Upending the Ivory Tower by Stefan M. Bradley

Author:Stefan M. Bradley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York University Press

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Blue Bulldogs and Black Panthers

Yale, New Haven, and Black Imaginings

At Yale I came to realize that my presence violated one of the deepest taboos in American Life—the racial boundary hedged around the life of the mind.

—Phillip M. Richards, 2006

New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University, garnered national attention in 1970 for two reasons. That year, the city hosted the murder trials of Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins, members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, as well as twelve others.1 The well-covered courtroom drama reached households across the nation as Black Nationalism itself seemed to be on trial. Images of Bobby Seale with tape over his mouth symbolized, to many, the inability of black America to effectively tell its side of the national narrative. To those who were not sympathetic to the Panthers, the tape worked to impede, what non-sympathizers considered, divisive rhetoric.2

Also in 1970, Yale became ground zero for opponents of U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War during the May Day protest. Hundreds of students from across the country descended upon the campus to protest the nation’s escalation in the war effort and to demand that Yale extricate itself from making any contributions to the controversial conflict in Southeast Asia. Rebellion and resistance with regard to race, racism, and war were prevalent on and off campus. The Panthers, whose style and affect was catching, could be clearly identified as representatives of Black Power in their apparel, stances, rhetoric and actions.

This chapter argues that for as important as the militancy of the Panthers was to the movement, so too was the methodical campaign that black students waged for the first recognized Black Studies program in the Ivy League. Those students contributed as much to Black Power as the firearm-wielding, Mao Tse-tung quoting Black Panthers. Similarly, the challenge to the traditional curriculum of Yale matched the spirit of the push against the war that mostly white students made on the campus. The rise of Black Studies in the Ivy League played a significant role in the ascendance of youth and counterculture, as well as youth empowerment.

The efforts of black student activists were paying dividends as the Ivy League steadily increased its population of African American learners. According to an article in Yale Alumni Magazine, the eight Ivy League institutions and their “Sister Schools” (Mount Holyoke College, Vassar College, Wellesley College, Smith College, Radcliffe College, Bryn Mawr College, and Barnard College) doubled their black student acceptance rates between the 1967–1968 and 1968–1969 school years.3 The article indicated that institutional officials realized that perhaps they had not been as committed to equalizing educational opportunity in the past as they should have been. Members of black student organizations on Ivy campuses helped administrators to recognize the potential for the good institutions could do if they opened their doors to previously nontraditional students.

Admission was only the first step in creating better life chances for black students. Once on campus, many black students needed to feel a sense of belonging. The article insightfully pointed out

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