Transcripts For CSPAN2 Eddie Cole The Campus Color Line 2024

CSPAN2 Eddie Cole The Campus Color Line July 12, 2024

We will share guidelines in chats and links to the book so you have easy access. Remember your purchase supporting bookstore and staff. I would like to give a walk through our platform and event after this instruction. Our guest joining us on screen. Will we be taking questions from the audience. Please submit the questions below. If you are looking at the far below all the way to the right you will see two bubbles where you should put them. I would avoid the chat to keep track of all the questions. Also if you are watching Facebook Live stream, submit questions in the comments field and be sure to grab them there. Now i would like to give a warm welcome to our guests for the night, eddie cole, phd, associate professor of Higher Learning and organizational change at ucla and author of the campus color line College President s and the struggle for black freedom, College Published by Princeton University press. You can find him on twitter eddie cole. Former phd, historian of black womens history, intellectual history and racial politics, the department of history and studying the university of texas at austin. She is the author of remaking black power, how black women transformed an era published by umc press and you can find her on twitter, doctorashleybarber. Please help me welcome eddie cole and ashley farmer. Thank you for being here. Host can you hear me . Guest yes. Host welcome, everyone. We are excited to have everybody here. I will go ahead and dig into our conversation because this is a wonderful but meety book and there is so much to discuss. I want to make sure we get a chance to hit on all the wonderful dynamics eddie cole has in this book. How did you get into writing this book . Went to the idea come to you . Was it something that was marinating . Was there and are moment you set up in the middle of the night . If you could tell us if there was one challenge is one tweet of writing . Anyone who tuned in, thanks for joining me with doctor farmer. Great question and that is an answer i continue to grapple with because an idea for a book comes from many different directions. On a macro level i like to say the idea started in my hometown in alabama, smalltown, west alabama, greene county, total population less than 400. This is where i grew up but something i noticed, in my home county, growing up in aurora black town, one Public High School in the entire county. The next town over i remember every day going to school, going to the right, to the left, majority wide, always been interested, the remnant and the black Freedom Movement and going through the routine, we will be at practice outside, with educational leaders. How it shaped our prisons. I wasnt speaking that deeply about it. We continue to study more and more were responding to activi with the university of missouri and the rest of the nation, i started thinking how College President s respond, i wanted to know how it worked, in 2015. From different directions, in my own life and professionally. So one unexpected challenge, the 1950s in 1960s, there are restrictions in the archives, 50 or 60 years ago those College President s knew the decisions they were making would not be seen so having multidecade restrictions, most often the longest things, 50 years, i wanted to write it 10 years ago and wouldnt have been able to sell a lot of records were just being released in 2010, 1960 or 2015 when it comes to College President s and chancellors. That was a challenge of just trying to get my timing right is going back to archives. I will be back in a couple years in some instances. So that was an unexpected challenge from studying these College President s but a unique treat to wrap up and address four questions. A unique treat in writing this book was thinking about the vulnerability, the human aspect of who these College President s where. One example, dan coreyoh is special assistance the president and the 60s and just after the anniversary this week after the fifteenth Street Church bombing in birmingham, alabama were four black girls were killed in two additional children killed later that day, such a violent, horrific moment in American History and to see one of those senior ministers writing a letter to another one late at night, details of the letters like i cant sleep tonight knowing that what has happened nationally and a week later the segregation white supremacist governor of mississippi is coming to princeton to give a speech so you see this sort of personal versus professional conflict and a chance to look at these College President s to see how human they are and how these decisions were complicated, there remains a treat so the human aspect. I like that you say that. One of the things you end with is the conclusion maybe we should be seeing College President s as elected officials in a way and that kind of dichotomy you are talking about needing to influence policy, but a private conflict is a constant tugofwar elected officials have to deal with. I thought that was a bit provocative. We live in a world where we think of the university for better or worse has been 9, your book is telling us the case. Why do you think looking at College President s or a useful free frame for us to understand than as people and as a decision they make. It is quite useful. It reminds us of the numerous stakeholders the president has to respond to or interact with. It varies from campus to campus. The way it is for me, two different worlds. What dictates prominence and ucla los angeles and the state capital, the relationship with the legislature is completely different and it reveals the stakeholders on some campuses, they are in tune with a good strong relationship and things dont happen without the faculty. Other instances, could be diners and right now we look in the news, we could say who is really pushing the decision around major sports or Major College football in a pandemic. Thats telling when you think of College President is elected official navigating as a public figure if you will but the other aspect, all the issues we are dealing with right now, the policy and social practices. We talk about campus relationships with Police Departments, their own Police Department and city police, student debt and racial disparities, racist incidents and we go down the list of these issues but when we think about those issues we look toward our elected officials when we look at the same issues on College Campus and the College President but ultimately we are looking but dont think about them the same way we shape and mold policy, it is important for us to remember, they are not just reacting to the social issues that actively involve shaping a number of issues and a lot of those decisions come across the desk. I really love that. As i was reading the book i was thinking to myself, i see the president s power, having worked in public and private universities in the public context but im not sure i always thought about it, where i went or at a private university or one not located in an urban city so i thought that was a really interesting provocative way of speaking how power works, on a physical campus but also in a city ecosystem. The one thing that greats about the book is how expensive it is. Those who havent read it yet you get to learn about the president of black colleges and universities, hbc yous, white colleges like princeton is you talked about, public universities, private universities etc. And i wonder if there were things you found that united those who act as president or things you found. Now i think of them as a secret society or club where they are planning things in a way i didnt think of before. Where do you find common ground, where do they fight figuratively or literally . Some of that, regardless of the institution or their region, i found it takes a type of person to assess the level of academic leadership. One thing to see it you are Department Chair and another to be associate dean but when you get to be president or chancellor, all the individuals i discussed in the book were very much committed to leaving their legacy, their leadership imprint on moving the University Forward and addressing bigger societal issues as well. The things that united them was the common challenge. The book cover is from the 1940s the 1960s. When you look at the middle decade, the century, they are faced with the challenge of race question. There isnt this hard to argue something that is in test pressing or complicated regardless of the institutiontype. It is fascinating, the big differences become how do they address it. What is the importance of it . The knockdown drag out fight throughout the book. Upper south, midatlantic, has a sort of multiregional identity happening. It has got this uniqueness, what happens, in the university of maryland and marvin jenkins, in baltimore, who gets what funding, what goes where, and should academic support go through that, shared challenge, ultimately in society but dont agree on what to do with it, the unique things, and foster, the president of teske key, the president of the university of michigan. In partnership and communication with each other, one of the more fascinating things in the scope, correspondence on the one hand, with the internal conversation, back and forth the multiple conversations and how people say one thing, they are hyping each other a backandforth publicly but internally during this partnership. The black Freedom Movement as we look at institutions of Higher Learning, locations for cultural advancement, people running these institutions. Do you think today the College President finds race and racism the defining things to deal with, has that really changed . I can imagine these conversations about desegregating the university of mississippi, stuff happening is quite similar. For violating things in the university of michigan, the defining thing of College President s. And i would love to hear, the conversations after this, there is a shared concern of a number of issues, think about the surveys of College President s, and some ridiculously high number. The same thing, 80, 80 would say yes. How would those two groups say things differently . I would venture if historical record, across the nation tell us any indication behind closed doors, with this racial moment in the election. It is interesting. One of the things that struck me about the book is because you view College President s in the center, elected officials, make a deal and the coalitions of people that are somewhat unlikely and there were moments you see that College President s being on board and if you deal with this segment of the university, and how College President s make strange bedfellows in order to get deals done and initiative forward. So many examples in the book the two stand out to me. University of california system even if you are not familiar at all with it, it is a large university, thousands of students and president who is head of the system and each campus has a chance other. That alone how sounds complicated. Imagine how complicated when they were building the system out. One particular relationship i did not see unfolding, the university of california has a Center Region but california is so large it has its own regional loyalty within the state. In Northern California it is one thing, the bay area, southern california, at ucla, an important figure, chancellor from 196068. From taking the chancellor job at ucla, for the first time, directly to a board of trustees. Kind of hesitant about taking these positions. There a unique relationships. A number of very powerful california influences. People who run the la times and people who talk about lockheed and aircraft coming out of postworld war ii and these unique relationships, all of a sudden a significant portion of the border region at ucla willing to go along with what they need to say, looking back north in the same way we vote on this particular issue you dont expect that to unfold. Another example to Princeton University in the 1960s, reverend tyson, black pastor of an ame church which is significant in princeton actually gets on the same team as ellen dollars who is a trustee at Dulles Airport in dc, you talk about John D Rockefeller iii so most of you do that on the princeton board of trustees and they come together to agree the university should address racial issues on campus or in the Princeton Township and dont expect the pastor of an ame church to be on board with the same thing with the sort of national or International Figures if you will who are on the princeton board of trustees. Is derek bell talks about, it becomes the perfect example everyone sees from a global perspective, the us reputation and struggles of race, historians for years have discussed, really gives the nudge to say we need to start at least putting forth the image we are doing a lot more to address racial inequities, talk about strange relationships that emerge, if you are going to study historical record there is no campus decision where there isnt a little piece of information that goes to the office of the archive. Makes you wonder what deals are being made as we speak. You are going to this, naming pastors and regions and heads of companies. Historian of black women leaves me wondering, in this history of College President s, do they influence that . Absolutely. That is one of the most critical aspects that i wanted to focus on, a one sentence summary of the book, the history of the black Freedom Movement so talking about the black Freedom Movement, women play significant roles. A formal exam planned an informal example, from an informal standpoint, i talk about lauren jenkins, historically black college, the president of a public hbc you, playing a bit of the game with weight leadership and so forth throughout the south but what is significantly, talk about the black fraternity or black women civic groups, engaging on so many levelss i discussed in the book, it is clear black women are so significant to the overall efforts trying to support as a president navigating this complicated terrain. Women, particularly black women become president in 1948 and often talk about lunch counter sit ins, but similar demonstrations are unfolding in baltimore in 1948 led by two black women, jenkins who is not related to lauren jenkins, and these black women leader series of protests, movie theaters, and Martin Jenkins arrives as this is happening in constant communication. Given an honorary degree. And all the things shes done for the nation. If you think about Martin Jenkins has a formal title but taking his cues so often from black women who are industry organizing so Many Organizations and so forth and just to be frank, his wife elizabeth jenkins, the connection there throughout the east coast and the nations so jenkins speaks at a number of fraternity and Sorority National conventions and that sort of thing because hes an academic, a scholar as well out of northwestern university, just publishes a ridiculous amount even by todays standards. So yes, if you were to look at the title, noting the timeframe you might say that. In reality would you really read it, you see many ways women see the shape of these and also have to mention the president of the college in north carolina, black womens college, likes government and becomes the first black women president of the four your college, letter two your institution, so significant, by far, the president in the book when it comes to the sit ins turning in 1960 and being active and supporting student activists and being engaged in stepping back from her privileges as College President in solidarity so you go from chapter to chapter, the first instance in a chapter about how this information, quote, the octopus in the south has tentacles in the north. And the black woman activist at the university of chicago. And with the movement the moves because of the benefits came in and did that work. Overall you are organizing that. I will come back to that audience question. So just ask were there any, one of the last white president s of his presidency went into the early to mid 1960s. For the most part this wouldve connected among the black College President. There is some difference how they navigated terrain. Particularly upper south and then south and then deep south if you well. I dont discuss the white leadership of black colleges and black leadership even though at morgan state which we know now it initially was a private institution. The state of maryland was the last public state to provide that for black residents in the state of maryland. That is something you wouldve assumed with georgia or alabama or a southern state. While at morgan state was private it have a long time white longtime white president john spencer which ultimately a headline from the afro american. Afroamerican. It talks about president spencer from Morgan College at the time holding the campus color line

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