Af-Am studies at 30: infant or institution?

BY ANNE LEONE

COURTESY OPA John Blassingame, an early member of the African American studies department, served as its chair from 1981-1989..

Yale began the African American studies curriculum largely as a result of black students' demands for such a program. "Students were involved both in the politics and in the academics," Roy S. Bryce-Laporte, the program's first director in 1969, said. "It was a very active campus. A lot of things were happening. At no time were students passive. [But] there was [also] a reasonable equanimity as they discussed these things. There was a civility, an openness between the leaders of the student groups and the Administration and some of the faculty."

Timothy Dwight Master Robert Farris Thompson also recalls students pushing for the program. "A group of black students asked me to teach a class on Mambo. This was back in '68, and I'm still teaching that class today," Thompson said proudly.

The key student group working for an African American studies program was the Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY), formed in 1966 from the Yale Discussion Group on Negro Affairs. It was an active group; in 1967, BSAY sponsored a conference on black power and met with Corporation Fellow John Hay Whitney to discuss the possibility of widening Yale's curriculum to include African American studies. BSAY led a boycott of classes in the spring of 1967, and in March BSAY leaders met with University President Kingman Brewster, TD '41, and Provost Charles Taylor, Jr.

But as BSAY historian, Eldred Marshall, ES '03, points out, "the demand from the student body to diversify the curriculum came at the right time." Brewster was looking for a way to expand the curriculum, and he was waiting for the students to ask for it.

President Brewster was painfully aware of the tense atmosphere on campus and in New Haven during his tenure. In the late 1960s, the city was a politically charged place. Riots rocked New Haven in August 1967, and protests and racial tensions strained local high schools in February of the following year. In May 1968, riots broke out on campus in response to Mayor Richard Lee's urban renewal plan. At Yale, academics were inextricably linked to politics—both President Brewster and Yale's undergraduates were active in the local political issues of the time. As Bryce-Laporte said, "The program was an output of the black movement of the town." BSAY historian Marshall explained that with the growing African American political consciousness, BSAY wanted "classes to talk about the history of black people, something that is still not taught in many high schools today."

But many African American studies scholars hold a broader view of the program's goal. Professor Robert Stepto has been teaching courses in African American studies for almost 28 years, both at Yale and at Williams College, and he is proud of Yale's interdisciplinary approach. The program started as professors from other departments—French, Sociology, and History of Art, just to name a few—were asked to teach courses in African American studies or to cross-list existing courses. Stepto says this approach gives "the curriculum...a transatlantic orientation," as opposed to a more traditional focus on the black experience in America. Stepto readily lists his colleagues to illustrate the point. "Robert Farris Thompson specializes in all forms of visual art from both sides of the Atlantic and from the Caribbean as well," he said. "The late Sylvia Boone focused on African art as well. The presence of African languages in our curriculum also ensured a transatlantic scope. Our chair Hazel Carby and Professor Paul Gilroy are from England, so it is clear that the department has never just been [about black] culture in the U.S.," Stepto said. Carby says this scope is unusual. "People worry that we're giving something up by focusing on the wider world. There is a very parochial, North American nationalist strain in African American thought that our department challenges."

Indeed, Yale's approach is unique in several ways—both in its interdisciplinary nature and in its focus on the humanities. Stepto says that traditionally "it is either/or—humanities or social sciences." According to Stepto, Yale's program was initially "stronger in humanities." But by 1979, the University launched a recruiting effort for social science professors, which resulted in the arrival of Professors Ed Morgan and John Szwed.

Today, Yale's program is widely seen as a leader in the academic world. In 1978, Yale began to award master's degrees in African American studies. At the time, it was the only Ivy League university to do so. In a 1985 report on African American studies, historian Nathaniel Huggins praised Yale's program. "By all accounts, the Afro-American studies program at Yale is the strongest and most respected in the country," he said.

The program continually struggles to maintain this reputation, often renewing its focus or adding innovative courses. A year after co-education came to Yale, the African American studies program organized "The Chubb Conference on the Black Woman," and gender studies have remained an important area of study since then. Carby lists "black feminist critiques, questions of sexuality, [and] a focus on Diaspora" as new and controversial issues the department is exploring currently. Carby contrasts today's department with her conception of its past reality. "It isn't... about including minorities [anymore]," she said. "The sort of work we do is about challenging ideas about the formation of the modern world. It is a critique of Western knowledge from the Enlightenment on that places black subjects at the center, rather than at the margins."

Carby and her self-described "New Guard"—the current students and faculty—will come face to face with the founders of the African American studies department this spring, when the department holds its 30th anniversary conference. (Originally scheduled for last weekend, organizers postponed the conference after the events of Sept. 11.) When the "founding parents" of the program meet their figurative children, they will be faced with an important question: "Did we succeed?"

One founding goal that has certainly been realized is diversity. The black students of the 1960s "wanted to bring in a more diverse group, [a] wider range of students," Bryce-Laporte said. Such diversity is now mirrored in the wide range of subjects taught in the department. Professor Stepto, who bridges both the old and new guard, is satisfied with the progress the department has made. Of course "everyone has their wish list," he adds—and his own includes expanding Spanish and Portuguese studies within the African American department to match the strength and prestige of Christopher Miller's work in French. Stepto is hopeful that this area of study will develop because there are already graduate students who have focused on the Spanish and Portuguese languages. Carby, too, emphasizes the importance of the graduate students as leaders of progressive change in the depart-ment's focus. "It's also important for us to produce knowledge," she says. "Our grad students are changing the field with the work they are doing, and we are training them."

Despite recent controversy—Carby temporarily resigned in February of 2000 amid confusion over African American studies' future—the program has made important strides forward. It recently gained status as an official department. President Levin has said that any past differences are "absolutely" patched up. But Carby says her department has a long way to go.

"We are a department with no endowment, no named lecture series," she said. "No black faculty member has a named chair. There are no funds for Af-Am students to go abroad. The University is [very] complacent in the way it treats black faculty. We want alumni who will step forward as advocates for the department to the trustees and Administration. Currently, there is no `pressure group' lobbying on our behalf. Many of our most notable alumni are the biggest donors to Harvard's Af-Am department."

President Levin says that he does, in fact, get feedback from alumni, though he acknowledges that most of them were influenced more by the Afro-American Cultural House than the African American studies department. "I have heard lots of positive things in academic circles [about the department]," Levin said. "Many of the people who are Ph.D. candidates in the program—and we only started granting Ph.Ds in African American studies in 1993—have said excellent things as well. The department is very well-regarded in academic circles."

As the student body of Yale diversifies, as the curriculum of the African American studies department expands, as graduate students continue to bring new issues to the field and as old and new generations of African American studies professors and alumni share memories and visions, the Department will continue to explore and to grow. Master Thompson, surrounded by Tango posters, paintings from Haiti, and CDs of West-African drum music, said, "The program started out strong, and it continues to be strong today, and I'm proud to be a part of it." As Professor Stepto added, "We have lots to celebrate."

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