Independent Lens

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A community fighting for the right to learn. Who gonna control our education? We gonna let white folks control it, or black people? We wanted to have an in stitution where there were people like us all wanted to be more than the status quo.

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A rich cultural legacy... Black colleges were redefining what it meant to be black in America. It's an unapologetic black space. A testimony to the power of education. These professors were on a mission to ensure a vibrant black future. Filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Marco Williams offer rare insight into a critical, but often overlooked American institution. These are places with this incredible freedom to explore. If you come here, you will find something you won't find anyplace else. "Tell

Them We Are Rising

The Story of Black Colleges and Universities," now, only on Independent Lens.

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Them We Are Rising

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Them We Are Rising

"This is the dream grown young, "the dream so bravely tended "through a century of fears "through the years of working, "praying, striving, learning, the dream become a beacon brightly burning."

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Black colleges are spaces where black people are affirmed. You could be yourself and develop yourself in this rich soil. It's a space that is an unapologetic black space. These are places for this incredible freedom to explore. We wanted to better ourselves. We wanted to have an institution where there are people like us all wanted to be more than the status quo. The question for African American's has always been "What is education's purpose? Who controls it, and what is the relationship of education to the broader aspirations of our people?" Well I need more power Power Lord I didn't need more power Power Lord I need a heavenly power Power Lord I need a heavenly power "On every gate around the stable, "as on the plough handles, "you could see where I had been trying to write, and every chance that offered would be learning my ABCs." Elijah Marrs. "There was some niggers that wanted learning so bad "they would study by the light of light wood torches, "but one thing sure, they better not let no white folks find out 'bout it." William McWurther.

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Them We Are Rising

Slavery was more brutal than we can imagine.

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The brutality went with the system. But there's another type of brutality that took place during slavery, and that was the brutality of ignorance keeping intellectual thought, keeping learning, keeping reading, knowledge from slaves. The more that a system denies you the chance to read and to write, the more that thing, reading and writing, becomes valuable, becomes precious, becomes a prize that you must have. "I had no schooling whatsoever "while I was a slave. "On several occasions I went as far as the schoolhouse door "with one of my young mistresses. "I had the feeling that getting in to that schoolhouse would be the same as getting in to paradise." Booker T. Washington. When they saw white people reading, enslaved people call that "talking to books." The idea that this piece of paper that someone was looking at, they could actually communicate with, gave them a sense that this was a kind of knowledge that opened up all kinds of opportunities. A slaveholder could do virtually anything to his slave. He could work his slave to death. He could rape his slave. He could sell his slave. "It's my property," the argument was, "so I can do whatever I want to with my property except one thing I can't do to my property. I can't teach my property. I can't teach my slave how to read or write." An educated black population could not be an enslaved black population. "The teaching of slaves "to read and write has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their mind." "Any person or persons who shall attempt to teach any free person of color or slave to spell..." If a white man or woman, be fined no less than $100 or imprisoned. Shall be whipped at the discretion of the court not exceeding 50 lashes. The revised code of the laws of Virginia. The state of Alabama. The laws of North Carolina. Acts and resolutions of the state of South Carolina. It didn't just happen in the South. Some abolitionists who wanted to start a college for black youth in New Haven where Yale University's located. Yale and the town officials said, "No. Absolutely not. That's not happening here." This letter is from the mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, and it says, "The location of a college of blacks here "would be totally ruinous to the city whose certain effect will be..." "Whose certain effect will be "to lower the town's public morals, "to drive from our city its female schools, "its throngs of summer visitors. "The founding of colleges for educating colored people "is unwarrantable and dangerous interference "with the internal concerns of the southern states and ought to be discouraged." It's happening all over the country. This discrimination, this repression, this desire to make sure that black people remain subordinate to whites is something that's national. It's not just Southern at all, and I think that we sometimes forget that.

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"When I was still quite a child, "I could hear the slaves in our quarters whispering "that something unusual was about to take place, "and it meant their freedom. "There was not a single slave on our plantation "that could read a line, "but in some way we were kept informed of the progress of the war." Booker T. Washington. As soon as the war breaks out, African Americans flee the plantation, and once they get behind Union lines, they call them "contrabands." The first thing they want to do is to get an education, so in the evening when they finish their labor, they go to these contraband schools and as the women say, "Catch a lesson." One by one, two by two Three by three, and a four by four He goin' to bed with the readin' board Read up, let me go Read up y'all Freedom Read 'em y'all Freedom Read them pages Read 'em all, read and let me go Read oh Lord Freedom Read 'em y'all Freedom Read oh Lord

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Read 'em all, read and let me go Read oh joy "I is anxious to learn how to read so I can study and find out about many things." William Adams. "It is wonderful how a people "who have been so long crushed to the earth "can have so greedy desire for knowledge "and such a capability for attaining it. "One old woman took her seat among the little ones. "She was at least 60 years old. Charlotte Forten. Read oh joy They feel that if they can get an education, if they can get knowledge, then other things will follow. This is the beginning of education in the South.

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"Suddenly, "as if at the sound of a trumpet, "a whole race that had been slumbering for centuries "in barbarism "awoke and started off one morning to school." In the immediate years after the war, one of the first things that formally enslaved people did was to open schools. Many of the people who were so-called teachers were really not capable knowledge-wise of being teachers. They were simply teaching what they knew. If they knew up to a sixth-grade level, then that's what they would teach, and so the first thing that had to be done after the war was to train people to actually teach. After the Civil War was over, the South is devastated in all kinds of ways. The American Missionary Association recognizes the damage, and they see an opportunity to save the South, and they come down and set up all these schools. "We can now lift them out of the pit. "Essential parts of the work can only be done "by Northern voluntary Christian organizations. "They can bring physical relief. "They can establish schools, and they can bear the light of the Gospel." A large majority of them were also dedicated to the idea that the enslaved people needed to be "civilized." One person termed it "Yankee-fied," and they want to create the kind of culture that is essentially a white culture, and the AMA is the main independent organization that sets up first the schools and then the colleges that are going to evolve into the historically black colleges. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, the AME, start to say, "Wait a second. "We want to have our own education system "in terms that we understand. We have ideas here, black ideas," and so they start forming their own colleges. They wanted those schools to be as free as possible from paternalism, from racism, whether subtle or blatant. "No man or community of men "can elevate another. "Elevation must come from within. "What the North and the South, however, can do "is to seize their injustice and allow the negro toeducate himself." Bishop Benjamin Tanner, AME Church.

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The federal government also began creating separate public black and white colleges in the South. By the late 1800s, there were over 86 black colleges. Many of them were created by the AME Church, the AMA, and the federal government. The South's reaction was one of incredible anxiety. The southern planters elite had an investment in a certain kind of workforce, a workforce that they had been able to keep docile. Education was gonna turn that upside down, and the planter elites said, "That simply can't happen."

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In Tuskegee, Alabama, nearly every black school that developed in the county was destroyed or the teachers were run off. One of the heartbreaking stories is the lynching of a professor at Talladega because he was teaching African American students. He wrote this very powerful letter to his wife. "My dear wife, "I die tonight. "It has been determined by those that think I deserve it. "God only knows, I have only sought to educate the negro. "God of mercy, bless you and keep you. "dear wife and children. "Your William. Between 1866 and 1872, approximately 20,000 people are killed, blacks and whites, in the South, all because of this perceived threat that education will unlock something. Despite the violence and intimidation, the shortage of teachers and resources, the black colleges in the South survived... And they began to produce their first graduates... Many of whom were formally enslaved. General O. Howard, for whom Howard University is named, he was going around looking at the plight of African Americans, and he ran across students, and he asked, "What shall I tell the people up north about the plight of the former slaves?" And the 13-year old Richard Robert Wright rose and said, "Tell them we are rising."

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"Although I had no idea where it was "or how many miles away, "I remember only that I was on fire constantly "with one ambition, and that was to go to Hampton." Booker T. Washington. Booker T. Washington hears about Hampton College, and he works his way there walking across the state of Virginia. This is a dedication to a vision for education. The Hampton Institute was founded by a retired Yankee general named Samuel Armstrong, and his approach was to teach the trades, carpentry, laundry work, farming, to black youths. Samuel Chapman Armstrong was without a doubt someone who believed in the inferiority of black people, no question about that. He didn't believe that black people were capable of anything more than an industrial arts education. He just could not see black people advancing beyond that. Booker T. Washington, he's really taken in by Armstrong, becomes his right hand. Armstrong says very clearly that Washington is his prize student. Samuel Armstrong recommended Booker T. Washington to head the Tuskegee Institute, making him one of the few African Americans to run a black college. When Washington goes to Tuskegee, he starts the process of building Tuskegee Institute from scratch.

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It was a campus dedicated to the idea of industrial education. Booker T. Washington was really one of the first masters at marketing. Using photography... He's trying to communicate, this is the type of education that at Tuskegee we are giving to African Americans. It appeals to the white leaders in the American South They don't see pictures of lawyers. They don't see pictures of politicians. They don't see pictures of professionals who they think they're too good for hard work. I think it was just that Booker T. Washington felt that black people were not, at present, capable of doing anything more than that, and as a consequence of taking that perspective, black people suffered. So he did a great deal of damage.

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Booker T. Washington gave one of the opening speeches at the Atlanta Exposition, and it was incredibly significant to have an African American giving this speech. Before he starts, there are a lot of catcalls on the part of whites and hissing and so on. "As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past "in nursing your children, "watching by the sick bed of your mothers and fathers, "we shall stand by you ready "to lay down our lives if need be "in defense of yours. "In all things that are purely social, "we can be as separate as the fingers, "yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress." What he was saying in that speech to white people, "We will be your laborers. "We will be the people who will take care of your children. We will be the people who will do your menial work," and then he says to black people that you have to start at the bottom and work your way up, and that's where we were meant to begin. By the time he finishes, whites are crying. White women are throwing out their handkerchiefs and throwing out flowers and clapping. They are so moved by this speech. He makes white people, North and South, happy. He makes capitalists and plantation owners in the South happy. Everybody's happy 'cause we now have a black person who's saying, "Let's compromise. "We won't agitate for social equality, "political participation, civil rights. Forget all that stuff." What he seemed to be suggesting was a kind of neo-slavery. This is coming from the college president who happens to be the most prominent African American in the South.

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He's a rock star. He's a megastar. This is somebody who is gonna be able to dictate the terms of life for black education. He becomes the darling of the white philanthropists. We're talking about the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, the Peabodys, these huge names in the country. Booker T. Washington appealed to Northern industrialists for pragmatic reasons. They were seeking after a labor force, and he basically offered the proposition of an educated black labor force, but not too educated and not too pushy. "History is to note two Washingtons, "one white, the other black, both fathers of their people." Andrew Carnegie. As his ideology becomes the only ideology, there's not enough room it seems for lots of different ideas about how to save the race. That becomes a problem for other black leaders. They want to have their voice at the table as well. "There is among educated and thoughtful colored men "in all parts of the land "a feeling of deep regret, sorrow, and apprehension "at the wide currency and ascendancy "which Mr. Washington's theories have gained. "Mr. Washington's program practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the negro race." W. E. B. Du Bois. W. E. B. Du Bois is probably the most educated American, black or white. He has gone to Fisk University. He has gone to Harvard and then studied abroad in Germany. Du Bois believes with education you gain freedom. You gain independence. Du Bois' vision calls for expensive higher education, and for thousands of African Americans to go to college, become educated, and to be fighters for freedom and equality. Between Washington and Du Bois, they were so fundamentally different in terms of vision, so fundamentally different in terms of the purpose of education, that there was no way to reconcile the two. "We refuse to kiss the hand that smites us, "but rather insist on striving by all civilized methods "to gain every right and privilege open to free American citizens." W. E. B. Du Bois. Washington's ideology begins to fade the further you get into the 20th century. The notion of just having a vocational education system just doesn't make sense in a changing U.S. society. You see it in all of the educational institutions for black folk, a shift away from industrial education to higher pursuits for black people. And a new way of thinking about how American society ought to function and look.

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Washington dies in 1915. It is a moment in American culture and society. He is one of the last generations of African Americans born into slavery. You can read that funeral as a moment of bearing witness to a change. A change is coming.

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African Americans loyally supported the United States during the first World War, and then when they returned to the United States, they were determined to enjoy a greater degree of democracy.

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But whites were not prepared for any changes here. African American returning veterans were often beaten at the train stops when they arrived. They were attacked by their fellow veterans who were white. They were attacked by civilians. 28 cities burned during the famous Red Summer of 1919. Although we refer to them as "race riots," they were often small race wars. The black veterans were shooting back. "Though far outnumbered, "let us show us brave, "and for their thousand blows, "deal one deathblow. "What though before us lies the open grave. "Like men, we'll face the murderous cowardly pack "pressed to the wall dying, but fighting back."

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"The new negro has no fear" is a reflection of this changed sensibility. It's a militant new negro. It's one that's going to stand up for his or her rights. After all, these black soldiers had fought for those rights and died for those rights over in Europe, and by God, they're going to get them. Black colleges were an interesting place. Most of them during that period had white presidents, and they were run in a very draconian kind of way with moral codes and with lots of rules. The white presidents were completely ill-equipped as to what to do with these African Americans who now wanted to shape their own destiny and were very spirited and were defiant.

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McKenzie, the Fisk University president, is not the kind of person that you would've expected to come to Fisk. He had worked out west on Shoshone Indian reservations, and he had an extensive experience with Native American/White relations. The board of trustees at Fisk made no real distinction between working with Native Americans and working with African Americans. His white secretary commented that she didn't think that he understood black people and wasn't even sure that he liked them. President McKenzie comes in with the notion that he can make Fisk more conservative, that he can take Fisk University students and educate them in a different direction, so he starts to make changes. He wouldn't let them have any social organizations. A bell told them when to get up... He took away the track team. - When to go to breakfast... He took away the baseball team. When to go to class... The men and women could not walk together. He would make no compromise. McKenzie said, "I am as old-fashioned as the Ten Commandments," because he believed that blacks were particularly sensuous beings who needed more restraint. What he was afraid of, I think, was widespread, uh... He was afraid of sex basically. W. E. B. Du Bois heard about all this from his daughter, Yolanda, who was a student at Fisk. And then when Yolanda was graduating in 1924, Fisk invited Du Bois to speak. "I have come to criticize. "In Fisk today, discipline is choking freedom. "Ironclad rules, suspicion, are almost universal. "The negro race needs colleges. "We need them today as never before, "but we do not need colleges so much that we can sacrifice the ideals of the negro race." W. E. B. Du Bois. He's saying to Fisk students, "Resist. "Resist this repression. Rise up."

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Du Bois! The Fisk students had engaged in a tin pan riot.

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Shouts of "Du Bois! Du Bois!" are heard.

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They went about the campus for a period of an hour or two.

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00 when it was time for the lights to go off.

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Students awoke to find as many as 80 metro Nashville policemen in full riot gear. They treat the students as criminals. They handcuff the students. They immediately place them into these paddy wagons, and they take them off to jail. Some claim that they heard gunshots. Maybe the first shots fired ever on a historically black campus, but it certainly wouldn't be the last. The students were so angry that they went on strike, and for ten weeks they refused to attend class. The trustees essentially decided that it was not possible to continue to have a university if they had no students. "My dear Lambert, "if you have not already learned, "I've resigned as president of Fisk University "and probably want to return to the rank of teacher, "preferably in the field of sociology, "including race relations. Very truly yours, Fayette McKenzie." It's a victory because it makes national headlines, and students at other black universities across the country are emboldened. They are inspired. They participate in their own protests in the weeks and in the months and years that followed the Fisk fight. It shows that the modern, new negro student, right, it will no longer stand for the Victorian atmosphere of their predecessors.

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"Let black people understand "that they are the lovers and the sons of warriors. "Let the world be a black poem, "and let all black people speak this poem silently or loud." School days School days Dear old golden rule days Reading and writing and arithmetic Taught to the tune of a hickory stick You're my girl in Calico... In high school, I was a good student. That's why I guess the principal was recommending me to Wilson College. The disappointment comes when that person comes from the college to interview me, and then it was all downhill. I have not forgotten her words. "Your grades are wonderful, but we're a little concerned "because we don't know with whom "you would be paired "because we cater to a lot of Southern gentlewomen, "and they room in suites. Sorry, kid." So I didn't get to Wilson. I applied to Bennett for a scholarship. It was kind of special. You know, you kind of stick your chest out. I'm a Bennett gal.

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During the 1930s and '40s, black colleges are really the only place that an African American student can go, and this created this enormous incubator for success and intellectual thought and creativity. The best and brightest is going to black colleges. These professors were on a mission not just, say, to teach classics or French literature or political science. They are there to ensure a vibrant black future. They're going to encourage you because they recognize your full human capability and possibility. If a teacher saw you kind of slipping or faltering, there was a...

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"What's going on? What's the matter? Can I help?" There was a watching over you to see that you did the best that you could. Black colleges were educating future doctors and future lawyers and future teachers and nurses and judges, and they were responsible for lifting African Americans out of poverty, and they started to create the black middle class as we know it.

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For a black child, every teacher that you knew had gone to a black college. Every lawyer that you knew had gone to a black college. Every medical doctor that treated you had gone to a black college. Black colleges were redefining what it meant to be black in America. You weren't doing something with your hands. You were pursuing a career where education and intellect mattered. Black people were in charge. Black people were in control. Black people were writing the checks. I went out for the football team when I got there because the girls liked you and would really go for you, if you played football. You get back at the halftime, and the coach tell you, "Listen, we're not playing for no girls or nothing. "we're playing football. We're playing to win. Do you understand?" Going to college was the best decision that I ever made. There's a football game not just about the students. It's really about the whole state, the whole communities are engulfed by those institutions. This is the era of fraternities and sororities. You have a rich social and cultural life. We met in the registrar's office at Fisk University. I was in line to speak to the registrar. There was that young, beautiful person at the typewriter typing, and it seemed as though she was looking over toward me. Something causes her to bat her eye. I got up to help him, and he said, "Did you wink at me?" And I just kind of smiled, and-- That was enough of an invitation for me to ask her out. I'll buy you a diamond I'll buy you a diamond ring 68 years ago, we married. It was a protective, insulated environment where they could talk. They could exchange ideas. They could be themselves, and at least for that time period for those moments, they didn't have to deal squarely with segregation and inequality. Once they left campus, they were right back into the kind of segregation, the kind of humiliation, and so it was a special place. I don't recall it crossing my mind. It was some place where you knew you weren't supposed to go, so you didn't go. We didn't talk about it. You know, you just kind of accepted things the way they were.

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The plan to change racial segregation could only have found its seed and borne fruit at a black college like Howard University. They had a commitment around these issues that even well-meaning liberal whites and white institutions would not have developed. This is an idea that was cultivated and navigated by black professors and deans and black students. This radical change, I would think this affirmation of the American ideal, comes out of a black college and black university.

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With impressive open air ceremonies, Howard University of Washington D.C. graduates several hundred. The crowd listened avidly to Johnson, president of Howard. Mordecai Johnson was the first black president of Howard University. He was going to, if he could, try to work a revolution of the Howard Law School, and so Mordecai Johnson hires Charles Hamilton Houston, who at the time is almost certainly the most highly educated African American lawyer in history, graduate of Harvard Law School, the first black member of the Harvard Law Review. Houston had a plan for this law school. He's gonna make it a first-rate law school that is all about breaking down a whole system of racial discrimination and segregation. That's what the Howard Law School mission is going to be. Howard Law School at the time is an unaccredited law school. It is almost entirely a night school, and many of its students attend part-time because they have to work. It was referred to derisively by some African American attorneys in Washington as "a dummy's retreat." In 1930, Houston closes the night school. There is outcry among the African American lawyers not just in Washington D.C., but nationwide. They said this man is trying to Harvardize Howard. Enrollment plummets. All the white professors quit. They wanted to work for their day jobs. This allowed Houston to hire new faculty. Now we've got an all-black faculty, and they're some of the finest attorneys who were working in Washington D.C. Dean Charles H. Houston, he used to tell us in our first year to look at the man on your right and look at the man on your left, and bear in mind that two of you won't be here next year. That sort of kept your feet to the fire. Thurgood Marshall was a graduate of Lincoln University, a black college, where he was not an exceptional student, and by all accounts, this was from general lack of interest in his studies. Thurgood Marshall was widely regarded to be someone who had a big personality and someone who could persuade people by charm. These are some of the raw skills that Charles Hamilton Houston took and refined and turned into one of the most significant lawyers of our generation. Shortly after Thurgood Marshall graduates from Howard Law School, he and Dean Houston take a road trip, and they head into the recesses of the deep South.

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They are charged by the NAACP with documenting the conditions in which black children go to school in the southern states. Charles Hamilton Houston was a big techie. Anything that came out, the new technology that came out, he wanted to have it, and in Charles Hamilton Houston's car they have a typewriter, a camera... and a film camera.

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This was their first exposure to the conditions deep in Georgia and northern Florida and Alabama. They'd not seen that before. Houston and Marshall were able to film white students on the buses going to school. And then they were able to contrast that by showing black students walking to school. There were not bathrooms-- there were not even outhouses at some of these buildings. Houston and Marshall brought the film back from the deep South to NAACP headquarters in New York City. The Constitution says that the separation of the races is okay as long as that separation is equal. Houston has a plan. It's an incredibly bold plan. He's going to attack segregation, ironically, by supporting it. So the strategy that Houston devised was that he was going to argue that they needed to enforce separate but equal by forcing the states to actually make their facilities, that were already separate, equal. In reality it was impossible to actually maintain equal schools that were separate. It would be way too expensive. The brilliant thing that Charles Hamilton Houston set in motion was this was not gonna be a one-game struggle. This wasn't gonna be a one case. The idea was to build a steady drumbeat from one state to another establishing the principle that separate was never equal.

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Operating our educational system is one of government's most important jobs because education is one thing Oklahomans have always believed in. George McLaurin was a 68-year old teacher with a master's degree. He sought a PhD in education at the University of Oklahoma. The University of Oklahoma admitted him, but they forced him to sit outside the classroom. Oklahoma was like, "Okay. "So this is equal, but it's separate. "You said that we could do separate as long as it was equal, so how about that?"

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"How about that?" Here we had a student who was attending the same school, hearing the same lecture at the same time as the white students, but was... set aside, stigmatized, because of his race. He's not able to interact with his fellow students. He's not able to interact with his professors. This is clearly a circumstance in which the separation itself, even under conditions where they're getting ostensibly the same education, is not equal, and that was in fact a breakthrough moment to be able to say, "Segregation in and of itself is an inequality." Charles Hamilton Houston died in 1950, but his campaign that started some 20 years earlier at Howard Law School came to fruition in 1954. This is the group of lawyers from all sections of the country who are here in the Supreme Court for the purpose of arguing the school segregation cases, and we believe that the proper place for the issue of segregation is in a court.

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100 years after laws existed that prevented African Americans from learning how to read, that prevented white Americans from teaching African Americans how to read, 100 years after that, we have an integrated team of lawyers led by an African American arguing before the Supreme Court of the United States that separate but equal is unconstitutional in the field of public education. The game changer in the 20th century was Brown versus Board of Education. It took lawyers not at an elite school, but at a law school that was put together by spit and glue and hard work, that that would be the space that would create a legal revolution that all Americans now benefit from. This is an educational institution at its best, not just creating knowledge for the sake of having it, but creating knowledge in order to do something concrete with that knowledge. That's what Howard Law School represents.

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Two, four, six, eight, we will not... The decision opened the way toward eliminating racial discrimination from American life, but it did not bring into reality immediate integration. More than laws are required to change long established attitudes and institutions. I say that we will fight to the last ditch to prevent unwanted integration against our free people. You've got to keep the whites and the blacks separate. We are determined in Georgia... As governor of the state of Alabama... We will maintain separate schools for the white and the colored race. "What happens to a dream deferred?" We don't want the niggers going in this school. This is a white school. "Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun..." I think they should be kept out any way possible. "Or fester like a sore and then run?" I think they should be separate. Even the animals choose their own breed. "Maybe it just sags like a heavy load..." I am for segregation because it's biblical. "Or does it explode?"

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There was a famous man who once said, "There's nothing on earth so powerful as an idea whose time has come," and I think the centuries of discrimination and segregation and ill-treatment and the lynchings, I think the time had come for the war to be waged to end segregation. We wanted freedom now, not 25 years from now. It was "Damn it, we're gonna keep talking, or are we gonna take action? If not us, who?" Nobody was doing anything. There was no protests. We decided we'd sit-in. We came in to the store and sat-in at the lunch counter which was not customary or accepted for African Americans at the time. "The New York Times" had this story on four students who had actually sat-in at a Woolworth's store, and that was absolutely earth-shaking. Every one of us knew full well that they were either the bravest people in the world or the craziest people in the world. We sat for pretty close to two hours. The store manager said, "You boys are gonna get in a lot of trouble, "and I'm gonna call the cops if you don't get up and leave. "We can't serve you here. We won't serve you here." So we sat until the store manager decided to close the lunchroom for the rest of the day. So why did you fellows select the five-and-dime variety store lunch counters? Why didn't you just walk into restaurants if you wanted to prove your point? Well, Woolworth's is open to the public. They should have equal facilities, not only restroom facilities, but eating facilities also. A photographer from the "Associated Press," Jack Mobies, greeted us at the door. He says, "You coming back?" Well, we said, "Yes, we're gonna be back tomorrow, "and we're gonna keep coming back until you guys serve us."

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Black and white together... The Bennett girls became aware of what we were doing at A&T, and they couldn't be held on the sidelines, and so they joined it. We deserve our rights, and we are going to get them one way or the other. This was an opportunity to make a difference.

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We felt it was incumbent upon us because we were young people. We were students, and we had a responsibility, and we were gonna be the future leaders, so now was a good time to begin to demonstrate what good leaders we could become. We start out the first day with four, the second day to 16, the third day, 24, then 64, and then the Saturday occurred. We had pretty close to a thousand students demonstrating peacefully, and it kept growing until this thing just had a life of its own. It was being replicated throughout the South and largely among black college students. A revolution had actually begun.

"Super Bad" by James Brown

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Watch me! Watch me! I got it. Hey! The target for the students were the lunch counters at the city's two largest department stores and four variety stores, and for the first time the community was confronted with negroes in places where they had never been. And I'm super bad And I'm super bad A If you weren't out there demonstrating, then something had to be wrong with your school. -

grunts

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Come on You sat and read your books and caught up with your homework because you were students. It was just a matter of, you know, reading this chapter or whatever you had to do before you got back on the picket line.

indistinct shouting

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During the weeks after the sit-ins began, opposition in the white communities of the South solidified, and the first signs of violence appeared.

indistinct shouting

dramatic music

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We were called "niggers." We were spat on. People came by and threw cigarettes at you. It was very difficult not to fight back. I spent a lot of time on that picket line crying because I could not retaliate. Freedom, freedom Everybody wants freedom Everybody wants freedom -

shouts

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Everybody wants freedom Freedom, freedom, everybody wants... It's unusual for someone to be singing while they're getting arrested 'cause that arrest is supposed to punish you. It's supposed to be humiliating. But when you're singing and dancing on your way to jail being put in the paddy wagon, you retain the power. Freedom Freedom, freedom Even when we had situations that we didn't know what to do, we had a song. I'm gonna do what the spirit says do I'm gonna do what the spirit says do And what the spirit says do I'm gonna do oh Lord I'm gonna do what the spirit says do

spiritual piano music

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Rich's department store was the big kahuna. They had stores all over the South. Dick Rich, who was the president of Rich's at the time, he told me that if I brought my black ass back in to his store again, he was gonna put me in jail, and I told him that "I'm coming back, Mr. Rich, "and I'm bringing thousands with me, and get your jails ready 'cause we're gonna be there."

We synchronized watches and said at 11

15, everyone was to enter wherever they were assigned to. It meant that they had to deal with all of us at the same time. We were able to cost Rich's department store in 1960 over the Christmas holidays $10 million in losses. All of a sudden they wanted to talk, and within six weeks, they had signed an agreement to desegregate all that stuff downtown. I'm gonna do what the spirit says do Well I'm gonna do what the spirit says do And what the spirit says do I'm gonna do... When I was finally served at that counter, I thought it was by far one of the lousiest meals I ever had, and I asked myself the question, "Is this what I put my life on the line for?"

laughing

We synchronized watches and said at 11

But it-- remember, it wasn't about the food anyhow. It was about being treated as a fellow human being.

"Let My People Go" by Darondo

We synchronized watches and said at 11

Said you better let my Let my people go We want black power. We want black power. Said you better let my Let my people go Black college campus in the 1960s is getting more and more complex. They've been already trying to change the world outside, changing the society that was about separation of the races. We get to the late '60s and early '70s, that energy for change starts to turn inward.

all

Beep, beep, bang, bang Ungawa black power Beep, beep, bang, bang Ungawa black power Beep, beep, bang, bang... When a black person looks at himself in the context of America, that's when he has to decide "Who am I?" And when he finds out who he is, then he knows what he has to do. A lot of the conflict that's starting to happen is between the students and the administrators, students and the boards of trustees. They're wanting to see themselves far more than they have in the past, and so that makes for some pretty hot times on black college campuses. The present administration are the children of last generation. We're the men and the women of this generation and the generations to come. Either they'll come with us or be left behind. Most likely they'll be left behind. About 1,000 students here at Howard University have sat-in and held control of this administration building. There are no classes. The entire educational system is shut down. Many of us will stay in the administration building and be arrested. There will be boycotts until there is progress, and we are prepared to boycott until infinity. It appears to me that the attitudes on the part of the students suggest that an explosion among them is imminent. And the question here before us is, like, who gonna control our education, whether we gonna let white folks control it or black people, and the students at Voorhees College have taken a position that black people gonna control our education. You also start to see the police being more vile in their approach to interacting with students. President Nixon has urged college officials to be firm in dealing with campus disorder, and that's what Dr. Potts was doing when he agreed to the use of the national guard. Black colleges were particularly vulnerable to police invasion because white politicians were quick to call in the police and quick to look the other way when police used deadly force. When the bullets were hitting the walls, I was on the floor, and there were a lot of people on top of me, and I don't know what was happening. All I knew, I could just see the pounding against the windows and glass popping everywhere.

tense music

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This kind of atmosphere of policing and of crackdown made students very, very vulnerable.

"Theme from 'The Shaft'" by Isaac Hayes

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I entered Southern University in 1970. Earth, Wind, and Fire, Barry White, "Shaft," that was the kind of music we listened to. Platform shoes in style, too, platform shoes and bellbottoms. I hurt my feet, and I had a head full of hair. We was wearing afros. We wore them old mini dresses. We all had the little small figures for it. It looks good on us. My sister and my brother had already entered Southern University, so I knew I should be next. We wanted to go to Southern, the black college. When I got on Southern's campus, there was, like, 10,000 students on campus, and there were people from Seattle, New York, Chicago, Houston, Texas, all these places. It was amazing. The mix of people was one of the elements that defined Southern. It was an intellectual and scholarly oasis that I really, really wanted to be a part of, and all of it was there. Southern University in Louisiana was the largest public black college in the United States. There was a black president and black administrators, but it was under the control of the white elected officials in Louisiana who only spent half as much per pupil as they did on the predominantly white LSU. My third or fourth week, you could see that something else was happening on campus. You were getting another vibe that there were some students that weren't happy with what was going on. They want to teach you everything the white man way. We trying to break away from this thing. See, too long we've been listening to the white people and their ways. We're developing our own ideas and want adequate facilities to be able to put them in to action. We didn't feel that we had enough professors. Adequate classroom space. - Better funding. More input into the curriculum. And it started to build, and it started to build. And so we decided that the best thing to do was a very direct thing and take these matters directly to President Netterville. Met with him, and we thought that his response was not a positive one, and so we decided to boycott classes. We will not go back to class until all our demands are met. Power comes from unity. The students at Southern University's campuses in Baton Rouge and New Orleans began a series of marches and demonstrations demanding the resignation of the school's president and control over the administration. For an entire month we boycotted classes, and that had never been done. Southern had a major football tradition. We knew that we could have some impact if we drew the attention of people who attended these games. There were demonstrators who went on to the football field and stopped their football game. That's when I was impressed. I said, "This is really big. Maybe the administration gonna listen to them and something great is gonna happen here." When they take the attitude that they will boycott classes unless they get their way completely and instantly then it just becomes necessary to let it be known that that just cannot happen. The call was go and stand on campus, stand around all day in uniform in a show of force on the parking lots and ride through the campus.

tense music

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We start trailing the students around to see where they were going or where they were holding meetings off campus. Everybody was on standby in a high-alert situation. Nobody knew what was gonna happen. Well, of course I was not gonna sit by and allow them or anybody to destroy public property. It didn't belong to the students. It belonged to the people of the state, and while I sympathize with their complaints and was willing to address them, I was not gonna allow them to destroy the university or its buildings. The student movement was indeed a nonviolent movement. There was not one incident during that entire period of time that represented any violence, certainly any violence on the part of students.

00 and 3

00 in the morning, I received a knock on my door which turned out to be the police, and they handed me a warrant for my arrest. I was scared. I had never been to jail before. I didn't know what to expect. On the morning of November 16, there were no police around. It was a very serene day on campus. We did what we were doing every day, and that is that we were rallying students to leave the class, just that this day we informed them that these four students had been arrested and that we were gonna go over to President Netterville's office and ask him to go downtown and get the students out of jail. He let us in his office, and he said, yes, he would indeed do that, and he said, "You can stay here until I return," so we took him at his word. He left the building. The call that the sheriff's office received, and who made the call from Southern University? I don't know, but it informed us that Dr. Netterville was being held hostage, that he was in the administration building that had been taken over by the students, and we was ordered to free the hostage. So we heard this noise outside and looked out the window. About 300 sheriff's office deputies and state police troopers assembled on campus to carry out Governor Edward's demand that order be maintained. We immediately knew that Netterville had betrayed us. M16s, shotguns, sidearms, you name it, they had it. To our amazement, there was a tank with them. Big Bertha they called her. It was a big blue armored personnel carrier built out of steel. It was there in the front of the administration building parked. This thing's frightening. We about to go to war? We had every deputy that could have a uniform on. Some of them were new. Some of them was reserve. A lot of them wasn't trained. Nobody knew what was gonna happen. And a state police-- I was looking right at him, leaned down and rolled a tear gas canister toward the crowd. It was Bobby Crow. It was a state police, state trooper. That was who rolled it. I was looking right at him. One of the students leaned down and picked it up, hurled it back toward the deputies.

clattering

00 and 3

That's when hell broke loose.

gunshots, people screaming

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Pandemonium, chaos. It was something that was quite surreal. Big Bertha had some portholes on the side of it, and shots were coming out of there rapidly.

gunshots

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You could see it rocking from the vibration from shots being fired. There were two people left on the ground. I thought that they had been knocked down by the rush of students trying to get away...

somber music

00 and 3

But then I remember this girl turned around and started screaming. Coming out of the administration building, what I noticed, and what I'm sure a lot of other people noticed, was a pool of blood with what looked like brain matter floating around in it. We came out. By that time the bodies was gone, but we saw the markers and the blood everywhere, and we were weeping and crying and going back to the dorm. They say, "You know that was your brother, huh?" I said, "What?" I went numb. There has been trouble at Southern University between black students and authorities for a couple of weeks, and today it ended in death. And on the TV, sure enough, they called his name. 20-year old Denver Smith. Denver Smith and Leonard Brown. He was never a part of the movement at all. If I hadn't been involved, my brother never would've been there. The accident would not have happened at all if they had not taken upon themselves to occupy the president's office. That was the triggering mechanism. Had they just gone about peacefully demonstrating and agitating and doing what they wanted to do and had a right to do, it never would've happened.

soft dramatic music

00 and 3

It came as a surprise to me. After we found out later that afternoon that Dr. Netterville was not on campus, during the whole period of time we were there at the administration building with the students, that he was not on campus at all. I relive that moment because I was one of the leaders who led the students to Netterville's office who believed that he would go down and get these students out of jail, and they trusted me. Though I didn't pull the trigger, as a leader, I may have been responsible. They were exercising their constitutional rights, and they get killed for it. They died for it. Nobody sent their child to school to die. Just shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have happened.

"Lift Every Voice and Sing"

00 and 3

Lift every voice and sing Till Earth and Heaven ring Ring with the harmonies Of liberty Let our rejoicing rise High as the listening skies Let it resound Loud as the rolling Seas

marching band playing

00 and 3

My daughter's going to Spelman. Yay!

all

Yay! We're excited to keep the bloodline going 'cause our family bleeds orange and green. And this is for you. - Thank you.

indistinct chatter

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Okay. - This room is really small. Don't know how all your stuff gonna get in here. At my high school, I was a token black girl. That was something very hard for me. You're either the ratchet, black ghetto person, or you're the exception. You're the high-achieving excellent-- That's what you are, and I'm tired of those boxes. I don't want to be one thing or the other. I want to be me. I want to have the opportunity to discover myself. The sandals go in boxes together. I do believe that going to an HBCU is going to be a safe space. It's somewhere where I can be free to be completely myself. I can be black. I can have curly hair. I can be smart. I can be whatever I want to be.

laughs

all singing

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When I walk on campus, the excitement is unreal. I love the show teams that go around chanting for their dorm. I love the step teams that they have....

upbeat music

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And they all look like you. Oh, they all look like you.

laughs

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It's so good. And this moment marks the beginning of your journey. This is the moment where you part company with your parents, your friends, your loved ones. You say goodbye. There's something very different about coming into an environment where you know that everyone around you has the same chance of being successful as you are without negative implications associated with race. What the black college experience provides them is a place to be finally at some point in the majority. They look around and see people who share common experiences. That is such a unique and empowering experience. My graduating class, there weren't many black students. When I told my classmates that I was going to attend an HBCU, none of them even knew what an HBCU was. Everyone was like, "Why? Why do you want to go to FAMU? Why don't you want to go to, like, USF or, like, somewhere else?" I'd never even had, like, a black teacher ever from K through 12. I remember, like, always talking to my mom about it. "When am I gonna have a black teacher? Like, I want a black teacher." On page 274, we talked about hurdles that you have to get through. I wanted to learn from someone who looks like me because I thought maybe the learning experience would be a little bit different.

indistinct chatter and laughter

soft dramatic music

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My freshman year was when I had the African American history class, and that changed the world for me. Just knowing what my ancestors went through to learn how to read, to get an education, to be given the right to sit in a classroom that have good books, and they worked so hard for that. It makes me want to be better, and every day I just try to be great just because of that. It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to fight for our freedom. I just wanted to be more involved in the movement that was happening now. We must love and protect each other. We must love and protect each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains. Throwing up our hands for peace. Movements are easily birthed on HBC's campuses. We're all going through the same experience. I just feel like I found myself through being a student at FAMU. I hope that the future of HBCUs is a positive one and one that'll bring a lot of experiences to more people, but I'm fearful that it's not going to be that way.

somber music

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marching band playing, crowds cheering

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Come on, Brown fans, sing it one more time for Morris Brown.

all singing indistinctly

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The future for black colleges is actually contested at this point.

soft music

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Many of them have not been successful, particularly over the last 20 years. This is a shell. It's a shell of a wonderful campus that used to be 34 acres. Fountain Hall at one time housed the offices of Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois. In 2003, Morris Brown College lost its accreditation. We had 2,500 students at that time to what you see now where we have less than 50 students. Today there are over 100 black colleges. Some are flourishing. Some, like Morris Brown College established in 1881, have all but closed. Brown v. Topeka opened white colleges, opened the field of choice for black students and black faculty, often with the consequence that black colleges lost enrollment, and they've lost some of their most talented faculty. There's a lot more competition. What I think successful colleges will do will say, "If you come here, you will find something you won't find any place else," so that's the kind of uniqueness that you want to be able to communicate to your community.

marching band playing

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What's my favorite word? I wanted to go home because I felt like it was too much. I don't wanna be here. It's too hard, and Dad gives me this really long talk. He said, "Calvin, we want you to go to FAM because that is where you're going to get the best experience as a musician and as a black man." Two. One, two, ready, and...

marching band playing

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The university has pushed me very, very hard to become a self-standing, strong, centered individual. I've grown as a musician and as a leader. Three things that I really want from this university are support, an education, and love, and since I've been here, I've gotten just that. Whoo! I know I'm really gonna miss this environment 'cause I know I couldn't get it anywhere else. This is my last home game. It's my last year at FAM. Getting ready to graduate, and the world's about to get that much bigger. Young people are the engine of change. They are the engine of possibility. They have a vision and a faith in their own potential. That spirit of being at an HBCU is very unique, very different. It's like you have a match, and you want to start a fire, but you have no fuel whatsoever. All you have is that one match. This HBCU experience has shown me and taught me that anything is possible as long as you have that one spark.

"Alright" by Kendrick Lamar

men vocalizing

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Alls my life I has to fight Alls my life I Hard times like yah Bad trips like yah Nazareth Alls my life but if God's got us Then we gon' be all right

echoing

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We gon' be all right We gon' be all right We gon' be all right Do you hear me? Do you feel me? We gon' be all right We gon' be all right Huh, we gonna be all right I got my degree, baby! We gon' be all right Do you hear me? Do you feel me? We gon' be all right

grunts

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Now tell my mama I love her but this is what I like Lord knows I can see the evil I can tell her I know it's illegal I don't think about it I deposit every other zero Thinking of my partner, put the candy Paint it on the Regal, diggin' in my pocket Ain't a profit big enough to feed you Every day my logic get another dollar Just to keep you in the presence of your chico... We rise! Class of 2016... You rise! We gon' be all right Do you hear me? Do you feel me? We gon' be all right

grunts

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Tell the world I know it's too late Boys and girls I think I gone cray Drown inside my vices all day Won't you please believe when I say Well, I need more power Power Lord I just need more power Power Lord I need heavenly power Power Lord I need heavenly power Power Lord I need some power That can save me Power Lord Need power that can save me Power Lord I need heavenly power Power Lord I need some power that can save me Power Lord I need a power that can save me Power Lord We done talkin' 'bout power Power Lord We done talkin' 'bout the power

inspirational rock music

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