Agents of Resistance: Black Student and Community Response to Florida A&M University Desegregation Proposals

• In Event: How Historians Think: Researching African American Education, Thought, and Activism

Abstract

Objective/Purpose
Historical research methodology was utilized to investigate and document the role of African American thought and agency in circumventing the closing of Florida A & M University (FAMU), a premier land grant university.[10] To fully convey the FAMU narrative, attention will be given to the experiences of African American students in the context of Post-World War II higher education reform. The decades preceding campus civil rights activism of the 1960s witnessed an increase in the number and proportion of African American college students, in part, as a consequence of the 1944 Montgomery Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill)[11] and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People-Legal Defense Fund (NAACP-LDF)’s higher education desegregation cases.[12] FAMU, much like other southern and border public black institutions, had a strong tradition of providing students with emotional, social and academic support that was not accorded them at traditionally white institutions.[13] Yet, in the aftermath of the Brown decision in 1954 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, demands for higher education desegregation threatened the existence of HCBU’s including FAMU.[14]


Perspectives
African American activism surrounding the closing of FAMU represents an untold story. This is a critical case for exploring diverse perspectives on the meaning of equal education opportunity and African American agency. Utilizing Critical Race Theory (CRT) the author addresses the following questions: (1) How did the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown decision shape discussions of higher education desegregation and the status of HCBUs? (2) How important was the state context for shaping the implementation of higher education and its unintended consequences? (3) What role did African American agency play in maintaining the unique and distinctive character of FAMU?

Methods
Archival research, oral history interviews

Data sources
Data sources include archival records at FAMU, the State Archives of Florida, meeting notes (with Chapter president to clarify planning processes) and oral history interviews with FAMU-Tampa Alumni chapter members.

Substantiated Conclusions/Point of View
Oral history methodology unearthed the larger narrative of interplay between federal government, administrators, faculty, students and the community and highlighted the challenges and opportunities of African American agency in organizing against FAMU’s closure or merger with Florida State University. Further, a largely obscured political struggle over FAMU’s post desegregation existence was uncovered through the voices of former students.

Scholarly Significance
Much of the historical literature on higher education desegregation examines the events from top down divergent perspectives of the federal government, state legislature and university administration over the implied consequences of the Brown decision for higher education.

There is limited scholarship that speaks to student and community mobilization and grassroots efforts to thwart federal and state legislative initiatives to close or merge HCBUs. This research sheds insight on the social and cultural capital of HCBUs and the role these institutions play in providing equality of opportunity in higher education.[15] Further, this research is intended to serve as an example of the value of historical research methodology in documenting African American education, thought, and activism.

Author

• Deirdre Cobb-Roberts, University of South Florida