September 1968, Dean Hargadon published a report on the status of recruitment and admission of “Negro” students. The report discussed the successes and shortcomings of the effort to enroll black students primarily funded by a $275,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The report contained personal demographics of students who had been admitted along with easily identifiable details. When the College placed the report in the library for public review, we learned that Swarthmore viewed our admission to the College as an experiment. The redacted information in Table 1 showed the family income and number of employed parents for each student. Since names were not listed, the College felt that this table was okay.
Page 32 of the Admissions Report, showing data that has been redacted.
The report detailed the breakdown of SAT scores as well as the grades achieved by men and women in each class. The class of 1970 had only three black men, so if you were one of those three, you could figure out the grades of the other two. Although no students were named, the report, analysis, and tables presented a detailed look at the education, family structure, and family income of this small population. The study detailed students’ academic results and grades, the number of students required to withdraw, and other academic data. Rather than focusing on admissions, Dean Hargadon seemed interested in denying our basic right to privacy.
We felt disrespected not only by having our personal information made available in the library for anyone to see, but also by finding that we had been test subjects in an experiment and treated differently from the other students on campus. This action by the College, and Hargadon’s refusal to change course when challenged about it, galvanized many of those black students who had been ambivalent about the goals of SASS.
Professor Legesse
One of the indirect results of the creation of SASS was the appointment of the College’s first black faculty member. Asmarom Legesse was one of the twenty-two new faculty members hired for the fall semester of 1967 who were announced in the campus newspaper on May 5, 1967. The “Negro Ethiopian,” as he was misidentified by the Phoenix, was initially hired as a temporary faculty member. 12 Some of us took Professor Legesse’s anthropology courses, which were an opportunity to explore concepts like culture, civilization, and social change from a non-European perspective and to incorporate them to our own activist rhetoric. But his presence beyond the classroom was even more important to us. As an African and the only black faculty member, he was very noticeable. Like so many of his Eritrean countrymen, he had a warm demeanor and spoke softly, but with intensity. A cigarette often clung to his dark lips, never falling or dropping its ash. He seemed worldly, yet accessible. He and his Afro-American wife welcomed us into their home, and he participated in our efforts to create a black studies concentration. For white students, it was common to be welcomed into the homes of faculty, but this was a rare opportunity for us.
Black Studies
At Swarthmore, students could pursue a full major in Russian language and culture, but the College did not offer a single course in the history, language, or culture of any nonwhite people. In 1965, the Sociology & Anthropology Department did not exist, providing no mechanism to study non-European societies. It was possible to complete a baccalaureate degree and graduate believing that the only history worth studying about people of African descent was the legacy of colonialism and slavery, and even that was taught with a Eurocentric bias. We believed that applying the usual Swarthmore academic rigor to black studies would be helpful to all.
Kujichagulia (pronounced koo-jee-cha-goo-LEE-ah) is the Swahili word for self-determination. It means “to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.” It is one of the Seven Principles embraced by the Black Nationalist Movement emerging as we were coming of age in college. Kujichagulia taught us that we didn’t have to wait for permission from mainstream society to validate our history, culture, and contributions. If we were not satisfied with the educational experience at Swarthmore, it was up to us to correct it.
Before we began setting up a curriculum, we got basic training on black studies by attending meetings and lectures in nearby black communities. SASS regularly invited speakers and performers to campus to enlighten the student body. Many of us spent enough time in Philadelphia to become familiar with the local leaders of the Black Nationalist Movement: people like Walter Palmer, Playthell Benjamin, Father Paul Washington, and John Churchville. On the heels of a major riot on Columbia Avenue in 1964, community organizers were visibly active and vocal. When Walter Palmer and others came to campus, they treated us like a part of their community and worked with us to become educated on Black Nationalism. We, in turn, respected them for their knowledge and did not require that they have a PhD in order to share what they had learned.
Our next steps toward rectifying the omission of black studies was to begin enrolling in single courses at nearby colleges and petitioning Swarthmore to count the transfer credits toward our baccalaureate degrees. A copy of the syllabus in the Swarthmore library documents a course that several of us took titled “African Civilization.” It was offered in spring 1967 by Haverford College and historically black Lincoln University and was taught jointly by professors from those institutions, Harvey Glickman and Richard Stevens, who were both white. In other semesters, we took classes in Philadelphia at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania. We were thirsty for knowledge about African religions, African politics, and African American literature.
As a testament to our determination, a few of us piled into the College van for a weekly round trip of over two and a half hours to attend a course in Negro Literature at Lincoln University. Historically black Lincoln is located in rural Oxford, Pennsylvania, and we had to go through Ku Klux Klan-friendly territory to get there. On one occasion, we ran out of gas in the center of Oxford. It must have been late at night, because the only gas station we could find was closed. Out of desperation, someone came up with the idea of trying to siphon any gas that might be left in the hoses. There we were, a group of black college students, attempting to drain gas from a private business in the center of Oxford. There had been cross burnings in the area, and we wondered how we would fare if the police came along. Somehow, we got enough gas to reach our destination and did not get burned on a cross, lynched, or even arrested. That course was taught by an elderly African American professor, J. Saunders Redding. He was distinguished-looking with his receding mixed-gray hair and tiny goatee. Harold has a photograph of us having lunch with Dr. Redding in Sharples Dining Hall, so, obviously, we had established a much better rapport with him than we did with Swarthmore professors. He, too, appreciated the extra effort we had to expend as students in an unsupportive environment and accepted our invitation to visit us at Swarthmore.
Our Swarthmore experience was very different from what we imagined after reading about the impressive history of the College and being captivated by the picturesque setting. The prestigious college had been similarly unprepared for us. Perhaps if they had been funding this social experiment with their own money, they would have done some research and invested more thought into how to accommodate students like us.
The Takeover
Day Two
Raising Our Profile
It was hard to sleep that first night. The reality of actually being inside the admissions office was sobering. We had rehearsed what we would say and how we would say it to the office staff when we took over. That part was executed pretty much as we had envisioned it.
Harold had created a schedule for guard duty. The rear door and a window in the office had to be guarded at all times. Everyone had to take a turn, and each person would be on duty for two hours
