"It Was Necessary to Have an International Perspective": Colonialism and Postcolonialism at Tuskegee University, 1966–1967

• In Event: Higher Education Activism Across Time and Space

Abstract

In the late 1960s student activists at Tuskegee University broke with their school’s tradition and adopted an internationalist, anticolonial perspective. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Tuskegee's founder, Booker T. Washington, collaborated with European colonial governments, hoping to benefit their African subjects. After his death, succeeding Tuskegee presidents deepened the school’s relationship with the U.S. military and its aims. The present study shows how after 1966 some Tuskegee students looked to the national liberation process in Africa for a political and intellectual roadmap. Many rejected Tuskegee's proud legacy of training military personnel and instead lent support to global movements that were directly opposed to U.S. imperialism. Tuskegee University has a colonial and an anti-colonial history.

Author

• Brian P Jones, City University of New York