Shelter in a Time of Storm : How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism

2020 Museum of African American History Stone Book Award 2020 Lillian Smith Book Award Finalist, 2020 Pauli Murray Book Prize For generations, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have been essential institutions for the African American community. Their nurturing environments not only provided educational advancement but also catalyzed the Black freedom struggle, forever altering the political destiny of the United States. In this book, Jelani M. Favors offers a history of HBCUs from the 1837 founding of Cheyney State University to the present, told through the lens of how they fostered student activism. Favors chronicles the development and significance of HBCUs through stories from institutions such as Cheyney State University, Tougaloo College, Bennett College, Alabama State University, Jackson State University, Southern University, and North Carolina A&T. He demonstrates how HBCUs became a refuge during the oppression of the Jim Crow era and illustrates the central role their campus communities played during the civil rights and Black Power movements. Throughout this definitive history of how HBCUs became a vital seedbed for politicians, community leaders, reformers, and activists, Favors emphasizes what he calls an unwritten "second curriculum" at HBCUs, one that offered students a grounding in idealism, racial consciousness, and cultural nationalism. Cover -1 Contents 8 Introduction: Enroll for Freedom: The Long History of Black College Student Activism 14 1. A Seedbed of Activism: Holistic Education and the Institute for Colored Youth, 1837–1877 31 2. Black and Tan Academia: Tougaloo College and the Nadir, 1869–1900 62 3. Race Women: New Negro Politics and the Flowering of Radicalism at Bennett College, 1900–1945 83 4. Our Aims Are High and Our Determinations Deep: Alabama State University and the Dissolution of Fear, 1930–1960 114 5. Trouble in My Way: Curriculum, Conflict, and Confrontation at Jackson State University, 1945–1963 146 6. We Can! We Will! We Must!: The Radicalization and Transformation of Southern University, 1930–1966 174 7. Their Rhetoric Is That of Revolution: North Carolina A&T and the Rise and Fall of the Student Organization for Black Unity, 1966–1974 213 Epilogue: It’s a Different World: The Rise of the Hip-Hop Generation and the Corruption of the Black College Communitas 250 Acknowledgments 266 Notes 274 Bibliography 328 Index 354 A 354 B 355 C 356 D 357 E 358 F 358 G 358 H 359 I 359 J 360 K 361 L 361 M 361 N 362 O 363 P 363 Q 364 R 364 S 364 T 365 U 366 V 366 W 366 Y 367 "For generations, Black colleges have been essential institutions for the African American community. Their nurturing environments have not only aided in students' education and advancement. They have also offered spaces to develop racial consciousness and analyze the paradoxes embodied in American culture. The development and politicization of students on the campuses of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) has resulted in waves of activism, catalyzing the modern Civil Rights Movement and forever altering the political destiny of the United States"-- Provided by publisher. For generations, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have been essential institutions for the African American community. They not only provided educational advancement but also catalyzed the Black Freedom Struggle. Jelani Favors offers a history of HBCUs told through the lens of how they fostered student activism.