The Black Studies Program: Strategy and Structure

Abstract

The college student revolution of the 1 960s shocked the conscience of the nation. No longer was it possible to ignore the brutalizing effects of injustice, racism, and war. Young militants broke the bonds of traditional patterns of thinking and launched a devastating attack on the hypocrisy and immorality of many of our social institutions. Some, fortunately a minority, found the disfunction and dehumanization of our society so intolerable that they simply dropped out. Most critics, however, thrust forward a variety of demands calculated to cure the ills that so sorely afflict the nation. Universal among these remedies in the field of education was the demand for the establishment of Black Studies programs. In response to the exigencies of the moment and with little regard for the long term academic and budgetary consequences, hundreds of Black Studies programs have been set up in all sections of the country, in all kinds of institutions, from the small private college to the multiple-campus state university. Gradually, over the past two or three years both students and educators have begun seriously to grapple with the issues involved in defining the objectives, the sphere of operation, the curriculum, and the academic justification for such programs. Questions such as the following have been raised and debated, and in many institutions they remain unresolved today. What are the vocational implications of a major in Black Studies? Who should be the students and who should be the teachers in these programs? Why have a separate Black Studies program at all when the relevant courses are already available or could be easily introduced in the traditional departments of our colleges and universities?