Scarlet and Black, Volume Three: Making Black Lives Matter at Rutgers, 1945-2020

by Miya Carey (Editor), Marisa J. Fuentes (Editor), Deborah Gray White (Editor), Roberto C. Orozco (Contribution by), Carie Rael (Contribution by)

Overview

The 250th anniversary of the founding of Rutgers University is a perfect moment for the Rutgers community to reconcile its past, and acknowledge its role in the enslavement and debasement of African Americans and the disfranchisement and elimination of Native American people and culture. Scarlet and Black, Volume Three, concludes this groundbreaking documentation of the history of Rutgers’s connection to slavery, which was neither casual nor accidental—nor unusual. Like most early American colleges, Rutgers depended on slaves to build its campuses and serve its students and faculty; it depended on the sale of black people to fund its very existence. This final of three volumes concludes the work of the Committee on Enslaved and Disenfranchised Population in Rutgers History. This latest volume includes essays about Black and Puerto Rican students' experiences; the development of the Black Unity League; the Conklin Hall takeover; the divestment movement against South African apartheid; anti-racism struggles during the 1990s; and the Don Imus controversy and the 2007 Scarlet Knights women's basketball team. To learn more about the work of the Committee on Enslaved and Disenfranchised Population in Rutgers History, visit the project's website at http://scarletandblack.rutgers.edu.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781978827318
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	05/20/2021
Edition description:	Volume Three
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

MIYA CAREY is is an assistant professor of history at Binghamton University. Her forthcoming manuscript examines the role of social organizations in coming-of-age black girls in Washington, DC, in the twentieth century. 
 
MARISA J. FUENTES is an associate professor in women’s and gender studies and history at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She was recently appointed presidential term chair in African American history. She is the author of Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive. 

DEBORAH GRAY WHITE is a Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is the author or editor of numerous books including, Ar’n’t I A Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South.

Table of Contents

Introduction Deborah Gray White 1

Part I Prelude to Change

1 Twenty-Twenty Vision: New Jersey and Rutgers on the Eve of Change Roberto C. Orozco Carie Rael Brooke A. Thomas Deborah Gray White 13

2 Rutgers and New Brunswick: A Consideration of Impact Ian Gavigan Pamela Walker 26

3 "Tell It Like It Is": The Rise of a Race-Conscious Professoriate at Rutgers in the 1960s Joseph Williams 42

4 Black and Puerto Rican Student Experiences and Their Movements at Douglass College, 1945-1974 Kaisha Esty Whitney Fields Carie Rael 74

Part II Student Protest and Forceful Change

5 A Second Founding: The Black and Puerto Rican Student Revolution at Rutgers-Camden and Rutgers-Newark Beatrice J. Adams Jesse Bayker Roberto C. Orozco Brooke A. Thomas 111

6 Equality in Higher Education: An Analysis of Negative Responses to the Conklin Hall Takeover Kenneth Morrissey 141

7 The Black Unity League: A Necessary Movement That Could Never Survive Edward White 150

8 "We the People": Student Activism at Rutgers and Livingston College, 1960-1985 Carie Rael Brooke A. Thomas 161

Part III Making Black Lives Matter beyond Rutgers, 1973-2007

9 "It's Happening in Our Own Backyard": Rutgers and the New Brunswick Defense Committee for Assata Shakur Joseph Kaplan 193

10 Fight Racism, End Apartheid: The Divestment Movement at Rutgers University and the Limits of Interracial Organizing, 1977-1985 Tracey Johnson 209

11 "Hell No, Our Genes Aren't Slow!": Racism and Antiracism at Rutgers during the 1995 Controversy Meagan Wierda Roberto C. Orozco 225

12 "Pure Grace": The Scarlet Knights Basketball Team, Don Imus, and a Moment of Dignity Lynda Dexheimer 249

Epilogue: Scarlet and Black: The Price of the Ticket Deborah Gray White 265

Acknowledgments 271

Notes 273

List of Contributors 327

About the Editors 333

Editorial Reviews

"Scarlet and Black: Making Black Lives Matter at Rutgers, 1945-2020 highlights the power of students’ commitment to justice and equity," by John Cramer

Rutgers Today