Using historical methods, this article examines the negative characterizations of Black college presidents and how they came to be. The author explores the way these stereotypes continue to be perpetuated in the current day. Conversely, the author investigates how the individual Black college presidents viewed themselves and their actions.
AAUP Investigation Committee. (2010). Academic freedom and tenure: Clark Atlanta University. Washington, DC: American Association of University Professors.
An appeal for human rights. (1960, March10). Atlanta Constitution, p. 15.
4.
AndersonJ. D. (1988). The education of Blacks in the south, 1860–1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
5.
AshmoreH. S. (1989). Unseasonable truths: The life of Robert Maynard Hutchins. New York, NY: Little, Brown.
6.
BiezeM. (2005). Booker T. Washington: Philanthropy and aesthetics. In GasmanM.SedgwickK. V. (Eds.), Uplifting a people: African American philanthropy and education (pp. 39–64). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
7.
BiezeM. (2006). Booker T. Washington and the art of self-representation. In CunningenD.GlascoeM.DennisR. (Eds.), The racial politics of Booker T. Washington (pp. 85–104). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier.
8.
BiezeM. (2008). Booker T. Washington and the art of self-representation. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
9.
BrownL. B. (1998). The long walk: The story of presidency of Willa B. Player at Bennett College. Danville, VA: Bennett College Women’s Leadership Institute.
10.
ChafeW. H. (1980). Civilities and civil rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black struggle for freedom. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
11.
DavisL. (1998). A clashing of the soul: John Hope and the dilemma of African American leadership and Black higher education in the early twentieth century. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
12.
DonahooS.LeeW. (2008). The adversity of diversity: Regional associations and the accreditation of Minority Serving Institutions. In GasmanM.BaezB.TurnerC. S. (Eds.), Understanding minority serving institutions (pp. 292–310). Albany: State University of New York Press.
13.
DrayP. (2002). At the hands of persons unknown: The lynching of Black America. New York, NY: Random House.
14.
Du BoisW. E. B. (1939, September). Review of American caste and the Negro college. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 205, 202.
15.
DzubackM. A. (1991). Robert Maynard Hutchins: Portrait of and educator. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
16.
EdelmanM. W. (2000a). Lanterns: A memoir of mentors. New York, NY: Beacon.
17.
EdelmanM. W. (2000b). Spelman College: A safe haven for a young Black woman. Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 27, 118–123.
18.
EgertonJ. (1994). Speak now against the day: The generation before the civil rights movement in the South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
19.
EllisonR. (1952). Invisible man. New York, NY: Random House.
20.
ElwoodW. A. (1989, Summer). An interview with Charles G. Gomillion. Callaloo, 40, 576–599.
21.
FaircloughA. (2000). “Being in the field of education and also being a Negro . . . seems . . . tragic”: Black teachers in the Jim Crow South. Journal of American History, 87, 65–91.
22.
FaircloughA. (2001). Teaching Equality: Black Schools in the Age of Jim Crow. University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA.
23.
FrazierE. F. (1957). Black bourgeoisie. New York, NY: Free Press.
24.
GallagherB. G. (1939). American caste and the Negro college. New York, NY: Gordian Press.
GasmanM. (1999a). A renaissance in Nashville: Charles Spurgeon Johnson’s use of philanthropy to build Fisk University during the post-war period (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Indiana University, Bloomington.
27.
GasmanM. (1999b). Scylla and Charybdis: Navigating the waters of academic freedom at Fisk University during Charles S. Johnson’s administration (1946–1956). American Educational Research Journal, 36, 739–758.
28.
GasmanM. (2002). W. E. B. Du Bois and Charles S. Johnson: Opposing views on philanthropic support for Black higher education. History of Education Quarterly, 42, 493–516.
29.
GasmanM. (2007a). Envisioning Black colleges: A history of the United Negro College Fund. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
30.
GasmanM. (2007b). Swept under the rug: A historiography of gender and Black colleges. American Educational Research Journal, 44, 760–805.
31.
GasmanM. (2007c). Truth, generalizations, and stigmas: An analysis of the media’s coverage of Morris Brown College and Black colleges overall. Review of Black Political Economy, 34(2), 111–135.
32.
GasmanM. (2009). Historically Black colleges and universities in a time of economic crisis. Academe, www.aaup.org.
33.
GilpinP. J.GasmanM. (2003). Charles S. Johnson: Leadership beyond the veil in the age of Jim Crow. Albany: State University of New York Press.
34.
GoodmanA. (2008). Howard Zinn: “To be neutral, to be passive in a situation is to collaborate with whatever is going on.”Democracy Now. Retrieved from www.democracynow.com
35.
GregoryS. T.WatsonY. T. (2005). Daring to educate: The legacy of early Spelman College presidents. Sterling, VA: Stylus Press.
36.
HughesL. (1934, August). Cowards of the college. Crisis, p. 227.
37.
HutchesonP. (2008). Shall I compare thee? Reflections on naming and power. In GasmanM.BaezB.TurnerC. S. (Eds.), Understanding minority serving institutions (pp. 43–56). Albany: State University of New York Press.
38.
HutchesonP.GasmanM.Sanders-McMurtryK. (in press). Race and agency in the academy: Rethinking higher education actors and access in the post–World War II Period. Journal of Higher Education.
39.
JencksC.RiesmanD. (1967). The American Negro college. Harvard Educational Review, 37(2), 3–60.
40.
JohnsonC. S. (1939, August). Review of American caste and the Negro college. Journal of Politics, 1, 326–328.
41.
JoyceD. D. (2003). Howard Zinn, a radical American vision. New York, NY: Prometheus Books.
42.
LefeverH. G. (2005). Undaunted by the fight: Spelman College and the civil rights movement. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
43.
LevineA. (1987, April). Clark Kerr: The master builder at 75. Change, 19(2), 12–30.
44.
LoganR. (Ed.). (1944). What the Negro wants. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
45.
LustigJ. (2004, July-August). The mixed legacy of Clark Kerr: A personal view. Academe, 90(4), 51–53.
46.
ManleyA. (1995). A legacy continues: The Manley years at Spelman College, 1953–1976. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
47.
McGrathE. J. (1965). The predominantly Negro colleges and universities in transition. New York, NY: Columbia University, Teachers College, Institute of Higher Education.
48.
McQuistonJ. T. (1988, April27). Frederick D. Patterson, founder of Negro College Fund, dies at 86. New York Times.
49.
MyrdalG. (1944). An American dilemma. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
50.
NorrellR. J. (2009). Up from history: The life of Booker T. Washington. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
51.
NystromJ. (2001). Segregation’s last stand: Lester Maddox and the transformation of Atlanta. Atlanta History, 45(2), 35–51.
52.
PattersonF. D. (1994). The Negro wants full participation in American democracy. In LoganR. (Ed.), What the Negro wants (pp. 263–282). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
53.
PattersonF. D. (2002). Chronicles of faith: The autobiography of Frederick D. Patterson (GoodsonM. G., Ed.). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
54.
“Patterson and McGill tell Bostonians about sit-ins.” (1960, May7). Greensboro Champion p. 6.
55.
RileyJ. L. (2010, September28). Black Colleges need a mission. Wall Street Journal.
56.
SaxonW. (1997, April5). Albert E. Manley, 89, president of Spelman College for 23 years. New York Times, April5.
57.
SchreckerE. (1986). No ivory tower: McCarthyism and the universities. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
58.
SchreckerE. (1998). Many are the crimes: McCarthyism in America. New York, NY: Little, Brown.
59.
ShortB. (1999). Everything pickrick: The life of Lester Maddox. Mercer, GA: Mercer University Press.
60.
SmytheH. H. (1950, December). Changing patterns in Negro leadership. Social Forces, 29(2), 191–197.
61.
SowellT. W. (1973). Black education: Myths and tragedies. New York, NY: David McKay.
“Spelman fires teacher who worked with SNCC.” (1963, June15). Tri-State Defender, 8(31), 1.
64.
ThomasR.Jr. (1995, October12). Charles Gomillion, 95 figure in landmark remap case, dies. New York Times.
65.
ThompsonD. C. (1973). Private Black colleges at the crossroads. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
66.
TuckerC. (2002, October23). Morris Brown College: Ailing institution must face awful truth: It’s time to close. Atlanta Journal Constitution, p. 17A.
67.
WalkerA. (1963, October17). Interview in the Spelman Spotlight, 2.
68.
WalkerA. (1991). Her blue body everything we know: Earthing poems 1965–1990 complete. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
69.
WarlickK. (2000). “Being in the Field of Education and also Being a Negro . . . Seems . . . Tragic”: Black teachers in the Jim Crow South. Journal of American History, 87(1), 65–91, 35.
70.
WeisbrotR. (1969). Freedom bound: A history of America’s civil rights movement. New York, NY: Penguin.
71.
WilliamsonJ. A. (2004, October). Student activists, activist students: Black colleges and the civil rights movement. Paper delivered at the annual meeting of the History of Education Society, Chicago, IL.
72.
WilliamsonJ. A. (2008). Radicalizing the Ebony tower: Black colleges and the Black freedom struggle in Mississippi. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
73.
WillieC. H.EdmondsR. (1978). Black Colleges in America: Challenge, development, and survival. New York, NY: Teachers College.
74.
WoltersR. (1975). The new Negro on campus: Black college rebellions of the 1920s. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
75.
WoodsonC. G. (1933). The mis-education of the Negro. Africa World Press, New York, 1990.
76.
WoodsonC. G. (1939, April). Review of American caste and the Negro college. Journal of Negro History, 24(2).
77.
ZinnH. (1960, August6). A finishing school for pickets. The Nation, 71–73.
78.
ZinnH. (1994). You can’t be neutral on a moving train: A personal history of our times. Boston, MA: Beacon.
79.
ZinnH. (1995). Reflections of a White professor at Spelman College in the 1950s. Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 7, 97–99.
