Stefan M. Bradley, a former associate professor of history and African American studies at Saint Louis University, will return to SLU on Monday, October 15 to read from and sign his new book “Upending the Ivory Tower: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Ivy League.” We spoke to him about the book from Los Angeles, where he now is associate professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
The St. Louis American: What prompted you to write this book?
Stefan M. Bradley: I wrote the book because I believe strongly that black change agents need to be inserted into the American narrative. Furthermore, I have taken to heart the encouragement of the scholarly role model of John Hope Franklin – Harvard alumnus and appointed leader of President Clinton’s Initiative on Race – to confront America’s past and to “see it for what it was and is.”
As we can tell by the elections of presidents and appointments of U.S. Supreme Court justices, people who work at and graduate Ivy League institutions become key decision makers in the nation and world. I wanted to find out why black students, staff, and administrators would sacrifice their almost assured status among the American elite to challenge the exclusiveness and traditions of the eight most prized higher education institutions in the nation. Most did so because they wanted to be representatives of the Black Liberation Movement and enhance their schools with blackness.
Additionally, but no less important, I wanted to show my former and current students, who activated when they observed racial injustice in the St. Louis region and elsewhere, that they were members of the black intelligentsia that has always used their Black Student Power to create access and fight on behalf of the larger black community. We need them to always remember they owe something to the people who could never be admitted to a college or university.
The St. Louis American: Obviously, you started the book because you knew there was a story there, but what was your biggest surprise along the way of researching and telling the story?
Stefan M. Bradley: Up until the arrival of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, Ivy League officials did a great deal to successfully maintain and normalize white supremacy at the exclusive institutions. That shouldn’t have been surprising, but based on their geography, liberal missions, and egalitarian values, I assumed they may have done better with regard to race relations. Instead, I found that these institutions were definitely exclusive and quintessentially representative of American values regarding race and class. At these eight schools, the problem in most cases was not racial animus (although that existed) but rather racial neglect.
Again, I shouldn’t have been, but I was taken aback at the ability of a minority of a minority of young people to decolonize knowledge and space at white institutions that had existed before there was a United States of America. Black students in the twentieth century made up a miniscule population on these campuses. Black students, who fought for increased black admissions, Black Studies, and black affinity spaces, comprised an even smaller group. Their fortitude, organizational acumen, and audacity was astonishing and admirable.
Then, I was surprised, in some ways, by what was possible at Ivy League institutions when black students and their allies pushed officials to be innovative. For instance, Ivy institutions tried to develop their own black students with various programs that placed black high schoolers in elite eastern preparatory and day schools. That did not work fast enough.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Dartmouth College established a Foundation Year program that allowed students to remediate on conditional status for a year before potentially matriculating as an official student. A white alumnus, who had worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the South, conducted a study of the Chicago street gang known as the Vice Lords. He found that the leaders and members of the gang were as intelligent as any of his classmates but did not have resources – that was a surprise to him but not me or anyone else who have seen young people navigating poverty.
The surprise to me was that Dartmouth orchestrated a pipeline that brought black Chicago gang members to an Ivy League institution in one of the whitest cities in one of the whitest states in the union. Some of the Vice Lords gained admission and graduated. The interaction of the Vice Lords learners with students from the black middle class and white students in general was fascinating. The black students, who endured poverty in Chicago and other areas, just needed a chance to achieve at the highest levels.
The St. Louis American: I know that you don’t think enough has changed for the better since then in terms of black youth having anything approaching an equal opportunity to thrive in our nation’s most elite educational spaces. But what is something that has changed, what can be done to force greater change, and who all needs to be doing it?
Stefan M. Bradley: One of the things that has changed for the better is the existence of black Ivy alumni, who have in their successful careers tried to create access for others from their community. Certainly, in the Ivy League and elsewhere, administrators now know they have to respond to the needs of black students on campus, which is positive. How the officials do so is sometimes in question, but they at least know that they have to confront the issues that students bring to them.
Another great change that occurred is the arrival of Black Studies. The scholars in the those departments, centers, institutes, and programs create knowledge about and the narrative of the black experience. They have the space and resources to do so in the Ivy League, where their work is amplified. When done right, these academic units function as conduits of the black community’s concerns and as decolonizers of knowledge. Black Studies, of course, led the way for LatinX, Native American, Asian American, and Women’s and Gender Studies.
Another positive addition (for the most part) is the presence of diversity initiatives on campus. Without the efforts of students who protested decades ago (and even more recently), many of the diversity administrators and officers would not exist. Those diversity offices and divisions, when not occupied by status quo maintainers and gatekeepers, have the opportunity to increase the chances of success for students of all hues and backgrounds.
It is imperative that black professionals, faculty members, and students – at the very least – defend the advancements that were made during the decades after World War II. Creating a presence and garnering resources for black people on these elite campuses was, indeed, difficult; however, maintaining those advancements at this moment is even more onerous. That is the responsibility of those members of the black intelligentsia who are blessed enough to work and attend Ivy League institutions.
Bradley will speak at 6 p.m. Monday, October 15 in the Cook A/B Auditorium in the Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business at Saint Louis University, 3674 Lindell Blvd. The talk is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase, and a book signing will follow the talk. For additional information about this event, contact Lorri Glover at lorri.glover@slu.edu.
