The Nature of Contemporary Black Student Activism at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: A Present-Day Portrait of the Atlanta University Center

• In Event: Roundtable Session 67
  In Roundtable Session: Higher Education, Diversity, and Equity in Critical Perspective

Abstract

Black student activism at HBCUs during the Civil Rights and Black Power eras was integral to the formation of our current society and system of higher education. However, there is a tremendous decline in scholarship regarding Black Student activism at HBCUs after the 1970’s. It would be perfunctory to suppose that Black students at Black colleges have become dispassionate since the 1970s. Through a critical race ethnographic analysis of student activist organizations at the Atlanta University Center, I aim to highlight contemporary black student activism. Interviews and participant observation are used in this comparative analysis of contemporary activism to activism in the 1960’s and 1970’s to continue the story of students marginalized in the annals of higher education reform.

Author

• Jamon Holt, University of Georgia