Upending the Ivory Tower. Stefan M. Bradley

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Another black Princeton alumna, Caroline Upshaw, who graduated a year after Marcus, discussed the modern concept of intersectionality when she recalled her time at Princeton. It was difficult for her to face the reaction of not only a majority of white people but also a majority of men to her as a “minority, not only as a woman, but as a black” person.127 This difficulty manifested in the ignorance of her peers and slights with which she had to cope. “I have been confronted by people who have asked me to let them watch me wash my hair … to watch me comb it, even touch it,” she said of her interaction with white Princeton students. Again, in light of the high rates of poverty and death that black people endured in the urban sections of Trenton, Patterson, and Newark, the rude and discriminatory behavior that Upshaw tolerated may have seemed minor, but her white peers questioned and challenged her intimate humanity. Aside from being annoying, the suggestion to watch the student do her hair was voyeuristic, objectifying, and dehumanizing. It was quite possible that the white students who made such requests had never been around black women before coming to Princeton. That was a result of the systematic subjugation of black people that legal and de facto segregation cultivated. Having grown up accustomed to American apartheid, white students could not help but view black students and especially black women as foreign objects.

      White students, according to Marcus, were not the only ones that caused some black women to feel different. Marcus claimed to observe a recognizable distance between black men and women at Princeton in the first years of coeducation. “The black men were more like the white men than they were like us,” she asserted.128 In clarification, she noted that the “division at Princeton was more distinctly along gender lines than racial ones.” She suggested that at least black men somewhat fit the centuries-old male template of Princeton, but black women were nearly the antithesis of what Princeton had always been. As someone who had fought in the black freedom struggle in the South, she had not foreseen having to fight battles over gender in the North. That was an additional stressor for black women like her.

      There were few people at the institution who could empathize with black students when they experienced or observed racism. The 1977 ABPA survey showed that most black students had one or no black professors throughout their college years. The presence of black professors and administrators has proven effective in the retention rates of students and their presence was no less essential then. In that regard, the culture and history of the university was clearly not accommodating to black students.129

      The long-standing tradition and culture of Princeton affected black students in the postwar era. The struggle to change the university brought them together to confront issues of racism and isolation, and that created a special bond for them. The intense college experience, however, also disaffected many of the black students. The feelings the black alumni had about their alma mater had implications. For many, their relationship to Princeton paid off in terms of mutual benefits. Princeton officials could boast that the university had evolved, and black alumni could tout their Ivy League credentials when embarking on new life endeavors.

      Life for many black students was complicated at Ol’ Nassau. They could distinctively remember their travails; however, those memories did not prevent some from giving back to the university. Remarkably, 28 percent who responded to the 1977 ABPA survey said that they participated in annual giving to the university. The survey suggested that the students who remembered having a more positive experience at the university were more inclined to donate money, while those who merely “survived” the university gave less or not all. Perhaps one of the best indicators of the relationship of Princeton University to black people came in the response to the question of whether the respondents would you send their children to the university. Almost two-thirds (62 percent) said that they would encourage their children to attend Princeton. Only 7 percent stated outright that they would not send their children to the university. Those in the remaining percentage were not sure if they would or would not.130 Vera Marcus articulated one sentiment among the graduates: “I’m very proud to have gone to Princeton.… But it could have been so much more.”131

      As it is, Princeton University is still an elite and exclusive primarily white institution. The institution that was once the southern-most Ivy, however, now touts diversity as one of its main values. It took the efforts of students—particularly black students—to improve Princeton’s reputation with regard to race and to move the institution closer to morality. In this case, morality meant admitting American citizens who happened to be black, including the experience of African Americans in the curriculum, and reconsidering the institution’s financial support of apartheid. When they made a stand for international black rights, those who came in the postwar period followed in the footsteps of intellectual and activist Paul Robeson, who lived in the town of Princeton but did not have the opportunity to attend the university. Undoubtedly, black students helped Princeton University to be “in the nation’s service and in the service of all nations.”

      3

      Bourgeois Black Activism

      Brown University and Black Freedom

      Racism at Brown University and other citadels of higher learning is so entrenched and pervasive that it becomes blatantly visible.

      —Black Studies: An Educational Imperative, 1971

      When many consider the words “Brown” and “education,” their minds quickly race to the famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Others may remember the recent revelation about Brown University, the exclusive Ivy League institution, and its ties to slavery. The university oversaw the work of a study group that researched the amount of revenue that the founders of the institution garnered from the trade of human chattel. Others might think of the notable fact Brown recently featured not only a woman as president but an African American woman, Ruth Simmons. In that way, Brown has hurdled past many of the racial barriers that still exist at other institutions of higher education. It is conceivable, though, that much of the racial progress that Brown has made would not have been possible were it not for the activism of concerned black students in past decades. During the decades following World War II, young black people—like their nonblack peers—came to the elite institution situated in Providence, Rhode Island, to achieve degrees. In the process, however, these black Brunonians sought to advance the larger black freedom movement by agitating their university to create further opportunities for African Americans on and off campus.

      At Brown University and Pembroke College (Brown’s women’s college) in Rhode Island, African American students made up a small but significant segment of the generation of students who sought to effect change on their exclusive campuses. While students, they provoked a renaissance of ideas about black life that sometimes stirred controversy. The discourse that resulted from the renewal of perceptions and concepts eventually improved the university.

      In localizing the story, it must be noted that although many young African Americans admired the courage and leadership of figures like King, Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), the few black Ivy students could only look to themselves (and potentially their surrounding communities) to advance change. In essence, these students had to become their own versions of freedom fighters. This chapter concludes that this small but effective minority of youth practiced Black Student Power: African American students used their racial status in conjunction with their ties to institutions of higher education to win victories for the larger black freedom movement. Brown students’ peaceful display of Black Power advanced the freedom movement and indirectly aided the effort to appoint the Ivy League’s first (and so far only) black president.

      To contextualize the role of black people in determining post-World War II policies, it is important to understand the relationship of Brown to black people in earlier periods. Brown University began as the College of the English Colony Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1764. As one of the oldest universities in the nation, it has long stood as a pioneer of education. According to the official university website, Brown СКАЧАТЬ