Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

Initial organizing efforts proved
quite successful . Neighborhood
councils were formed . The community
action agency granted representation
to these groups . For a
while it seemed as if the "democratic
process" might actually work
for Black people .
But the optimism was shortlived,
for Black people ran into a
brick wall when they pressed for
more substantial changes, such as
housing repairs, street paving, and
public housing reforms .
When Black people met continuous
opposition in their efforts
to being about change, the tone of
the movement became more and
more militant . The next two years
saw important changes in the thinking
of the community people . The
neighborhood groups pressed for
autonomy from the O.E.O . poverty
agency . Tactics for change accelerated
rapidly : petitions changed to
pickets ; picketing evolved into mass
marches ; mass meetings gave way
to protests characterized by violent
confrontations-all this in two
years .
The militancy of the community
drew the attention of Black students
at Duke University and North
Carolina Central University . In addition,
links between the community
and students were formed during
a Summer Intern Program in
1968, in which Black college students
from throughout North Carolina
lived and organized in the
neighborhoods . This involvement
created a new atmosphere of co-
40
operation between Black college
students and neighborhood people .
During this time, Black students
at Duke University underwent
some important ideological changes .
They began to work more in the
community and with the Black nonacademic
employees on campus .
The students began to think and
talk in terms of the critical question
of the relevance of the entire
educational process to the needs of
the Black community . They concluded
that the process as it exists
is, in fact, irrelevant . Events on
campus at this time began to move
in rapid succession . There were a
series of protests and confrontations
which culminated in the students
seizing the administration
building and demanding that a
Black Studies Program be established
and controlled by Black people
. Throughout these confrontations
and protests, the students
found that they had the strong, immediate
and active support of the
organized neighborhood groups. It
was all of these ingredients, and of
course, the subsequent refusal of
Duke University to speak to the
question of relevant Black education,
which led the students and
the community people to take a
second look at their efforts. A simple
truth was realized throughout
the movement : that those who are
oppressed cannot look to those who
oppress them to deal in any way
with the nature or source of the oppression
. If Black people in Durham,
North Carolina, wanted a rel-
March 1970 NEGRO DIGEST