Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

38 Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
Foundation survey revealed that less than 1 percent of Americans with
doctorates were Black, and that most of that 1 percent were more than
fifty-five years old. 21 The sudden demand for Black scholars increased anxiety
among educators concerned about the future of southern Black institutions.
The fear was that northern schools would “raid” traditionally
Black colleges for the Black academics who, for racial reasons, would
hardly have been considered for membership in White departments before
the 1960s. 22 Northern institutions would find it difficult to discover Black
candidates for faculty appointment, but they could and did funnel money
to the support of Black students, add Black faculty or staff where they
could, offer new courses in Afro-American history and literature, swallow
liberal instincts by accepting de facto separate facilities under the guise of
Black culture, and put together what might be called a program in Afro-
American (or African-American) studies. All of this in response to Black
student demands.
It is hard to know how much Black students wanted Afro-American
studies as a field for possible academic concentration. Doubtless much of
their demand arose from their desire to shake the complacency of their institutions.
In that sense, Black Studies was symbolic; its presence was more
important than its substance. But it was also a field of legitimate scholarly
inquiry, as Black scholars have been saying for more than a century. Black
Studies, as fact and symbol, would continue to create tension among Black
scholars and student reformers because some Black scholars wanted their
scholarship to be taken seriously and were as likely to be put off by antiintellectualism
and hostility to academic work as were their White peers.
We should consider more closely some of the reasons advanced for the establishment
of these programs.
Assumptions of Reform
In most institutions, Black Studies was part of a larger package of reforms
insisted on by Black students and their supporters among the reformminded
faculty and students. The demands for reform began with a general
malaise among all students and particularly among Blacks; I would suggest