Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

y a development which he felt would surely result in the dissolution
of his dream of a Black University : the wholesale development of Black
Studies programs throughout the North . It now appears that he was
even more right than he thought . Anyway, as we continued in our
search for someone to head up Black Studies at Berkeley, and found more
and more people "unavailable," became clearer that black students
throughout the North were mustering for a stampede in the direction
of Black Studies . Indeed, as I look back, it appears that nothing could
have stopped this . The black student "revolts" that occurred on the Northern
white campuses in late 1968 and 1969 were in the breach long before
Martin Luther King Jr . was murdered in April 1968 . This is borne out by
the "unavailability" of anyone who could relate to the action of Black
Studies both before and after Dr . King was murdered . The stampede did
not surprise us ; we knew it was coming ; we were just in no frame of mind
to stop it. The events of the time may or may not have contributed to
our inability to arrest our energies and change directions . But I am
rather certain that no single event CAUSED our behavior .
causes are certainly of a more ancien (sic) character.
The overall
The basic problem, of course, was that this was no way to build a
Black University, which was something most of us agreed should be
done . Clearly we were being divided and scattered in as many directions
as there are white northern colleges and universities . But we made no
concerted move to check it . Instead, we all attempted to comer as much
of the terribly limited black talent as we could and to out-strip one
another in the development of Black Studies . Not everyone, however,
was oblivious to what was happening .
A few people agreed that the most ideal setting for the Black University
would be some southern "Negro" college with a surrounding
metropolitan black community and a rural black community within
reach . Those who favored this model imagined that such a community
might, indeed, become the nucleus from which a black nation could
spring. I should add that the proponents of this notion were not/are not
unaware of the various ideological challenges to this concept. Not the
least of these is the Bakunian argument that there should be no building
of any kind until the present system of oppression is destroyed, to which
proponents of nation-building respond that it is unlikely that this can
NEGRO DIGEST March 1970 I5