In 1962, James Meredith became the first African American to enroll at the University of Mississippi. In 1966, he was shot during a voting rights march from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. Meredith would survive his injuries and go on to complete the march.

(Source: The University of San Diego History Server)

***

1965: James Baldwin, Joan Baez, and James Forman on the march for voting rights in Alabama.

(Source: HungryBlues blog)

***

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Ward Connerly in one of his lighter moments.

Black on Campus hopes that you will consider the potential impact of tomorrow’s election on the future of education for Black men and women throughout the African diaspora.

One of the key issues in higher ed that could be dramatically impacted by the presidential election is that of affirmative action. Whether the winning ticket is Obama/Biden or McCain/Palin, affirmative action is likely to change. The changes that are likely to take place, however, vary from candidate to candidate.

Barack Obama’s comments on the topic (described in an earlier blogpost) suggest that he would favor a more nuanced approach to the policy, one that might still take into account an applicant’s race, but within the larger context of his or her socio-economic status. Click HERE to read my most recent blogpost on this issue.

Curiously enough, Obama’s suggestion that economic privilege might exclude some Black people from receiving affirmative action considerations has drawn an enthusiastic response from a most likely figure, the notorious affirmative action oponent, Ward Connerly.

Politico.com reporter Ben Smith describes Connerly’s perspectives on a possible Obama presidency:

Among the California voters suffused with hope at the prospect of the election of Barack Obama is one Ward Connerly.

He supports Senator John McCain out of small-government principle, but on the cause for which Connerly is best known—the drive to end the programs referred to by most as “affirmative action” and by him as “race preferences”—he says of a potential Obama administration: “I’m hopeful.”

“[Obama] is a very, very bright man who thinks through the nuances of issues and I cannot help believe he realizes the inherent flaw in race preferences,” Connerly, 69, said in a telephone interview last week. “If you listen to him carefully, you cannot help but think he is really torn by this issue, and that he is leaning in the direction of socio-economic affirmative action instead of race preferences.”

Whatever your opinions on affirmative action or any other issues, be sure to take the time to cast your ballot. Celebrate Democracy. Vote your issues, and vote your conscience.

Happy Election Day!

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Register To Vote

Get This Badge

Vanessa Siddle Walker

***

Revisionist historical accounts have shown that many of the school environments maintained by black educators during de jure segregation were ones in which institutional and interpersonal caring permeated the climate, despite the oppressive learning environments forced upon them by local school boards. With strong community support and professional educators whose training (by 1954) in many Southern states exceeded that of their white counterparts, African American children often were buffered in their schools from the negative societal messages about their potential and encouraged to believe in what they were capable of achieving.

–from “A Half-Century of Challenge,” The Emory Report, August 23, 2004

[The assumption that] nothing good happened in segregation is incorrect and is impoverishing our ability to move forward. [There was a] cadre of black educators who managed to uplift without resources” during segregation.

–at a recent conference on racial, ethnic and class divides (Emory U, October 2008), as quoted in The Emory Wheel.

***

Biographical Notes: Vanessa Siddle Walker is the Winship Distinguished Research Professor of Education at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. She holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an Ed.M and Ed.D from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Professor Walker is the author of Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South (UNC Press, 1996), winner of multiple awards, including the American Education Research Association First Book Award. She is also the co-editor of Facing Racism in American Education (Harvard Education Review Reprint Series, 1990). She has also published numerous articles and book reviews in academic journals.

The University of Georgia School of Education’s online news site describes her career prior to joining the faculty at Emory:

Walker began her career as a high school teacher in Chapel Hill High School and then at Cummings High School. She also taught English seminars for minority students at Phillips Academy. Prior to accepting a position at Emory, she taught at Wheelock and Elon Colleges and the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Walker’s primary research interest is in what she describes as, “Historical and cultural influences on the teaching and learning of African American students,” including the history and culture of segregated schools during the Jim Crow era.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

As the one major party candidate who actually supports affirmative action, Obama has had to walk a fine line. I trust that the actual policies that he would employ in addressing this issue would be based on a more nuanced understand of the complex relationship between race and privilege.

***

Remember: If you care about this and other issues, vote — Democratic, Republican, Green, Independent, write-in, or anything else that speaks to your political beliefs. The important thing is to make your voice heard.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

If Nelson Mandela is our political star, Mphahlele was his literary equivalent.

–Barney Mthombothi, “Paying Tribute to the Icon of African Letters,” IOL

(Source: BBC America)

IOL, South Africa’s largest online news source reported today that author and scholar Es’kia Mphahlele has died. He was 88 years old.

Mphahlele, best known for his 1959 autobiography, Down Second Avenue, was the first Black professor to serve on the faculty of Johannesburg’s University of the Witswatersrand (Wits). He was also the founder of the University’s African literature department.

Born in 1919, Mphahlele worked as a cattleherd in the Northern Transvaal region of South Africa when he was a boy. He was educated at Adams Teaching Training College, but was eventually banned from teaching due to his opposition to the Bantu Education Act of 1953.

The Bantu Education Act effectively segregated the school curriculum in South Africa, so that students attending Black schools were subject to a revised curriculum designed to prepare them for the subservient role that they were forced into under apartheid. Dr. Hendrik F. Verwoerd was the Minister of Native Affairs at the time that the Bantu Schools were established. The justification for Bantu Education can be summed up in his now infamous words:

There is no space for him [the “Native”] in the European Community above certain forms of labor. For this reason it is of no avail for him to receive training which has its aim in the absorption of the European Community, where he cannot be absorbed. Until now he has been subjected to a school system which drew him away from his community and misled him by showing him the greener pastures of European Society where he is not allowed to graze.

IOL details his Mphahlele’s life after the Bantu Education Act:

In the mid-1950s he worked as an editor for the news magazine Drum, and in 1956 he obtained a masters degree from the University of South Africa.

Mphahlele went into exile from South Africa in 1957.

He subsequently lived in Nigeria, where he was an editor for the periodical Black Orpheus.

He lived in Kenya, Zambia and later went to the United States, where he attended the University of Denver and obtained a PhD. He left and taught as professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

He returned to South Africa in 1977, later became the first black professor at the University of Witwatersrand and founded its African literature department.

Mphahlele’s books include:

• Man Must Live, and Other Stories, 1946
• Down Second Avenue, 1959
• The Living and Dead, and Other Stories, Nigerian Ministry of, 1961.
• In Corner B,1967.
• The Wanderers, 1971.
• Chirundu, Ravan, 1979
• Afrika My Music, 1984.
• Renewal Time, 1988.
• Mandela: Echoes of an Era, 1990.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

(Credit: Callie Shell/Aurora for Time, 1/22/2008, at TheDigitalJournalist.org)

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Many humble thanks to The Villager at Electronic Village and Clnmike at The Happy Go Lucky Bachelor for recognizing Black on Campus with the Brilliante Blooger Award. These veteran bloggers have distinguished themselves as fresh, informative voices in the blogging world, and I am honored to be on their radar.

The Brilliante Blogger Award comes with some responsibilities. The Rules are as follows:

1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.
2. The winner must link to the person from whom they received their award.
3. The winner must nominate at least 7 other blogs for the award.
4. The winner must place links to those blogs on their own blog.
5. The winner must leave a message on the blogs of the people they’ve nominated.

And now, let me share the love. These are some of the most compelling, surprising, original, and fresh blogs I have encountered in the last few months. I hope you’ll check them out, drop in regularly, or even subscribe. Congratulations to all of the following bloggers. Keep doing what you’re doing. Your work is an inspiration:

1. Dr. Boyce Watkins: The People’s Scholar — From political commentary to financial advice, this Syracuse University business professor speaks with candor and insight.
2. New Black Man — Mark Anthony Neal builds on the Black feminist frameworks that have shaped his published writings on questions of identity, media, and representation.
3. Culture Kitchen — A left-leaning political blog spearheaded by Liza Sabater. The blog describes itself as socially libertarian and politically progressive.
4. Angry Asian Man — Politics and culture from one Asian American man’s perspective. Read this blog for its treatment of ethnic news stories that the mainstream media has left behind. The voice is smart, sharp, and true.
5. Chocolate City — This blog describes itself as, “a real African American, socio-economic blog.” It’s content is passionate, irreverent, and up-to-the-minute.
6. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop — Political and cultural commentary from author and editor Jeff Chang (a founding editor of Colorlines). This blog is always worth the trip.
7. The Last Nerve — Passionate politics, informed opinion, and heartfelt sincerity.
8. hiphopmusic.com — Hip hop news and political commentary come together on this fun and intelligent blog.
9. Nuvision for a Nuday — Intelligent commentary and fresh perspectives from the creative mind of an African American woman who happens to be blind.
10. Elle, Phd. — Thoughtful, wise, candid, and provocative posts from a Black woman professor of history.
11. Shae-Shae’s Blog — Pop culture, politics, personal anecdotes and plenty of personality, with some cool graphics, too.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Prairie View students marching 7.3 miles to vote in the Democratic Primary (early 2008).

(Source: Election Strike Force Blog)

This week, students at the historically Black Prairie View A&M University scored an important election-year victory. Houston Chronicle reporter Cindy George explains: “Earlier this month, Justice Department officials sued Waller County in Houston federal court in an effort to enforce anti-discrimination provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The case alleged multiple voting and civil rights violations.”

These Justice department suit stemmed in part from the Waller County officials’ apparent efforts to limit the participation of Prairie View students in the current election. According to the Chronicle, some students are disappointed that the judges’ order stops short of calling for a polling place on campus. Still, the order represents significant progress toward free and open elections in the county, including several requirements that make it considerably more difficult for local officials to cut registrants from the roles. The Chronicle describes the judges’ order:

For the next four years, Waller County officials must justify all rejected voter registrations to the U.S. Justice Department and report every voter application received during registration drives at Prairie View A&M University, a three-judge panel has ruled.

The order also means that the county must submit twice-yearly reports about its voter registration process.

Waller County has been criticized for thwarting registration efforts by students at PVAMU, a historically black college, and has faced numerous lawsuits over the last 30 years related to student voting rights.

The county also had been under investigation by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office.

The judges ordered county officials to reprocess voter registrations rejected since 2007.

Under the order, any rejected applicant who meets state elections requirements and is not registered elsewhere will be eligible to vote in the Nov. 4 general election. The county also must work with the Texas elections director to develop a voluntary deputy registrar training program and coordinate with the PVAMU president to hold twice-yearly training sessions for students.

The panel also told the county to hold voter registration drives at the campus student center.

***

In the spirit of the season, Black on Campus blog reminds you to learn the issues, choose your candidates, and please vote on election day.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Alvin Ailey Artistic Director Judith Jamison receiving an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, Brown University, May 2008

(Source: Today at Brown)

Posted by Ajuan Mance

When you think of the University of Mississippi, the first thing you think of is the past.

–Deuce McAllister, former Mississippi star running back (Source: ESPN.com)

History and Overview: The University of Mississippi was chartered in 1844 and welcomed its first students in November of 1848. At that time the University enrolled 80 students and employed 4 faculty members. The University of Mississippi Law School opened in 1854. The school suspended classes for four years during the Civil War, and then reopened in 1865. In 1882 Ole Miss enrolled it’s first women students (11 undergraduates). The first female faculty member, Sarah Issom, was hired in 1885. The University enrolled its first African American student, James Meredith, in 1962. Mississippi hired its first Black faculty member in 1970.

Today the University of Mississippi enrolls 14, 016 students at its Oxford campus. African American students make up 13% of the student body, constituting the largest minority on campus. Asian American students make up roughly 2.6 percent of the student body, and other ethnic minority groups account for less than 1% of the Ole Miss enrollment.

Black Milestones at the University of Mississippi:

1962 — James Meredith becomes the first African American student at the University of Mississippi

1967 — Reuben V. Anderson becomes the first African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi Law School. He would go on to become the first African American justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court and the first Black president of the Mississippi Bar.

1968 — The University of Mississippi Black Student Union is founded. That same year Robert Walker becomes the first Black teaching assistant at Ole Miss, as well as the first Black student to receive a master’s degree from the University (in history).

1969 — Edgar Lee Caples becomes the first African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi School of Engineering.

1970 — African American students create the Black Law Students’ Association. In the same year, the University establishes the Afro-American Studies Program; and Jeanette Jennings becomes the first Black faculty member at Ole Miss (Social Work).

1971 — James Reed and Robert “Ben” Williams become the first African Americans to sign football scholarships with Ole Miss.

1973 — Omega Psi Phi becomes the first Black fraternity at Ole Miss.

1974 — Alpha Kappa Alpha becomes the first Black sorority at Ole Miss.

1975 — Ben Williams becomes the first African American elected by the student body as Colonel Rebel, the University’s highest elected award.

1976 — Peggie Gillom becomes the University’s first Black female basketball player.

1967 — Dr. Lucius Williams becomes the first African American administrator at Ole Miss (Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs).

1982 — John Hawkins becomes the first African American cheerleader at Ole Miss.

1983 — Dr. Marsha Williams (Ph.D., Vanderbilt) becomes the first African American engineering professor at Ole Miss.

1994 – Dr. Louis Westerfield becomes the first African American dean at Ole Miss (Dean of the School of Law). In the same year, Dr. Erskine Smith is appointed the first Black department chair at the University (Home Economics, now called Family and Consumer Sciences).

1997 — Carissa Alana Wells becomes the first African American “Miss University.”

Ben Williams during his years at Ole Miss

(Source: U Miss African American Studies Department)

Posted by Ajuan Mance