Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

4 Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
born of political turmoil takes on predominantly White campuses. According
to Huggins, “three basic concerns lay behind the demand for Afro-
American Studies—the political need for turf and place, the psychological
need for identity and the academic need for recognition.” Huggins shares
the latter concern, and he sees it as the most legitimate quest of the new
field. Throughout the report, Huggins is clear about his preferred models,
and he advocates the foundation fund these efforts. 1
Huggins writes the history of Black Studies by focusing on six campuses:
three Ivy League institutions—Cornell, Harvard, and Yale; two public
institutions—University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco State;
and one small liberalartscollege—WesleyanUniversity. 2 Inaddition,heuses
these individual cases to explore diverse ideological and methodological issues
and to document how these issues impacted upon the field’s institutionalization.
Among the patterns of ideology,Huggins identifies integrationists
and separatists (separated into advocates of Black Power and advocates of
Cultural Nationalism). According to Huggins, “Integrationists ... insisted
that Blacks had to succeed in terms of ... imperfect [White] institutions and
people the better to function in the even less perfect world outside.”Furthermore
they “preferred to see Black Studies courses offered in conventional
departments,” such as African American History courses in history departments.
In distinguishing between advocates of Black Power and advocates of
Cultural Nationalism, he writes:“The Black Power argument was ... one of
self-reliance. ... Black people had to become self-reliant economically and
politically before they could bring genuine power into play. ... Once they
had power, however, coalitions with Whites and others would not only be
possible and desirable but effective.” On the other hand, Cultural Nationalists,
who had more influence on the rhetoric of Black student activists than
theydidontheactualformationof programsatmanycolleges,“assumedtwo
nations and two cultures.” They believed the university should assume a
stance of “nonintervention in Black communities ... but should deliver financial
and technical aid as Black people demanded it.”
Finally Huggins also identifies the typical academic-unit forms that
these ideologies helped to establish: the program, the college, the department,
and the research center or institute. According to Huggins, the program
is an interdisciplinary project drawing upon scholars from a variety