Stefan M. Bradley . Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black Student Power in the Late 1960s . Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 2009. Pp. ix, 249. $40.00.

Abstract

While the Black Power and student movements of the 1960s and 1970s have each received ample attention from historians, the northern black student movement during this era has been somewhat overlooked. This has been due, in part, to the relative inability of historians of the New Left to fit black student groups within their analytical frameworks. The few studies we do have on black student protest in the North have tended to overcompensate for this problem by pushing white students out of the picture. Moreover, scholars who have focused on black student politics have largely failed to bring their stories down from the ivory tower and connect them to civil rights and black power struggles in the communities below. For example, few, if any, have placed black high school and college students in the same frame. The result is that the northern black student movement has been cast off on its own, isolated from both the New Left and the black power movement.