“This Has Been Quite a Year for Heads Falling”: Institutional Autonomy in the Civil Rights Era

Abstract

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and their students played a pivotal part in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and early 1960s. Private HBCUs, in particular, provided foot soldiers, intellectual leadership, and safe places to meet and plan civil disobedience. Their economic and political autonomy from the state enabled the institutions and their students to participate in activism without the constant fear of legislative retribution. Their private status did not shield them completely from the state's wrath, however, particularly when college aims collided with state interests. Some constituents argued that HBCUs should agitate for constitutionally protected freedoms; others maintained that HBCUs should shun politics and focus on purely educational concerns. Debates over the role of HBCUs raged on and off campuses. Those with the greatest degree of commitment to the movement faced severe penalties.

A Theory of Racialized Organizations

“…Unequal access to the prerequisites of organizational formation made private and public HBCUs subordinate to pro-segregation Whites who recognized HBCUs as potential bastions of Black political power. Southern legislators stacked public HBCUs’ boards of trustees with Jim Crow supporters (Williamson 2004), and organizational survival often depended on accommodation: schools challenging the prevailing racial order were threatened and sanctioned, including removal of college presidents and loss of accreditation (Williamson 2004). Some HBCUs expelled students who participated in the Civil Rights Movement—with implications for the agency of Black Americans.…”

Table of Contents

“…C. Brown, 1998: Carter, 1998Davis, 1998;Engs, 1999;Gasman, 1999Gasman, , 2001aGasman, , 2001bGasman, , 2001cGilpin and Gasman, 2003;Goodson, 1991;Manley, 1995;Mays, 2003;McKinney, 1997;Nichols, 2004;Robbins, 1996;G. Smith, 1994;Urban, 1994;Watson and Gregory, 2005;Williamson, 2004b). Racism and Jim Crow mentalities made it incredibly difficult for HBCU leaders to perform their duties, protect their students, and maintain the integrity of their campuses.…”

“Sowing the Seeds of Discontent”

“…Tougaloo College is a historically Black private college that sits on 500 acres of land located in a heavily wooded area on the northern outskirts of Jackson, 10 miles from the state capitol. With assistance from the Freedmen's Bureau, Tougaloo was founded in 1869 by the American Missionary Association (AMA), an abolitionist organization that viewed education as a vehicle to promote racial equality and to facilitate full citizenship rights for African Americans (Campbell & Rogers, 2002;Williamson, 2004). As an AMA school, Tougaloo was chartered on the principle that it "be conducted on the most liberal principles for the benefit of our citizens in general," 6 including the belief that Blacks should have equal educational opportunities.…”

“…By the early 1960s, not only did Tougaloo have an interracial faculty and student body, it also supported the Mississippi civil rights movement in ways that no other university in the state dared (Dittmer, 1994;Lowe, in press;Williamson, 2004). For instance, Tougaloo opened its doors to the movement by allowing civil rights groups, workshops, and meetings on campus.…”