The year that I came into the world was the same year that the University of Missouri reluctantly accepted its first African-American student. Black students protesting racism on Mizzou’s campus remind us of the latter fact with their name #ConcernedStudent1950.
I always appreciate it when history is appropriately connected to the present. I also appreciate it when protests come with demands and strategy. It was a brilliant move to get the solidarity of the esteemed football players to help focus a spotlight on Mizzou’s race problems.
The protests of #ConcernedStudent1950 and supporters recently forced the resignations of Mizzou’s Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin and MU system President Tim Wolfe, both regarded as keepers of campus racism.
Wolfe, Loftin and other university officials obviously ignored the Ferguson uprising just like they’ve remained oblivious to the institutional racism and racist acts of white students against black students. Ignoring the long and painful history of white supremacy has finally caught up with Mizzou in a big way.
There was the attempt by Lloyd Gaines to attend law school; after the 1939 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in his favor, Gaines disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again (his family speculated he had been murdered to prevent his enrollment).
There was the racist backlash against Elson Floyd, who endured four torturous years as the university system’s first African-American president. The threats against him and family were so vicious that a high-tech security system had to be installed at the president’s on-campus residence. As in the case of similar threats against the first black U.S. President, the quantity and brutality of the threats and hate mail went under-publicized.
There were the hangings and beatings over the years, most not categorized as lynchings to save face for the university and the town – except maybe for the declared lynching of James T. Scott in 1923 for the alleged rape of a professor’s daughter.
I understand Mizzou not being able to protect black students off campus. Hate groups and white supremacist paramilitary outfits run rampant in Missouri. The Southern Poverty and Law Center does its best to track as many as it can, but many of these groups operate below the radar.Â
The safety and security of black students are absolutely the responsibility of the university, and it’s done a poor job consistently. Its track record on recruitment and retention of black students and faculty isn’t that great either. Black students represent 8 percent of the student population, and a high percentage of them leave after their first year. The black tenured faculty representation is a measly 3.2 percent, way under the national average.
This brings me to the demands of #ConcernedStudent1950. There is nothing radical about their demands, which cover issues like diversity in students, faculty and curriculum, as well as increases in funding for key areas such as counseling. The protestors’ demands are reasonable and doable. They could have demanded that black faculty numbers be brought up to the same representation of black employees in the university’s service/maintenance area – a whopping 25 percent – but they didn’t.
Their demands can provide a blueprint for the university’s plan of action (emphasis on “action”). It would be encouraging to know that the system dumped its top officials to make way for racial progress and not because it would face a $1 million fine had the football team forfeited an upcoming game.
Anna Maria Barry-Jester reported for fivethirtyeight.com that it will take about 400 more black faculty and staff to meet the students’ demands. I say the university needs to get into gear to meet these demands and, if I may use a football metaphor, to tackle its racism head on.
