings of both webinars below.

1. Jennifer Micale, "Shaping a Movement: Deborah Gray White Discusses Activism during Harpur's Early Days," BingUNews, October 21, 2021, https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/3292/shaping-a-movement-deborah-gray-white-discusses-activism-during-harpurs-early-days?fbclid=IwAR18bdCEZYOb2N91pcePMwoyeoLNpQquENRt7l_-Uxza9A2Lc7C2DGp-C6o.
2. Ula Taylor, “Origins of African American Studies at UC-Berkeley,” Western Journal of Black Studies 34, no. 2 (2010): 256-365.
3. “Black Studies Evolve,” The Evening Press, December 21, 1970, http://proxy.binghamton.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/december-21-1970-page-6-56/docview/2043771655/se-2?accountid=14168.
4. “Broome NAACP Chief Raps Move to Campus Segregation,” The Evening Press, January 20, 1969, http://proxy.binghamton.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/january-20-1969-page-17-32/docview/2043752720/se-2?accountid=14168.
5. “Black Education Matters: Fifty Years of Black/Africana Studies at Binghamton,” October 14, 2020, online via Zoom, 26:08, https://youtu.be/eGBouUAHiFc/.
6. “Black Education Matters: Fifty Years of Black/Africana Studies at Binghamton,” October 14, 2020, online via Zoom, 27:08, https://youtu.be/eGBouUAHiFc/.
7. “Black Education Matters: Fifty Years of Black/Africana Studies at Binghamton,” October 14, 2020, online via Zoom, 21:30, https://youtu.be/eGBouUAHiFc/.
8. Letter to Vice President of Academic Affairs, 25, October 1968, Afro-Latin Alliance 1968-1969, Box 1 Folder 15, African Studies Program, Binghamton University, Vestal, NY.
9. “Black Education Matters: Fifty Years of Black/Africana Studies at Binghamton,” October 14, 2020, online via Zoom, 23:10, https://youtu.be/eGBouUAHiFc/.
10. Ed Wilson, aside from being a Professor of Art and Art History at BU, was a prominent sculptor. In this lifetime, he created over two dozen sculptures, one of them being "Seven Seals of Silence" which is located in Binghamton, NY at the intersection of Chenango and Henry St.
11. Brochure for Afro-American Studies Department, Afro-American Studies Dept. 1969-1979, Box 2, Folder 6, African Studies Program, Binghamton University, Vestal, NY.
12. Binghamton News, 19, February 1970, Afro-American Studies Sept 1969-79, Box 2, Folder 6, African Studies Program, Binghamton University, Vestal, NY.
13. Lawrence A. Moss, “Afro-American Studies Program Okayed,” The Colonial News, March 6, 1970, https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/np00280002/1970-03-06/ed-1/seq-3/.
14. Mark Deitch, “Afro-American Studies, Pipe Dream, October 30, 1970, https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn2001061808/1970-10-30/ed-1/seq-5/.