Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States 51
question of power. Would the university give to Blacks (students included)
the power imagined to exist in a department or college? In some ways, the
answer to this question was more important to those making the demand
than was the substance of the program or the efficacy of such “autonomous”
agencies in achieving academic objectives. “Black Power” also
informed the demand for Black dormitories, student centers, and the like.
Community building implied the coming together of Black people on
and off campus as a community. In this regard, it is important to observe
that these students were unknown to one another before coming to college
and were often from places that, at best, were disintegrating communities.
They were the more anxious, therefore, to tie themselves to the local
Black community as a defense against the perceived co-opting pressures of
the institution.
On the positive side, “Black Power” proponents claimed that Blacks
had the ability and the obligation to create their own world on their own
terms (just as Whites had done). On the negative side, “Black Power” was
an attitude deliberately inhospitable to Whites. One wanted Blacks on the
faculty, of course, but especially to teach courses in Afro-American studies.
Black faculty would have a perspective different from Whites. More
important, the appointment of Black faculty and the control of the Afro-
American studies program by Blacks would be a delivery of power into
Black hands. Some argued that Whites had nothing of value to say about
Blacks and that the program should be controlled by Blacks without interference
from White faculty and administration.
Some programs—notably at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle
and at Cornell—kept a strong “Black Power” orientation. Since the decline
of interest in Black Studies in the mid-seventies, supporters have
seldom talked of autonomy, turning, rather, to guarantees of continued
university support. Most of those that started with separatist notions either
expired or moderated their positions.
Separatism—Cultural Nationalism
This aspect of separatist ideology was of slight real influence on college
campuses but should be mentioned to distinguish it from that of “Black