Into The Academy: The Black Intellectual and White Influence A Legacy of Service 1 THe MIsepucxtion on rite NeoKo Carter G. Woodson warned that African Americans would never ent fully into the cconon political, and social institutions of America unless they received an education befitting to their peculiar situation. With his famous essay “The Talented Tenth,” Dr. WEB. Du Bois identified those who must produce that education betitting to blacks’ peculiar situ tion: “Phe Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men.” As the new jnillennium begins, it is still clear drat the productivity of black intellectuals, Du Bois's “Talented Fenth,” rew Black America. But are they prepared? And if not, why not? In The Crisis of the Negro butel- lectual (1967), Professor Harold Cruse notes, “Unless the Negro intellectual’s role as a class is defined (or redefined), the en Negro movement—all the way from integra: Gionists to nationalists—is doomed to be bogged down and wasted. through confusion and lack of direction. Declaring black thinkers the public intel- lectuals of the 1990s, Robert Boyton main- tains, “They have thought less exclusively about the meaning of ‘blackness’ and more inclusively about what Alrican- American—taking pains to serv nize both sides of the hyphen."2 At this cr cal juncture, black intellectuals’ confusion continues, Both black intellectuals and the black movement, as Cruse feared, ave “hogged down,” in large part because these intellectuals have yet to define themselves as al ins criti means to be an Page 28 ‘by Henry Vance Davis a group within the American intelligentsia, ‘They are still thinking tou much about “both sides of the hyphen.” Because the trek of African-American intellectuals over the past two generations increasingly has led ther (0 predominately white colleges and universi- ties (PWC&U), their definition will reflect those institutions—therein lies the problem, ‘one more knotty than Gruse imagined, Nie. ABRIGAN-AMERICAN SCHOLAR at PWC&U assumes the guardianship of a long and storied tradition of intellectual activity, activity fueled by service and increas- ingly shaped by the white side of che “hyphen.” While only recently has direct involvement in the academy oceurred, the history of the black intellectual, many argue, extends back to the abolition period. During slavery, the economic ambitions of white America defined the status of black Americans, Slaves existed to improve the lifestyle of their masters. Blacks would be property forever. Using their minds as well as their bodies, black men and women strug- gled against their conditions. William Banks identifies remnants of intellectual activity from West Arica in the earliest slave qua ters. Harriet Tubman led blacks to freedom, and Sojourner Truth lectured against slav- ery. The violent plans of Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner signaled blacks’ willingness to fight physically for their freedom, while Martin R. Delany, David Walker, and Alexander Grummell demon- strated black writers’ insistence on their free- dom in the first years of the 19th century. THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 32, NO. 2As the nation moved towards Civil War, intellectuals such as John Russwurm, Samuel Cornish, Mifflin Gibbs, Charles Ray, and Frederick Douglass published newspapers to promote their causes. They debated racial uplift and protection proposals, coloniza- tion, and pro- and anti-slavery constitutional. ism; and they championed the abolition of slavery. However, from the beginning, there was the question of white influence. Even Freder- ick Douglass deferred, at first, to William Lloyd Garrison on the question of whether or not the Constitution was a pro-slavery doc- ument. Garrison's opposition also dissuaded Douglass, for a brief period, from publishing The North Star. Scholars have questioned how Alexander Crummell remained loyal for so many years to a racist Episcopal church While these blacks existed in a society so racist they seldom questioned the few whites Urat were supportive, the central question nd now— ate activity raised by white influence—then s. who 1 approp! African-American intellectuals? EFINING THE STATUS OF BLACK CITIZENS in America has been a major challenge for the African-American intelligentsia and the nation, and it has been as unending in the African-American experience as struggle. Earl E, Thrope writes, “The central theme of Black History is the quest of Afro-Americans for freedom, equality, and manhood.” For Jon Michael Spencer, self-definition takes on. spiritual connotations: “Human beings are fundamentally religious human beings...the oppressed require mythologies and mystifications to fend off the theologi of the powerful” After the close of the Civil War when four million tattered, poverty-stricken, freedmen trudged from slavery into freedom, they faced this challenge: What would this curi- ‘ous thing, a black ex-slave, be in the Ameri- can citizenry? How would they enter the eco- homie, social, and political institutions of the country, and who would best lead them there? Who would craft the *mythologies” that fueled their “quest for freedom?" No group has been better situated than black intellectuals to answer these questions, THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 32, NO. 2 WE CIVIL. WAR WAS A TURNING POINT in the development of black intellectuals. Its end brought the first education for masses of blacks, as well as debates about what that edu cation should entail, and increased influence from elements outside the black community. Because efforts by the Freedmen’s Bureau and various philanthropic organizations were instrumental in opening schools for the Freed- men, their education addressed little in the way of a higher order of thinking; rather, it focused on skills and crafts. Such an education would not prepare blacks to participate in the struggle to define their citizenship status. Although blacks made unprecedented political gains and leading black thinkers expressed themselves in forums formerly closed to them, during these first years after the war, blacks played only a subservient role in shaping their destiny as citizens. The con- struction of their post-war reality swirled around a struggle for dominance between whites—Republicans from the North and Democratic redeemers from the South. Black intellectuals’ voices were subordinate to greater forces. The major legislation of the period, the 14th and 15th Amendments as well as the Reconstruction Act of 1867, came from this give-and-take between fac- tions of white citizens. Back and forth they went, until the compromise by Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877 signaled the South’s victory in the battle to define the status of blacks in the South and, subsequently, all of America.’ Historians August Meier and Elliott Rud- wick described the remaining years of the cen- tury as marked by rising prejudice and dis- crimination. The country ushered in an age of segregation, Blacks became Americans restrict ed in opportunity, segregated in public accom- modations, and inferior on the ladder of humanity. Built upon distranchisement, Plessy u Ferguson (1896), rampant lynching, Jim Crow, and a ghastly image of blacks—the min- strel stereotype—the period historian Rayford Logan calls “the nadir,” saw black Americans legally relegated to second-class citizenship and the underbelly of the nation.” Nimes: as the turn of the century approached, blacks had marshaled enough control of the fruits of their labor to Page 29build businesses, buy property, and, above all, educate their children. Following in the footsteps of William G. Allen, who was a pro- fessor of Greek, German, and rhetorie at Central College in McGrawville, New York, as carly as 1853, a few pioncers had even managed to obtain positions in PWC&U. Henry T. Greener was appointed to the fie- ulty of the University of South Carolina in 1873. Father Patrick F. Healy, S. J., was presi- dent of Georgetown University from 1873 wo 1882, and Dr. George Grant was an instruce tor in Harvard’s School of Dentistry in 1884, Aristides Alphonso Peter Alberta, D.D. lee- tured at New Orleans University a president of the Board of Trustees in 1889:These pioneers, however, presaged no significant presence of blacks in PWC&U, where they would not become common for many years. At this early stage, white influence contin- ued to play a major role. It was no coinci- dence that Booker T. Washington, the most influential black American educator of the late twentieth century, was a champion of industrial education. Despite the founding, of the American Negro Academy in 1896 and the notable work of such intellectuals as John Mercer Langston, Blanch B. Brace, Richard I. Greener, and Daniel A Payne, industrial education supported by money from white industrialists and philanthropists, was the rage. White philanthropists called for “raising the savage,” while industrialists sought a ready pool of workers, but neither promoted intellectually challenging educa- tion for blacks. Fven those that struggled for a traditional, liberal education felt the pres. sure, Carter G, Woodson, known for his fea some independence, changed his course on a number of occasions to pacify his white benefactors dl became T f ATTEMITS BY INDUSTRIALISTS and phi anthropists to define black educational parameters were, however, not without oppo- sition, Certainly Du Bois was the most famous opposer, but there were others William I. Ferris, who attended Yale and took a M.A. at Harvard in 1900, observed industrial education with disdain in his mag- hum opus, African Abroad, or His Evolution in Page 30 Western Civilization, Tracing His Development Under Caucasian Mitieu (1913). Ferris predict- ed that it would be in spite of industrial ed cation that in the twentieth century, “The Negro will be regarded as.a person and not as a thing,” In 1890, the militant editor T. Thomas Fortune, a friend of Booker 7. Washington's but no friend of accommoda- Gon, formed the Afro- American League, the leading black rights organization of the peri- od A number of the nation’s leading black editors supported the organization.” Among. their primary goals was to speak for then selves. By the time Du Bois published The Souls of Black Folk in. 1903, black Americans were ready, fully, to enter the debate about their status ay citizens, Blacks’ struggle for self-definition took an important turn in the new century. With the first great migration North and their experi- ences during World War 1, blacks—redefin- ing themselves—declared a “New Negro.” Washington's vocational education and the old definition of the Negro had little credi- bility among these radical black thinkers. During an unprecedented outpouring of black creativity, termed the Harlem Renais- sance, they declared the “Old Negro” (the minstrel stereotype) dead and announced a new, aggressive, proud, brave black man ready ( take full citizenship in America. Cc ATIVE ARTISIS, such as Langston Hugh- cs, Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson, and many others, promoted this “New Negro.” Debate around organizational and racial uplift strategies was also essential. Asa Philip Randolph and his struggles to promote socialism and organize the Brotherhood of Pullman Car Porters and Maids, and Marcu M. Garvey and his quest for African national ism through his United Negro Improvement Association, made key contributions to the self-definition of African America. The internecine conflicts between the accommo- dationist “Bookerites,” still in place even after Washington's death in 1915, and their rivals, the NAACP integrationists, also drov the race uplift dialogue. While it is truc, as Cruse maintains, that the “renaissance radicals” were “sidetracked” by white ideologies. blacks nonetheless THE BLACK SCHOLAR — VOLUME 32, NO. 2gained more control of the definition of black folk during the Harlem Renaissance than ever before, an accomplishment of major importance. Alain Locke wrote of a “great race-welding,” concluding that, “In Harlem, Negro life is seizing upon its first chances for group expression and selfdeter- mination.”" In the face of white influence, the black community found a way to express and define itself. The force and power of the black intellectual squared off with the min- strel stereotype, but only in segregated acad- emic environments. Black intellectuals had not yet entered the academy in any meaning ful way. While Woodson and his disciples worked to spread black bistory during the period, no black historians taught in white institutions of higher education. Even blacks at black institutions of higher education faced myriad problems, not the least of which was the influence of white benefac- tors’ goals and ideals on black campus com- munities, | (BOLDENED BY THEIR SELEDEFINITION, and Ener nicccstu strategy that sociologist Aldon Morris in The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (1984) termed bureaucratic protest, black America reached another turning point when in 1954 Brawn u Board of Education of Topeka overturned Plessy 1 Fergu- son, Brown coincided with a gradual move- ment of blacks into PWC&U. In the early 1940s, a study by the Julius Rosenwald Fund of Chicago found oniy two blacks on staff at PWCX&U, and they held non-teaching posi- tions. The Fund then started an effort to support black faculty at PWC&U, and by 1945, fifteen blacks were factlty members in white universities. There was an additional increase around WW II when blacks took aclvantage of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, better known as The GI Bill of Rights, but significant improvement began with the Brown decision.” Although Martin Luther King, Jr. rose to international prominence on the success of the nonviolent integrationist movement, there were thinkers in the black community that marched to a different drummer. And during a period historian John Hope Franklin has called the Second Renaissance THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 32, NO. 2 because of the outpouring of black creative literature, violence was not the only message. Malcolm X became the “Prince of the Ghet to” as he led the Nation of Islam to new heights with a message—reminiscent of Gar- vey—of black pride, freedom “by any means necessary,” and black control of the resources of the black community, By the late sixties, when Adam Clayton Powell and Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Toure) popularized the phrase “Black Power,” King’s nonviolent movement was on the wane. Into the Academy J WAS THE BROWN DECISION, the subsequent ivil Rights Movement, and the conse- quent student activism of the Black Power period that lay the foundation for the wolvement of black intellectuals in the are- nas most equipped for intellectual inquiry, the predominately white colleges and univer- s. The influx of blacks into Ph.D. pro- grams, generated by student activism in the early to mid-seventies, eventually gave rise to the flow of inereasing numbers of black intellectuals into the academy. While much work remains, the number of black faculty at PWC8&U in 2002 far outstrips that of the sixties. The University of Michi- gan, a leader in the hiring of black faculty and staff, provides an example. When Harold Cruse arrived at the University of Michigan in 1968 to teach history, black pro- fessors on campus were rare; by 1996 there were 126." Similar gains occurred across the nation, While there are signs of falling Ph.D. enrollment and attainment by African-Amer- icans, the number teaching in the academy in 2002 stands at an all time high. Over 26,000 blacks are now tenure-track employ- ees at PWC&U, Still, after thirty years of affir- mative action, America’s faculties are eighty nine percent white. Blacks represent only 4.7 percent of faculty, with the majority of these in historically black colleges and universities, Only 2.2 percent of the faculty at predom: nately white universities are black." In 1997, 82 percent of black college stu- dents attended white institutions of higher education; yet, the black intellectual is just Page 31reaching maturity in the academy.” The attain. ment of critical mass by black faculty during the last ten to fifteen years offers unique opportunities to investigate the evolution of the black intellectual, his or her relationship with white thought, and the role of a culture of discrimination in this dilemma wr BIACK SCHOLARS moved to the acad- ‘emy, they were seen as interlopers and curiosities. Intent on shedding the minstrel stereotype of the postReconsiruction peri- od, they bought into the prevalent Social Darwinism. The first blacks in white schools were intent on proving that they were wor- thy, that they could compete, that they did not belong on the bottom of the intellectual pile. They readily submitted to the judg- ments of the culture they found. They knew of but seldom paused to ponder the implica- tions of Du Bois’ "peculiar sensation [The sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on i amused contempt and pity.” They were not ready to critique a world that presumed them to be personally and culturally inf rush for inclusion in the academy, they accepted, often without question, the cauons, tenets, and standards, of PW In so doing, they may have suh- jected themselves to forces of white influ- ence even greater than those faced by Don- glass, Woodson, Du Bois, and the Harlem radicals pr, In thei we MUCH HAS CHANGED since the end of slavery, and the circumstance of the African-American citizen has certainly evolved, critical areas that bear on blacks! status remain unclear, Black intellectuals at PWC&U must live an existence grounded in the legitimacy of their experience (their speculiar” situation), but 0 many do not know who they are. Are they middle-class or “home boys.” liberals or conservatives, deserving or just Affirmative Action babies? Are they African Americans, blacks, or per- haps, mixed-race? Is Tiger Woods black or Asian-Polynesian-Chinese-Caucasian-Native American? Lin PWCRU, li placed from their culture, judging themselves by standards defined by traducers “looking on in amused contempt,” black intellectuals, Du Bois’s tal ented tenth, have yet to define themselves. They have allowed those outside their expe- rience to define who and what they are and what they should strive to be, But if they can- not define themselves, they can not lead in the defining of black America Because most twenty-first century black scholars will work in predominately white sities, the salient challenge for them must be to define wha ns to be a black intellec- tual in the context of American education— particularly, predominately white institutions of higher education, The importance of this definition is so clear that one carmot but ask why it remains incomplete. In part, black intellectuals at PWC&U fail because of cultural discrimination; that is, those in authority (blacks and whites) feet justified in creating others in the image of the dominant culture. They value and reward minority scholars and educators by their ability to mimic and do the bidding of their selected Caucasian colleagu sciously or subconsciously such a process sanctions cultural diserimination, thus dri- ving black scholars from their communi and stifling the development of that “pecn- liar education” as well as the development of the black intelligentsia. This formula for valuing African-American professors at PWC&U is critical to their definition, because it will determine the resources they control, their independence, their tenure, and subsequently, the integrity and force of their presence, Meges and umiver- itme s. Cons Bus SUPPOSED GENDER AND RAGE neue tral standards obscure the discrimina- tion in the valuation process, an analysis of these standards becomes crucial. Black intel- lectuals must dissect the PWC&U’s culture of discrimination and reveal the tacties and strategies, the nuts and bolts, of the interven- tion and education that perpetuate the mis- education of the African American and destroys the black intellectual, ‘The value put on work produced by those in PWC&U is the justification for distributing pay, powcr, and prestige. Jim Crowfoot and THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 32, NO. 2Mark Chessler, writing in “Racism in Higher Education,” addressed this valuation process when they discussed what they called the “star system.” The authors claim this formula for work evaluation, in place in most PWC&U, “sel dom questions the definition of star qualities,” which allows “unidimensional criteria for acad- emie excellence” to be “raised to a level of abstraction that is seen as transcending consid- erations of race or gender.” Such considera- tions, traditionalists argue, “have no relevance to defining or achieving excellence.” While black intellectuals are forced to live by these standards, some, such as William Banks, con- tinue to question them Although conunited to fieedam of inquiry and expression, American universities, like other institutions, generated a bureaucracy and culture that encouraged conformity: The standards for ccvaluating intellectual work und teaching compe: cence were Louted as objective, but no ane denied that subjective factors played a role, For black scholars specializing in race and ethnic issues, those subjective factors were troublesome, When white peers criticized the quality of thei work, were their objections well founded or were hey the product of racial bias oF of political con- servativism [conservatism |? Were a measures of seademie merit intellectually defen: sible, or were they expressions of white or Eure American privilege, stats, and poner? F EQUAL CONCERN, Chessler and Crow- foot contend that those who do well by these supposed race and gender neutral standards achieve status; consequently, con- tol of resources requires activity that does not recognize Woodson’s “peculiar situa- tion.” African Americans in the academy must address issues that are not Afro-cen- tered, or—worse—those that are Afro-cen- tered in ways that are not progressive for African Americans. What is perhaps more disconcerting, Chessler and Crowfoot con- tend, “People who do not do well by the star metric are labeled as inferior—not as differ- ent or as valued.” This is the base of an insid- ious cultural discrimination that, left unchecked, not only devalues Afro-centered activity but also destroys the integrity of the black intellectual and ultimately, dismisses such intellectuals from the center of the uni- versity community.” THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 32, NO. 2 At the dawn of the twenty-first century, while black intellectuals are in the academy in increasing numbers, what that means to the struggle of Black America for equity and justice remains to be defined. Endnotes ier G. Woodson, The Miseducation of the Negro (Nashville: Winston-Derek Publishers, Inc., 1990), iit; WEB. Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” The Negro Problem, 1903, in Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates, Je, The Future ofthe Race (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1996), 188; Harold Cruse The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (New York: Marrow, 1967), 368, 2 Robert $. Boynton, America on Line: Kennet 3281. 4 April 1995.4 S. Earl E. Thorpe, The Central Theme of Black History (Durham. NC: Seeman Printery, 1968) 29, in Robert V. Haynes, Blacks in White America Before 1863 (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1972); Jon Michael Spencer, “Trends of Opposition to Multicul turalism,” The Black Scholar, Winter/Spring 1993, 3 4. WEB, Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1985); John Hope Franklin, Reconstruction After the Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961); C. Van Woodward. The Strange Career of fim Crow (New York: Oxtord University Press, 1955). 5. Rayford Logan, The Negra in American Life and ‘Thought: The Nadir; 1877-190 (New York: Dial, 1954) 6. The end of Allen’s tenure was unceremonious. While ut Central he met and considered matting a young white student, Mary E. King. The thought of such an wccurrence caused considerable anger among Ms. King’s family and the townspeople. Allen was subse- quendy run out of town by a mob of 400 t0 500 peo- ple with implements chat clearly indicated that had they caught his snow sleigh, they would have made his body an example 10 any others that might think te ¢r086 the color line in a similar fashion, Allen pub- lished his account of the incident in The Americar Prejudice Against Color: An Authentic Narvative Showing Hox Easily the Nation Got Into An Uproar: by Wiliam G: Allen, a Refugee from American Despotism (London: 1853); Frankie Hutton, The Farly Black Press In Ameri- a, 1827-1865 (Westport: CT: Greenwood Press, 1993), 21; Alton Hornsby. Jr, Chronology of African American History: Significant Events and People Prom 1619 10 the Present (Detroit: Gale Research. Inc 1991), 46; Allen Ballard, The Education of Black Fok: The AfiorAmerican Struggle far Krunoledge in White Amer jew (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 158 7. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, Black History ond ‘he Historical Profesion 1915.1980 (Chicago: Universi- «oF Hlinois Press, 1986), 1-72, 8 William H. Ferris, The African Abroad, or His Evolution in Weslern Cinalzation, Tracing His Development Under Page 33Caurasian Miliru, 2 vols. (New Haven: Tuttle More house andl Taylor Press, 1913}, WIZ, 19899, 9. 4 powerlul and aggressive organization, newspaper people played a hey vale, Fortune, Edward Covps John Mitcheil, Jobn Dancy, Rohert Pethasn. HC. th, and Calvin Chase were among the editors sighed the resolution to change the si [0 meeting to Chicage trom Nas} ite Phe Neww Neyo (New Yorks A.C. Boi, of the 1, wil sibility iv American Life (New Yorks WW. Norton & my M. Banks, Black Mele, Race aed Respon Conny, 1996), 37. 12 Regugie Wilson, “Arican-Americans in Predo White Universities,” in Bugelopedia of Apicar: Amer: enn Edueation (American Connell an Education, Lao?) 13. Ie should be nated that this mumber reflects the number of lacks on faculty without regard for eit renship, Still, there bis been 3 Since IWS. The Bacal, Staffed Stdents of Cin A Statistival Profle for Avadomie Years 1989-84 (Am Arbor: The University of Michigan Offee of Acacte mnie and Multicultural Inigatives, Afirmative Action ‘Office, sd Chuan Resources, 1295), LA Wil, 15. Wilson, 5: Jhonale Deskins: Mimanity Recruitment Data: An Avuthsis of Baad Degree Production in the United Sint Towa, N J: Rowan & Allene, 1088) WHAT’S YOUR OPINION? Write Us at THEBLACKSCHOLAR P.O. Box 2869 Oakland, CA 94818 ATTENTION: The Editor Page 34 18, WEBB, Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk (New Yorks New American Library, 1903, 1968), 45, 17, Mark Chesster and Jimt Education: An Organi University of Michigan, November 1989); Banks, 179 ADVERTISE IT!!! in THE BLACK SCHOLAR CLASSIFIEDS THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 32, NO. 2Copyright © 2002 EBSCO Publishing