Tolerated but Unwelcomed: African American Students at Memphis State University in the Late 1960s

Raven Burks, Brooks Lamb, Kala Burr, Sumner Richter, and David Maselli

Professor McKinney

Civil Rights in Memphis

November 7, 2016

Tolerated but Unwelcomed:

African American Students at Memphis State University in the Late 1960s

            In an in-class lecture, historian Anthony Siracusa designated three conceptual frameworks that are integral to understanding the push for increased African American freedom and equality: issues, tactics, and ideas. Whether we study the Movement in historical or contemporary terms, these three categories of analysis can help us better organize our thoughts and perceptions of what is one of the most important social, cultural, and political movements in the history of the United States. These three categories are especially helpful when we examine student movements in the late 1960s. Specifically, studying the issues, tactics, and ideas that framed the activism of black students at Memphis State University enables us to better grapple with and understand this moment in history. Spurred into action by unequal treatment on campus, these students embraced both moderate and more militant approaches—approaches that sometimes embraced the controversial and oft-misunderstood notion of Black Power—to pursuing civil rights, frustrated by what they perceived to be the sluggish pace of traditional activism. Inspired by ideas of true equality and opportunity, African American students at Memphis State demanded immediate change.

            Before discussing the tactics and ideas that framed their activism, we must first analyze the issues that black students grappled with at Memphis State. In 1959, Memphis State University was officially integrated. But a decade after integration, major problems were still present. In her book Black Power in the Bluff City: African American Youth and Student Activism in Memphis, 1965-1975, Shirletta Kinchen quotes Dr. Cecil Humphreys, former Memphis State president: “We seek to give everyone an equal opportunity,” he said in 1969. “It is up to the individual to take advantage of it.”[1] For most African American students at this time, the equal opportunity that Humphreys spoke of was not only false, but also farcical.

Tolerated but not welcomed, black students at Memphis State were not given the same educational experience as their white peers. African Americans on campus faced a plethora of problems. With no courses revolving around African American studies, they were denied the opportunity to learn about black history and culture in a classroom setting. But this was not the only misgiving that revolved around academics. Black students were also frustrated that, throughout the entire university, there were only two African American professors on staff, and there were no black administrators. The unequal treatment stretched into other realms of the educational experience, too. Black students were not fully represented in student government or athletics, and they were excluded from most social events. At least one of these events, a Kappa Alpha Order celebration, honored the Confederacy and its ideals, seeking to “revive the Old South in Memphis.” This event was particularly painful for African Americans to witness. As Kinchen says, “It was one thing to contend with racism via lunch room jeers… It was another matter altogether to have the Civil War reenacted with classmates dressed as slaveowners and slaves.” African American students could take classes at Memphis State in the 1960s, but that was the extent of their inclusion. They were otherwise restricted from having a full college experience, often ostracized and unwelcome.[2]

            To combat these issues, black students at Memphis State used innovative and sometimes controversial tactics. One approach to battling inequality on campus was to create a Black Students Association. They did this because they felt “devoid of any real sense of belonging on campus.”[3] Through this organization, black students united in an effort to demand more inclusion in campus life, and the Black Student Association helped bring meaningful changes to Memphis State. Other groups formed that enabled black students to feel more included as well. The Epsilon Kappa chapter of Delta Sigma Theta was founded in 1963 and helped to provide more social opportunities for African American students, especially as the decade progressed. An all-black sorority, Delta Sigma Theta “tried to bridge the racial divide on campus that existed in the wake of integration by participating not only in events germane to black students’ interest but to the common student body as well.”[4] Thus, African American students began to participate in events such as pageants and All Sing with white students for the first time.

            But these tactics, which were of a largely tame nature, were not the only approach used to secure greater equality. Black students also used more militant methods. Embracing the Black Power Movement, the Black Students Association followed the example of students at Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, and began demanding change. They confronted President Humphreys in his office on April 23, 1969, but he stood his ground and refused to grant the changes the black students requested. With police roaming the campus following this incident, over 100 students decided to conduct another sit-in in the administrative building on April 28. While they remained non-violent, “the tenor with which they presented their demands put them in concert with other Black Power campus uprisings.”[5]

Though their activism did not lead to immediate change in all areas and did not solve all issues in question, such as hiring enough quality black administrators and professors and adequately increasing black curricula, some changes did occur. For instance, the school newspaper, The Tiger Rag, started including more articles “related to black culture, dress, and black affairs.” An “Extravaganza in Black” was organized by students to help further include African Americans into the university setting. And, in a demonstration of organized power, the BSA helped to elect the first-ever African American homecoming queen in Memphis State history in 1969, a highly symbolic victory. Showing that they could effect change when working together, black students on campus worked to improve the educational and social environment of their university and seek greater levels of equality.[6]

In addition to issues and tactics, ideas must be discussed in order to foster a robust, historical understanding of black student activism at institutions like Memphis State. The civil rights activism of James Weldon Johnson helps us better understand an ideological framework through which black students could think through. Johnson authored “Negro Americans, What Now? (1934)” which argued and called for the merits of racial integration and cooperation. The following quote was one reality he intended to address to his readership: “We cannot ignore the fact that we are segregated, no matter how much we might wish to do so; and the smallest amount of common sense forces us to extract as much good from the situation as there is in it. Any degree of sagacity forces us at the same time to use all our powers to abolish imposed segregation.”[7]

Johnson was trained in the liberal arts, and several decades later his writing was still pertinent. Regardless of the optimism of later activists such as Thurgood Marshall, integration was not occurring at a satisfactory rate for black society. Therefore, students at Memphis State, for example, created the Black Student Association because no amount of ignorance could wish away the strategic slowing of integration and upward mobility for black students. It was widely apparent that, though the university itself was integrated, educational opportunities were still segregated—white students had much greater access to a full college experience than did black students. Thus, the notion of garnering as much opportunity as possible, regardless of the issue, framed the thoughts of black student activists. Integration for these young African Americans was not enough. The idea of true equality drove them forward in their pursuit for change.  

Integration was not a smooth process for the students or faculty of Memphis State. The issues regarding the social and cultural exclusion of African American students were numerous and present for decades following the technical date of desegregation. Not being allowed to live on campus, having segregated bathrooms, gym classes, and dining areas, and being barred from student organizations all proved detrimental to the capability of black students to participate in college life. To confront these issues, African American students organized themselves, using both moderate and militant tactics to confront those who ostracized them. The Black Student Association, black fraternities and sororities, and those involved in the Black Power Movement were able to use their campus voice to vote for change, as well as engage in sit-ins and protests to enact tangible change on their campus. Not every problem has been fixed, however, and for students today, contemporary race-related issues share themes with those that their parents’ generation encountered. Combating the idea that the battle for civil rights is finished was something the black power movement had to face in the 1970s, and it is also one of the issues the Black Lives Matter movement is facing today. As we continue to fight for greater equality and opportunity in our society, it is important to study how progress was achieved in the past. By studying the activism of African American Memphis State students in the late 1960s, we can understand historical tactics and ideas and better engage in the struggle to create more equal educational institutions and societies.

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[1] Shirletta Kinchen, Black Power in the Bluff City: African American Youth and Student Activism in Memphis, 1965-1975 (Knoxville, Tenn.: The University of Tennessee Press, 2016), 147.

[2] Ibid, 144-148.

[3] Ibid, 150.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid, 163.

[6] Ibid, 169-173.

[7] Johnson, James Weldon. "Choices." In Negro Americans, What Now? 3-18. Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press, 1934.