Founders of the UCSB Black Studies Department Pictured Above
In the fall of 1968, black students from UCSB joined with the national civil rights movement to end racial segregation and the systematic exclusion of African American studies from the curriculum of major universities. Triggered by what they perceived to reflect the insensitivity of the administration, and driven by a vision, they occupied North Hall and presented the administration with a set of demands that would change this campus. Among these demands were: the establishment of a commission to investigate institutional racism; The hiring of Black professors and staffs; and the creation of a Black Studies program. As declared by Preston Dent, the former Vice Chancellor for Minority Affairs, in the GAUCHO, October 2, 1969:"The black students were outstanding in conceptualizing the idea of the department.... These students, certainly Bob Mason, Rashidid (James Johnson), Tom Crenshaw, Cynthia George, Shelly Brazier, Andrew Jackson, Maurice Rainey, Booker Banks, as well as others (Dalton Nezy, Mike Harris), are the ones who put their academic careers on the block just to get the idea sparked."
In April 17, 1969 students presented a comprehensive Proposal for a Black Studies Program at UCSB in which they denounced antiblack racism on campus and reaffirmed the role of a Black-centered education in the struggle for Black liberation. The document highlighted that "to the Black students, Black Studies represents an individual and a community need. The one is inseparable from the other. For the individual, Black Studies would be a vehicle for a greater self-understanding. A greater awareness of identity is a vital prerequisite to individual commitment to the urgent task of community reconstruction." Placing their campus activism within the broader civil rights movement, they demanded an inclusive university, connected to the struggle for citizenship. As they stated, "Black Studies thus represents the conceptualization and programming of the Black community's aspirations as they affect the university. Just as the university has historically always responded to the needs and demands of white society, so now Black students are asking that it responds to the particular needs and aspirations of the Black community."
Along with the creation of a department, the students had also demanded that a Center for Black Studies be created to monitor, coordinate, support, and encourage research in the community. The Department of Black Studies, which now includes nine ladder rank faculty and one lecturer, has recently been ranked ninth in the nation. It assumes a matrix model, bringing together scholars from an array of disciplines concerned with the Black Diaspora (the United States and Caribbean), as well as Africa. The Department enrolls four thousand students each year and offers for its undergraduate majors an honors program that provides yearlong engagement with original research. To achieve even greater impact, a doctoral program is envisioned.
