Blacks at Harvard: A Documentary History of African-American Experience At Harvard and Radcliffe

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Review Quotes:"Points to the ethical dilemmas of researchers researching race among communities that are at once 'victims' of racism and active in the continued process of racialization."-Rinaldo Walcott, author of "Black Like Who?", and Professor of Humanities, York University (Canada) Review Quotes:"Harvard has played a curiously central role in the American cultural imagination, a role that is fraught with ambiguity. In no part of our society is this more the case than in black America. This important book brings together for the first time two hundred years of reflection on the curious relation of black culture to Harvard, and Harvard's complex relation to black people. A fascinating collection, extraordinarily well-researched, an essential text for all who are interested in the history of African-Americans in higher education."-Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Review Quotes: ("Harvard has played a curiously central role in the American cultural imagination, a role that is fraught with ambiguity. In no part of our society is this more the case than in black America. This important book brings together for the first time two hundred years of reflection on the curious relation of black culture to Harvard, and Harvard's complex relation to black people. A fascinating collection, extraordinarily well-researched, an essential text for all who are interested in the history of African-Americans in higher education.")-(Henry Louis Gates, Jr.), () Review Quotes:"Essential reading for all those whose research explicitly engages racial issues--and for all those who do not realize that their work inevitably engages racial issues."-Ruth Frankenberg, author of "White Women, Race Matters" and editor of "Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Cultural Criticism"Review Quotes:"Absolutely critical reading. This volume powerfully explores how scholars' own racial background shapes the analytical lens with which they view whiteness, blackness . . . the exoticism and eroticism of racial 'others' and the domain of white privilege."-William Darity Jr., coauthor of "Persistent Disparity" and Boshamer Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Research Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics, Sociology and African American Studies at Duke UniversityReview Quotes:"Timely and challenging, this innovative book engages questions and dilemmas that researchers on race and racism rarely talk about in public. Refreshingly clear and comparative in scope, it is a must reading in all courses about race and ethnic relations, calling for a fundamental rethinking of research agendas in this field."-John Solomos, author of "Race and Racism in Britain", coeditor of "The Blackwell Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies", and Professor of Sociology, South Bank University (London) Review Quotes:"A remarkable collection of essays interrogating the political, methodological and ethical dilemmas of conducting research in racially stratified societies. These theoretically astute and ethnographically rich case studies compellingly demonstrate how the production of knowledge is framed and mediated by the racialized subject positions held by social scientists. Racing Research, Researching Race will no doubt incite a critical and long overdue discussion of the racial politics of ethnographic fieldwork."-Steven Gregory, author of "Black Corona", and Professor of Africana and American Studies at New York UniversityPublisher Marketing: "Harvard has played a curiously central role in the American cultural imagination, a role that is fraught with ambiguity. In no part of our society is this more the case than in black America. This important book brings together for the first time two hundred years of reflection on the curious relation of black culture to Harvard, and Harvard's complex relation to black people. A fascinating collection, extraordinarily well-researched, an essential text for all who are interested in the history of African-Americans in higher education." -Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The history of blacks at Harvard mirrors, for better or for worse, the history of blacks in the United States. Harvard, too, has been indelibly scarred by slavery, exclusion, segregation, and other forms of racist oppression. At the same time, the nation's oldest university has also, at various times, stimulated, supported, or allowed itself to be influenced by the various reform movements that have dramatically changed the nature of race relations across the nation. The story of blacks at Harvard is thus inspiring but painful, instructive but ambiguous-a paradoxical episode in the most vexing controversy of American life: the "race question." The first and only book on its subject, Blacks at Harvard is distinguished by the rich variety of its sources. Included in this documentary history are scholarly overviews, poems, short stories, speeches, well-known memoirs by the famous, previously unpublished memoirs by the lesser known, newspaper accounts, letters, official papers of the university, and transcripts of debates. Among Harvard's black alumni and alumnae are such illustrious figures as W. E. B. Du Bois, Monroe Trotter, and Alain Locke; Countee Cullen and Sterling Brown both received graduate degrees. The editors have collected here writings as diverse as those of Booker T. Washington, William Hastie, Malcolm X, and Muriel Snowden to convey the complex ways in which Harvard has affected the thinking of African Americans and the ways, in turn, in which African Americans have influenced the traditions of Harvard and Radcliffe. Notable among the contributors are significant figures in African American letters: Phyllis Wheatley, William Melvin Kelley, Marita Bonner, James Alan McPherson and Andrea Lee. Equally prominent in the book are some of the nation's leading historians: Carter Woodson, Rayford Logan, John Hope Franklin, and Nathan I. Huggins. A vital sourcebook, Blacks at Harvard is certain to nourish scholarly inquiry into the social and intellectual history of African Americans at elite national institutions and serves as a telling metaphor of this nation's past. Contributor Bio:  Kennedy, Randall Randall Kennedy is Professor at Harvard Law School and the editor of "Reconstruction" magazine. Contributor Bio:  Sollors, Werner Werner Sollors is Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of Afro-American Studies and Chair of the History of American Civilization Program at Harvard University. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including "The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature", "Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader", and "Multilingual America: Transnationalism, Ethnicity, and the Languages of American Literature", all available from NYU Press. Contributor Bio:  Underwood, Thomas A Thomas Underwood received his Ph. D. in the history of American civilization from Harvard University. Randall Kennedy is Professor at Harvard Law School and the editor of "Reconstruction" magazine. Contributor Bio:  Titcomb, Caldwell Caldwell Titcomb is Professor Emeritus of Music at Brandeis University and has for many years written widely on aspects of black culture. Thomas Underwood received his Ph. D. in the history of American civilization from Harvard University. Randall Kennedy is Professor at Harvard Law School and the editor of Reconstruction magazine. Contributor Bio:  Twine, France France Winddance Twine is Associate Professor at the University Of California, Santa Barbara. She is an editor of Racing Research, Researching Race, available from NYU Press. Contributor Bio:  Warren, Jonathan Jonathan Warren is an Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle.