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Journal of Black Studies

43(8) 976 –978© The Author(s) 2012

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JBS 43 8 10.1177/0021934712459959Journal of Black StudiesBook Review© TheAuthor(s) 2012

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Book Review

Rogers, Ibram H. (2012). The Black Campus Movement: Black Students

and the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education, 1965-1972

Reviewed by: Marc Arsell Robinson, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0021934712459959

When thinking about Black student activism of the 1960s, most commonly,

one remembers the various off-campus protests of the early 1960s. Perhaps

the most well known of these events is the 1960 student sit-in movement,

which began with four students in Greensboro, North Carolina, and resulted

in the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

(SNCC). The Freedom Rides of 1961 and Freedom Summer of 1964 are

similarly well chronicled. However, much less is remembered about the on-

campus political action of Black students during the decade. This omission

guides Ibram H. Rogers’ The Black Campus Movement: Black Students and

the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education, 1965-1972.

In a narrative that spans numerous regions of the country and includes col-

leges and universities of every size and character, Rogers recounts what he

terms the “Black Campus Movement” (BCM) describing it as a “struggle

among black student nationalists at historically white and black institutions to

reconstitute higher education from 1965-1972” (p. 3). While highlighting on-

campus campaigns, The Black Campus Movement is also unique for offering

a comprehensive account of Black student protest nationwide. Furthermore,

Rogers asserts a frame of analysis that emphasizes the importance of the BCM

as both a part of and apart from the Black power movement, the campus pro-

tests of other racial groups, and “black student off-campus activism during

the contemporary civil rights period” (p. 3).

The Black Campus Movement also addresses racist patterns in American

education that existed through the mid-1960s. According to Rogers, “there

were at least four entrenched elements that had long undergirded the racialconstitution of higher education” (p. 4). First was the “moralized contrap-

tion,” a constricting code of dress and behavior enforced on Black students,

primarily at historically Black colleges and universities. Second was the

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Book Review 977

“standardization of exclusion,” which habitually excluded curriculum about

Black people from Black institutions and excluded Black topics and people

from White ones. The “normalized mask of whiteness” was the third element,

which presented Eurocentric curriculum as universal. And the forth was “lad-

der altruism,” the ethic that individual Black career and economic success

inevitably benefited all African Americans. According to Rogers, these four

elements were systematically assaulted and transformed by the BCM, lead-

ing to the “racial reconstitution of higher education.”

Chapter 1 covers the history of African Americans in higher education up

to 1965. Beginning with home-schooled Black intellectuals, like Phillis

Wheatley and Benjamin Banneker, the text goes on to describe the first Black

men and women to attend college and earn postsecondary degrees. As thenarrative moves from the 19th to 20th centuries, it examines how Black stu-

dents continually endured and challenged the four oppressive elements of

higher education just described.

Chapter 2 covers the first phase of the “Long Black Student Movement”

(LBSM), the “New Negro Campus Movement” of the 1920s and early ’30s.

During these years, Black students organized around a number of issues,

including calls for courses on business and enterprise, challenges to the mor-

alized contraptions of curfews and dress codes, and requests (at White insti-tutions) for administrators to address their exclusion on and off campus.

Continuing the narrative of the LBSM, chapter 3 describes Black student

activism from the 1930s to early 1960s. Unlike the previous phase of student

protest that saw demonstrations focused on campus, the period of the ’30s

through the ’60s witnessed a gradual shift of student attention to off-campus

campaigns, culminating with student participation in the civil rights movement.

Yet, even before the marches and sit-ins, Rogers argues that Black students

were an integral part of the era’s activism, particularly by serving as plaintiffsand integrators during the NAACP’s campaign against school segregation.

Chapter 4 recounts the developments in the civil rights and Black power

movements during the first half of the 1960s as the context from which the

BCM would emerge. Rogers explicates how the combination of outrage at

White repression of civil rights efforts, disappointment with the fate of the

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Black rebellions in Harlem and

Watts, the life and death of Malcolm X, and the profusion of Black nationalist

speakers, student groups, conferences, and periodicals created a generative

atmosphere for the BCM that followed.

The fifth chapter gives a narrative overview of the BCM, discussing the

events at various schools, such as Hampton, the University of Kansas,

Tuskegee, North Carolina A&T, San Francisco State, and Howard. Responding







978 Journal of Black Studies 43(8)

to the tragic events of Selma’s Bloody Sunday, the Orangeburg massacre, the

killing of students at Jackson State, and the murder of Dr. Martin Luther

King, Black students demanded Black studies and other reforms at institu-

tions nationwide. Next, chapter 6 presents a detailed discussion of the BCM’s

organizing methods, demands, and protest tactics.

The opposition and repression of the BCM is covered in chapter 7, describ-

ing how student activists faced criticism and/or violence from White admin-

istrators, Black professors and leaders, the White and Black press, other

students, politicians, police agencies, and the judiciary. Chapter 8 summa-

rizes how the BCM effectively challenged the moralized contraptions, stan-

dardization of exclusion, normalized mask of Whiteness, and latter altruism,

thereby transforming higher education in America. Rogers points out thatafter the BCM, higher education would no longer be able to exclude content

on African Americans or impose dress codes and curfews as it had previously

done. And the final section, an epilogue, discusses U.S. higher education

from the 1970s into the 21st century, depicting how “egalitarian exclusion”—

the limiting of non-White people and race-specific initiatives using the rheto-

ric of equality—has been used to undermine the gains of the ’60s and ’70s.

Overall, The Black Campus Movement is notable for its thorough research

and fresh historical analysis. The work breaks new and important ground by providing insights into trends and patterns of Black student activism across

geography, institutional types, and time. Although the works of other authors,

like Stephan Bradley, Fabio Rojas, Nowile M. Rooks, or Joy Ann Williamson,

have examined late-’60s Black student politics, all have focused on a certain

location or theme. In contrast, The Black Campus Movement is the first work

to compile such an inclusive account of actions nationwide. Therefore, this

text is invaluable for students and researchers of the 1960s, the Black power

movement, and Black student protest.






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