Black Students in the Ivory Tower: African American Student Activism at the University of Pennsylvania, 1967-1990

Abstract

Black Students in the Ivory Tower: African American Student Activism at the University of Pennsylvania, 1967-1990, by Wayne Glasker. Amherst and Boston, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. 238 pp. $34.95, hardcover. Reviewed by Wanda M. Brooks, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. As an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) during the late 1970s, Wayne Glasker found himself in the midst of a growing Black student population who actively sought to become a respected and valued subset of the campus community. Three decades later, Glasker, now an associate professor of history at Rutgers University, explores the cultural climate occurring at Penn during the 1960s through the late 1980s by chronicling its student activism movement. The author painstakingly constructs the narrative history of the book (which is organized chronologically according to decades) by analyzing primary documents and materials accessible through the University's archives, such as the student, faculty, and community newspapers, official administrative documents, memorandums, and policy statements along with committee resolutions, reports, and minutes. The activism insightfully described by Glasker undergirds many of the difficult philosophical issues dealt with by the Black college students during those years (both intentionally and unintentionally). These philosophical issues include debates over the benefits and shortcomings of assimilation, separatism, and cultural pluralism. As explained in the Introduction, the ideological orientations prevalent in society during the early 1970s included the Black Nationalism, Black Pride, Black Arts, and Black Aesthetic Movements. These Movements served as a psychological catalyst for Black college youth, such as those attending Penn, who rejected the integrationist attitudes promoted so vigorously during the early 1960s. The primary purpose of the book is to demonstrate the connections between the Black Nationalist ideology and the student activism at Penn. The author skillfully argues that Black students at Penn embraced the Black Nationalist perspective and moved within this perspective without isolating themselves from the larger, predominately White campus community. Chapters 1 through 6 document several noteworthy examples of student protest taking place during the 1960s. Most of the activism efforts described were led by a student organization, the Society of African and Afro-American Students (SAAS), whose membership consisted of a significant percentage of the Blacks on campus. Examples of activism chronicled include the SAAS' invitations to campus speakers such as Muhammad Ali and Amiri Baraka, the demonstrations against a local bank that hired no Blacks, and the proposals for a Black History course, an Afro-American Studies Program, and an Institute of Black Studies. In these chapters, a discussion of the University's role in shaping the diverse cultural climate as gleaned by Glasker provides an insider's perspective on how the administration and faculty promoted their vision of cultural diversity to the small but growing Black student population. …