res

THE PURSUIT OF iN COMMUNTTY’S DREAM

FLORENCE TAGER. & ZALA HIGHSMITH-TAYLOR.



Medgar Evers College:
In Pursutt

of a

Community's Dream

Florence Tager
and
Zala Highsmith-Taylor


Published by Caribbean Diaspora Press, Inc

Caribbean Research Center, Medgar Evers College (CUNY)
1650 Bedford Avenue

Brooklyn, New York 11225

and

Medgar Evers College (CUNY)
1650 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11225

Authors:
Florence Tager & Zala Highsmith-Taylor

Copyright © 2008

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part
of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner
and the above publishers of this book.

ISBN: 1-878433-40-7

Dedication

This story is dedicated to the members of the Central
Brooklyn Community who, through their tireless effort, years
of struggle, intense perseverance and commitment,
extensive political understanding, and enormous passion
and concern, brought forth in the community, Medgar Evers
College, a college committed to access, social justice and
excellence.

iii


Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge all of those who came before us
and created a space through which we could travel...those
on whose shoulders we stand.

We offer thanks to the community that waged a relentless
battle for the creation of Medgar Evers College and to
those students, faculty, staff, administrators, and
community members who have helped to build and sustain
it.

In particular, we must thank Jay Williams, CUNY Archivist,
Central Office, who helped locate the archival materials
that formed the basis for this story; and Ella Sease, Louise
Glover, and Councilman Al Vann whose interviews and
archival materials laid the foundation for this book; Richard
Joseph, Steve Wymore, MEC Library whose technical and
creative skills provided the graphics and photographic
arrangements; William Daly, MEC archivist who helped
with the history; Norma Blaize for formatting the book;
Toby Needler for her interesting cover design; and Tony
Akeem whose photography is included.

We must also thank President Edison O. Jackson for his
support and for providing the funds for the printing of this
book; and Vera Weekes & George Irish, Caribbean
Research Center, MEC, for technical and editorial support.

We offer a special note of appreciation to Ms. Marge Battle,
an amazing women with enormous courage, strength and
professionalism who provided the positive criticisms that
helped us to complete the story in a more comprehensive
manner.

A special thanks to our family members and friends whose
incisive comments and continued support encouraged us
to complete what was often a challenging experience.

Contents

Dedication
Acknowledgements

Foreword

Part |: Acts of Courage: A Community
Challenges a University

Photographic Section

Part Il: Breaking Ground in the Racial Divide of
New York City

Part Ill: Medgar Evers College is Born

Endnotes:

Part I:

Part Il:

vi

35

91

111

417


Foreword

The Asante people of Ghana, West Africa, have an
Adinkra word, Sankofa, which means, “Go back and fetch
it,” referring to the wisdom of learning from the past in
building for the future. We feel that as Medgar Evers College
moves through its fourth decade of existence, it is important
to review its origins in the community struggles of the 60’s in
order to be reminded of the importance of this college to the
community out of which it was born. We believe that this
history will allow us to continuously reflect on the College’s
mission and the ways in which that mission incorporates and
addresses the path the community laid out for what it felt
was needed in the predominately Black community of
Central Brooklyn.

The story of Medgar Evers College is an awesome story
that deserves to be told and heard. It is an inspirational story
that offers many lessons about the quest for equal rights and
justice in this country, and it is the story of a community's
vision, activities, and work to make its vision become a
reality. It is also a story of phenomenal success and major
setbacks. We have decided to present this story so that the

vi

Medgar Evers community and the public might benefit from
an understanding of the historical uniqueness and
importance of this predominantly Black and female public
college that exists within a city university.

There are people in the world who have moved past the
desire to just ‘survive’ and, therefore, make plans and
investments for generations yet unborn. And, of course,
there are those who, based upon circumstances, just plan
for each day or sometimes each hour at a time. There are
also those who know and can recite their history for
generations past, and who cultivate plans based upon what
has happened generations ago. Then there are those
whose history was stolen from them during periods of
enslavement and/or colonization, often forcing them to mold
a history from fragments placed in textbooks and/or stories
passed on by their elders. This is the case of many people
of African descent in the Americas who have had to fashion
an historical story that recognizes the unquestionable gains,
contributions, and cultural developments of the recent past,
yet also makes the connection with the magnificence of
Africa’s ancient past and with struggling communities around
the globe.

The history of Medgar Evers College is a recent story,
which can help add a very significant, though small, piece to
the puzzle that makes up the history of human life. Most
importantly, this story is a piece of Black life in the United
States and, as its name suggests, it carries forth the spirit of

vii


Medgar Wiley Evers, the man and political activist who
fought for social justice. We hope that the history of the
College, short as it is as compared to the history of the world
or of a people, will inspire the College community with the
need and courage to “go fetch it,” to learn the lessons of the
past as the College moves into the future.

All too often students, faculty, and administrators
continue to move forward with very little understanding of
what came before them, including what sacrifices were
made so that they might have a space in which to work or
attend college. Some believe that the College begins with
them; others only see “excellence” in strictly traditional
terms. The truth is that within history there are numerous
examples of “excellence” that emerge from poverty and
despair, that emerge from “making a way out of no way.”
We must remember that The City University of New York
(CUNY), together with the Central Brooklyn Community,
established Medgar Evers College to both be different and
make a difference, thus improving the lives of young people
in the community and City.

We place the story of Medgar Evers College in the
context of the 1960s project to democratize higher education
through open admissions, remediation and _ affirmative
action. We pay particular attention to open admissions at
The City University of New York and the creation of Medgar
Evers College as an open admissions senior college.
Emphasis is placed on the drama that unfolded surrounding

viii

the unprecedented negotiations between the African
American community and the University to create the
College. While we focus on the founding years of the
College 1964-1970, we provide a brief update of the
decades that bring us to the present.

The major part of the story is culled from innumerable
primary sources found in the Bowker Files of the CUNY
archives which include handwritten notes, letters, telegrams
by both community activists and CUNY officials, as well as
newspaper articles and CUNY generated reports. We used
additional archival material of one of the founders of the
College, Louise Glover, and interviews with select
community residents/politicians enabled us to round out the
story with anecdotes and eyewitness accounts. In addition,
we examined the minutes of the Board of Higher Education,
1964-1970, and select editions of the New York Times to
both contextualize the events and to understand the precise
rulings and official positions that led to the opening of the
College. Our rendition tells a part of the story of a unique
institution and we welcome different interpretations and/or a
more comprehensive history that chronicles the recent
struggles by the college and the community to further its
mission to be a college for the community and of the
community.


The story of the founding of Medgar Evers College of the
City University of New York is a heartfelt story told by two
retired Professors, one an African American Professor of
English and Interdisciplinary Studies who came to the
College in 1980 and the other a Jewish American Professor
of Education who came to the College in 1973. We came
together as committed faculty because for over twenty-five
and thirty-four years respectively of teaching at the College,
we never doubted the importance of Medgar Evers’ mission
in the community, the City and, indeed, the world. Though
there have been differences of opinion, ideas, and beliefs,
we have always had mutual respect. In this way, we were
able to confront our differences, celebrate our similarities,
team-teach, and always engage in the struggles of building
the College. We contend that, while the story of the College
is of particular importance to the Medgar Evers College
family/community, it is also pertinent to all impoverished
communities struggling to find a way to build institutions that

inspire community well being.

Part I

Acts of Courage:

A Community Challenges
a University


Our story opens on a brisk day in 2006. It is the day
after Labor Day and the first day of classes at Medgar Evers
College. Dusk is beginning to descend on the glass
entranceway. Day students have left and evening students
are arriving in droves for their six o’clock classes. There is
an air of excitement and anticipation as they speak with each
other in a potpourri of languages: English, Creole, Patois
and Spanish. They are rushing, always rushing from work in
Manhattan, from schools around the city, and/or from homes
where they settle children with grandmothers and baby-
sitters to arrive on time to their classes. Some are early
enough to get a quick bite to eat at the cafeteria before
class; others have to wait until a class break to get their
needed coffee. These snacks will tide them over until they
are ready to return home sometime after 9:00 p.m. It is a
long day and part of the sacrifice they make to build a better
future for themselves and their families.

As the sun continues to descend, its light shimmers over
the glass doors of the entranceway like a beacon in the
harbor offering guidance and hope to students and
community residents. Yet, the same shimmering light also
reminds us of the tragedies, struggles and triumphs that
have been central to the vibrant life of this urban college.
There was Wanda who, two months before graduation, died
while trying to save her two young children from crossfire in

the nearby housing project; Trevor, an ardent social justice
2

advocate and committed student who became an MP and
poet in Trinidad & Tobago; Pat who became ill with cancer
and couldn't finish her last semester of student teaching; and
lyanla Vannzant who, as mother of three and president of
student government, went on to become a lawyer, writer and
a well-known TV personality. It reminds us of Flavia, Alice,
Ryan, Pearl and countless others who became nurses,
doctors, teachers, principals, social workers, social change
agents, scientists and business people in this community
and communities around the world. It was the belief of
members in this community and the energy of these
students that pushed forward the dream of the founders to
create a college in Central Brooklyn that would serve the
community.

Beginning in 1964, Central Brooklyn fought long and
hard to create Medgar Evers College, and though the
College’s modern structure seems to intrude on the more
traditional buildings of the surrounding Crown Heights
community, it is a most welcomed intrusion. To the left of
the College’s entranceway stands the Ebbets Field Housing
Project, a constant reminder that this is a quintessential
Brooklyn community, the site of the old Ebbets Field
Stadium, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. A pizzeria, two
Caribbean restaurants and a Bodega line the street across
from the College, suggesting the eclectic nature of life in
Crown Heights where African Americans, Hassidic Jews,

Caribbean Americans, and Latinos live side by side in an
3


uneasy peace. The Crown Heights Youth Collective, with
60s type murals and a cornerstone of community activism,
intermingles with tree-lined streets of two family houses
leading to the Carroll Street building of the College. Here the
Math, Sciences and Nursing departments are housed. On
the “urban campus” of this four-year college, students relax
in a pizza parlor or on the stoop of the College buildings
rather than on campus greenery. The lovely well-kept two
family homes on the surrounding streets are often only a
block away from decaying apartment houses where drug
busts and other turmoil might be evident. Decay and
destruction live side by side with struggle, hope and care in
this Brooklyn community.

When Medgar Evers College opened its doors in 1971,
faculty and students were always on the move as they
taught and attended classes in the many different churches
of Central Brooklyn - The Masonic Temple on Clarmont
Avenue; Saint Lukes Church on Washington Avenue;
Lafayette Presbyterian Church on Oxford Street; and St
Joseph’s Church on Dean Street. They traveled to these
various sites in search of the college that was still to be
defined and was very much a work in progress.

Today things have changed considerably. Medgar
Evers is now an emerging campus located in the Crown
Heights community of Brooklyn. Here it continues to expand
as new buildings are being planned and built. It is now a

significant institution in the community. Through its
4

graduates, its influence extends from Central Brooklyn to the
rest of New York City, and from the Caribbean to Africa. Yet
the ease with which the College sits within the community
belies the hard times and struggle out of which it grew, just
as the ease with which the students enter its doors belies the
turmoil that often underlies their attempt to get an education.

From its inception in the 1960s as a dream in the minds
of the Central Brooklyn Community, Medgar Evers College
was different than the other schools in The City University of
New York (CUNY) system, of which it is a part. It was the
only CUNY College born out of community struggle and out
of the racial conflicts that tore New York apart in the 60s. It
was the only CUNY school in which the community
participated equally with the CUNY Board of Higher
Education in defining the College’s mission, goals, and
status. It was the only school to try to redefine the
relationship between town and gown, the relationship
between the community that it would serve and the
academy. Finally, it was the first CUNY school to commit
itself to working with the community in which it would be
embedded.

This was truly a unique experiment and a unique
moment in the annals of higher education. The paradigm of
the liberal apolitical university comprised of detached
scholars responsible only to the academy was being
transformed into a model that accorded the community equal

participation in defining a college. The traditional power
5


relationships were shifting away from the professional
academician and the City’s elite Board of Trustees to a
shared relationship with the community. The players in this
unique experiment continuously tried to bridge the great
divide between the White power structure of New York City
and the Black community, between the members of the
academy and the community residents the college would
serve. They were trying to redefine the very concept of an
urban university, and this is what makes the story of Medgar
Evers College a compelling story.

New York in the 60s was a city of drama and passion; a
city of community organizing and of Black national and
international political movements; a city where national
leaders like Malcolm X organized and spoke regularly, and
community workers like Ella Sease, Louise Glover, Shirley
Chilsholm, Rhody McCoy, Al Vann, Jitu Weusi, Robert
(Sonny) Carson, Father John Powis, Elsie Richardson,
Delores Torres, Paul Chandler, and others organized
protests, actions, conferences and discussions. It was a city
where the Black Community asserted its voice and presence
through political activity and where education became one of
the most important sites of struggle. It was a city where
community leaders organized on several fronts as they
fought for integration, busing and community control of
schools. It was a city where, in 1968, these activities
culminated in one of the most bitter strikes in New York’s

educational history, the confrontation at Ocean Hill-
6

Brownsville, a struggle between the local Black community
and the New York City Board of Education which ultimately
closed the New York City public schools for over one month.

It was within this highly charged atmosphere that the
Central Brooklyn community fought to create Medgar Evers
College, a college of the City University of New York
committed to open admissions and to serving the
surrounding community of Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown
Heights, and Brownsville. The story of Medgar Evers
unfolds across the color line of New York City, the City’s fault
line - the great divide between the Black community and the
White educational establishment.

The public struggles to create a new CUNY college first
began in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn and
mirrored the complex social and political relationships found
between New York City’s political and educational
establishment and the disenfranchised Black community.
Each side had a different understanding of what this college
would look like. Would it be a community college or a four-
year degree granting institution? What would the curriculum
look like? Who would be the first president of the college?
And what would be the nature and extent of community
involvement? Each side also used a different language to
describe the community in which the college would be
located. Leaders on one side regularly referred to the
community as a “slum,” while local leaders described it as a

vital and viable African American community.
7


On one side of the great divide stood the mostly white,

mostly male, middle class Board of Higher Education that
governed CUNY. Most had a limited knowledge of the
history, culture, needs and concerns of Bedford Stuyvesant
and the larger Central Brooklyn community, and a limited
comfort level with the ideas and demands that would be
raised at the negotiating table. As Players in the drama, the
CUNY Board and, most Specifically, Chancellor Albert H.
Bowker believed that the University would need to change
some of its policies, curriculum and teaching practices if it
was to reach new communities, extend educational
Opportunities and create a successful experimental college.
The Board perceived itself as creating a community college
in a “slum” with all the attendant problems associated with
Schools in this type of urban environment.’ While they firmly
believed in their mission to extend educational opportunity,
they remained concerned with the reality of creating a
college in this urban Setting and with this new student
Population. Too often CUNY leaders were unable to let go
of their Preconceptions about the nature of university
education and the nature of a working/poor African American
community.

Chancellor Bowker, who had been brought from
Stanford University to lead the newly formed City University
of New York, would become the chief spokesperson for
CUNY. He arrived in New York in the fall of 1963, two years

after the State had raised the City College system to
8

university status and just months before the initial struggle to
create a college in Central Brooklyn began. At this time, City
University included only four senior colleges and three
community colleges. Dr. Bowker, a mathematician and
Dean of the Stanford Graduate School, had been recruited

2
- as chancellor to develop the CUNY graduate school.

During Bowker’s tenure, this newly created university system
underwent unprecedented growth and expanded to include
ten new senior colleges and eight additional community
colleges.*

The African American activists who comprised the other
major players in this educational drama represented a
variety of political venues and perspectives. At times,
these activists united to cross the great divide, and at other
times, they were fractured by their differing ideologies and
vision. In the initial stages, the community spoke with one
voice to ensure that their college would reflect their vision,
concerns, and interests. They insisted that the collaborative
process with the Board unfold with dignity and respect for
the members of the community. To these activists, the local
community was not a “slum”. It was a viable community of
artists, professionals, blue-collar workers, the working poor,
and the unemployed; it was a site of active religious
institutions, schools, and family life that had suffered from a
history of unequal treatment. Schools, one of the sii
visible signs of this unequal treatment, often had crumbling


walls and teachers who were uninterested in the children’s
academic performance.

The economic and political situation in Central Brooklyn
was complex, and community organizations that would come
to the negotiating table often came with a history of
unfulfilled promises, political betrayals, and a deep mistrust
of the predominantly White City politicians and educators.

These activists came from the Central Brooklyn
communities of Bedford Stuyvesant, Ocean Hill-Brownsville,
and Crown Heights, all communities with a high
concentration of Black residents who were economically
poor. The 1960 census suggests that the Bedford
Stuyvesant community was 76% African American and only
6% of the female workforce and 4.3% of the males were
professionals. The population of Brownsville was 62.4%
African American, and Crown Heights, where the college
would eventually be located, was about 65% African
American.* Similarities between the communities included
high unemployment, few professionals to address
community issues or needs, and a belief that their children
were being seriously shortchanged by New York City’s
public education system. The residents of these
communities made up the core of the movement to bring a
college to Central Brooklyn.

Bedford Stuyvesant, the community that took the lead in

the negotiations, was heavily involved in the early 1960s’

“War on Poverty”, which spurred community leaders to form
10

coalitions and community groups to empower residents.
This was a time of serious political activity in Central
Brooklyn, and a time when a significant part of community
organizing was devoted to education. In many Black and
Latino communities, schools became the site of
confrontation as these schools were often below standard,
had virtually no Black or Latino teachers, and had curricula
that neither motivated students nor included their history and
experiences. As a result, students often performed poorly
and/or dropped out of high school. Community activists
fought to change these conditions by bringing a college to
Central Brooklyn that would provide local youth with
educational opportunities that allowed them to effectively
compete in the larger society. They believed this college
would motivate younger students and encourage the growth
of a professional class that could bring resources and
greater stability to the community.

Ella Sease, a PTA activist in District 16 and one of the
founders of Medgar Evers College, typifies some of the
grass roots community activists. Ella’s dream was to build a
college for the youth of the community, and every Friday in
the early sixties, she would sit at her kitchen table and write
a letter to then Governor Rockefeller. In the letter she asked
the Governor to provide funds for a new high school and
college in Central Brooklyn. She persisted with this weekly
activity for several years, and when one of the Governor's

hearings took place in Brooklyn, Ella would show up
rat


unannounced, insist on speaking, and exclaim to the
Governor that, “... Central Brooklyn must have a college!” ®

The dream that inspired Ella Sease was also the
community dream that inspired The Central Brooklyn
Coordinating Council, Inc., a coalition of community groups
that would become a major force in the struggle to bring a
CUNY college to Central Brooklyn. The group met regularly
throughout the early and mid 60s to assess community
needs and create programs that addressed these needs.®
Its membership was impressive and broad-based. Dr. Cecil
C. Gloster, a physician, was president, and Ms. Shirley
Chisholm, who would go on to become the first Black woman
elected to the United States Congress, was vice-president.
Among the powerful groups affiliated with the Council were
the Bedford Stuyvesant Neighborhood Council, Brevort
Savings Bank, the Brooklyn Public Library, Carver Federal
Savings and Loan Bank, Kingsborough Community Council,
the Brooklyn chapter of the NAACP, and the Brooklyn Urban
League.”

The Coordinating Council initially tried to get CUNY’s
newly formed Kingsborough Community College, which was
temporarily housed in Central Brooklyn, to remain in Central
Brooklyn. However, the Board of Higher Education and
Brooklyn’s political establishment had other plans for
Kingsborough. They insisted on locating the College in
Manhattan Beach, a community that differed radically in its

composition and needs from the Central Brooklyn
12

community in which it was currently housed. Manhattan
Beach, which was primarily a wealthy Jewish community
located far from Central Brooklyn, would attract and service
a very different population. This would leave the Central
Brooklyn community without an institution of higher

_ education.

These differing visions for Kingsborough Community
College caused enormous tension and heated debates. In
1964, at the Site Selection Committee of the City Planning
Committee, Borough President Abe Stark, members of the
Board of Higher Education, and community residents of
Manhattan Beach pushed their agenda forward and argued
vociferously in favor of the Manhattan Beach site while
William Ballard, the new Chairman of the Planning
Committee, countered their arguments by claiming that, “...
a beach should be used as a beach” and a “... college ought
to be in the heart of a community.” ®

Ballard, advocating the position of The Central Brooklyn
Coordinating Council Inc., wanted the new college to be
located in a place like the Atlantic Terminal or Ebbets Field
Urban Renewal site or the region around Fulton Park or
Stillwell Avenue, all community based sites in Brooklyn.®
Ballard’s proposal seemed particularly reasonable as the
current students of Kingsborough Community College were
already meeting in the Masonic Temple and other sites in
Central Brooklyn. After extensive debate, the meeting grew

more fractious, and a decision concerning the site of the new
13



college could not be reached. The meeting was adjourned
and a special meeting of the Site Selection Committee was
scheduled for the following month."°

Though a month was hardly enough time to organize a
full campaign to keep Kingsborough College in Central
Brooklyn, the Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council quickly
began to strategize and organize community groups to
testify at the February hearing. They knew that trying to fight
the CUNY establishment and the Brooklyn _ political
establishment involved intense political activity, careful
planning, and extensive lobbying of politicians. Dr. Gloster,
president of the Coordinating Council, sent an influential
memo to his constituency stating, “If we want this cultural
institution for our area we will have to put up a hard fight to
get it’.'' He went on to describe the ways in which the
struggle should proceed stating, “The first round of the fight
must be with Mr. Stark (Brooklyn Borough President) and
then after much organizing, we will fight at the hearing
before the Bureau of Site Selection on February 27th”."? Dr.
Gloster asked the members to spread themselves thin and
act as a “committee of one” so that each member could
individually influence as many people as possible. Members
were encouraged to begin their first round of lobbying as
soon as possible and to attend a community meeting on
February. 6, where they would develop a more detailed and
elaborate plan of action."

14

Though the community diligently followed Dr. Gloster’s
suggestions and many testified before the Committee, the
dominant political forces of Brooklyn and the Board of Higher
Education prevailed. At the February 27 site selection
meeting, it was announced that Kingsborough Community
College would be permanently located in Manhattan Beach.
The Coalition lost the battle, but the community's aggressive
pursuit of a college resonated loud and clear, and Chancellor
Bowker responded by making a commitment to the Bedford
Stuyvesant Coalition that a CUNY college would be
established in their community.* Though this promise
lingered in the minds of community residents, it would take a
great deal more political activity and a radical change in the
political climate of the country before the Board of Higher
Education would act on it.

The Brooklyn Coordinating Council continued working to
improve Bedford Stuyvesant and sponsored a one-day
conference in October 1964 entitled, “The War on Poverty in
Bedford Stuyvesant”. At the conference, participants
discussed the need for a college in Central Brooklyn."
Establishing a college in the community remained a central
goal of the Council, and throughout the next year,
community activists continued talking about strategies for
bringing a CUNY College to Bedford Stuyvesant. Tensions
mounted as CUNY planned to establish two new colleges in
other parts of the City, while the promise made to the Central

Brooklyn community continued to be ignored."®
15


In early 1965, the situation shifted when the State, the
Federal Government and local Civil Rights groups entered
the picture. The U.S. Office of Education requested an
estimate of the number of “Negro” students enrolled in the
CUNY system." This request was part of a national effort to
insure that public institutions receiving Federal funds were
not segregated and were in compliance with Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.'° Local Civil Rights groups also
entered the picture and demanded information regarding the
ethnic make up of the student population at each of the
CUNY schools. They argued that only 1% - 2% of CUNY
students were Black or Hispanic even though these ethnic
and racial groups comprised a much larger portion of the
high school graduates in New York City. They were angered
by the fact that these groups were grossly underrepresented
in the student body of CUNY, and that as a public institution,
CUNY was not adequately serving the Black and Hispanic
youth of New York City. '®

CUNY was now forced to confront what had previously
been easy to ignore: the ethnic and racial composition of
their student body was not representative of the racial and
ethnic make up of the city’s secondary schools. CUNY
mobilized a response to both Federal authorities and local
Civil Rights groups and requested that each college estimate
the number of students of “Negro” and Puerto Rican
heritage. CUNY then compiled the data from each college

into a report that differed from that of the Civil Rights groups
16

when it suggested that 7-10% of all undergraduates were of
“Negro” or Puerto Rican heritage.? Civil Rights groups
came back and disputed these figures claiming that CUNY
had overestimated the number of Blacks and Hispanics
enrolled at the colleges.

The following year at the Fall 1967 registration, CUNY
attempted to compile a more accurate survey on IBM cards.
Based on this survey, the document “Undergraduate Ethnic
Census” was produced and sent to the Office of Civil Rights
and The US Department of Health, Education and Welfare."
The report often cited different figures in different contexts
and was difficult to decipher. Though sometimes the figures
made CUNY look better than other public universities, it was
always clear that Black and Hispanic students were
underrepresented at CUNY. While varying figures existed
on the number of Black and Puerto Rican students in CUNY,
the survey found that of the 86% respondents - 10.2%
defined themselves as “Negro” and 2.9% as Puerto Rican.”
Yet a closer look at these figures suggests that the reality
was somewhat different in that only 6% of the “Negro”
students and 2% of the Puerto Rican students attended the
CUNY senior colleges, and a large number of those in
attendance were non-matriculated students who paid a fee
for their courses and were, therefore, more likely to drop out
of college.27 Though the figures were sliced in many
different ways and a variety of rationales for the range of

figures was provided, one important fact remained clear,
17


there were far too few Black and Latino students in
Baccalaureate degree programs.

At the conclusion of this ethnic census report, CUNY
acknowledged the under representation of students of color
at the University and recommended that if the high schools
of “New York City are not fully able to prepare minority
students for full time collegiate study, then the University
should not only continue but significantly expand its
programs of collegiate compensatory education.” The
report stated that a rapid and dramatic expansion of SEEK
and College Discovery programs, which used alternative
admission criteria and significantly different support services,
was needed. It also called for establishing new programs
designed to improve the enrollment of minorities. This report
set the stage for the many changes that would take place in
the CUNY system over the next few years.

The times were changing, and so was the ethos of the
city and country. The New York Times during October 1967
provides one index of the kinds of changes taking place in
the country at large. On an almost daily basis the Times
carried articles related to issues of race, social justice, and
civil rights. Some of the most prominent stories reported
over a four day period October 12-15, 1967, included: a
series of articles about the murder of Civil Rights activists
Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner in Mississippi; violence
and alienation in the City’s high schools; a description of

“riots” in Newark, New Jersey’s impoverished Black
18

Community; and excerpts of a report by a prominent
University of California sociologist which predicted increased
Negro militancy because there was “... increased awareness
and frustration over the massive obstacles to real integration
and an increased pride in Blackness.””°

The intensely racialized political climate on the national
level was reflected in New York City in the grass roots
community activism of the Young Lords, the Black Panthers,
the Ocean Hill-Brownsville community groups, and other
national and local organizations fighting to extend economic,
political and educational opportunities to all the residents of
the City. There was fear, anger, militancy, and confusion as
the conflation of pressure from above, through Federal and
State Authorities, and pressure from below, through
community groups and political activists, created the
conditions for educational change in CUNY.

By the end of 1967, when the Chancellor and the Board
reviewed both the data on race and ethnicity in CUNY and
the State mandate for inclusion and expansion of community
colleges, the Board determined that extending SEEK and
College Discovery programs would be insufficient to meet
these new enrollment mandates. CUNY was now forced to
explore new venues to increase community college
enrollment and to bring more Black and Latino students into
the system.

As a solution to these enrollment issues and in response

to mounting community pressures in the City, the CUNY
19


Board voted on November 27, 1967 to create a new
community college henceforth to be called Community
College No.7. The Board stated, “The proposed institution
would be a comprehensive community college offering
university transfer and occupational educational programs.””°
Details about Community College No.7 was found in the
document entitled, “A Proposal for the Establishment of
Community College No.7,” also produced in November 1967
by the Board of Higher Education.

The document defined the new college as experimental
in design in that: (1) Admission would not be based on high
school performance as was the case in CUNY colleges;
instead all high school graduates who applied would be
admitted to the first semester and then they would be able to
transfer to career programs based on their performance in
the first semester; (2) It would be located on the fringes of a
poverty area; (3) It would serve the special needs of the
community in which it was located; (4) It would search for
new ways of meeting the needs of the City’s high school
graduates.”2” Though not explicitly slated for Brooklyn, the
ground-work had been laid. Community College No.7 would
eventually become Medgar Evers College - a four-year
college in Central Brooklyn - only after continued and
intensive struggle by the community.

To more completely understand the tension and
struggles between the community and the Board that would

follow, it is necessary to understand the educational
20

struggles of 1967 and 1968 in the adjacent African American
Community of Brooklyn’s Ocean Hill-Brownsville. This
particular struggle over community control of the local
schools would be an influential model for the struggle around
community involvement in the formation of the College.

The formation of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville School
Board, the first of three community-based school districts in
New York City, occurred simultaneously with the Central
Brooklyn community’s fight to bring a CUNY college to
Central Brooklyn. In fact, several leaders in the community
control movement of Ocean Hill-Brownsville, including Sonny
Carson and Al Vann, were also major players in the fight for
Medgar Evers College.

The Ocean Hill-Brownsville experiment, which was
supported and funded by the Ford Foundation, received
initial approval from the teachers’ union and the Board of
Education. The newly elected school board, which
represented the parents of the community, unanimously
elected Rhody McCoy as the superintendent of schools for
the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Community. McCoy, the first
Black School Superintendent in New York City, would
become a significant figure in the 1969 controversy between
the Bedford Stuyvesant Negotiating Team and the Board of
Higher Education over who would be the first president of
the newly established college. The connections between the
two communities were many, and, when in 1968 the Ocean

Hill- Brownsville Community Board asserted control over the
21


hiring and firing of teachers, and transferred 19 teachers out
of the district, the issue of the parameters of community
control was put on the table.

In protest over the community school board’s transfer of
teachers, the newly established teachers’ union called a
strike in September 1968 that closed the public schools for
over thirty days. Though many teachers crossed the picket
lines in support of community control, clear battle lines were
drawn between the local community of Ocean Hill-
Brownsville and the Teachers’ Union and Board of
Education. The Board of Education, angered by the ensuing
chaos, asserted its power and disbanded the Ocean Hill-
Brownsville Board. This essentially ended the city's
experiment with community control of the public schools, and
asserted the right of the Central Board of Education to
oversee all community decisions.”

The struggle over community control would surface
again in Central Brooklyn when friction arose over whose
voice would dominate in the choice of president for what
would become Medgar Evers College. The events in Ocean
Hill-Brownsville foreshadowed the tension between the
Community and the Board of Higher Education, and set the
parameters of community involvement in public higher
education.

The intense community organizing and political activity in
the African American communities of Brooklyn soon

conflated with the demands made by the State, Federal and
22

local Civil Rights groups to increase the enrollment of
“Negro” students in CUNY. At its January 22, 1968 meeting,
the CUNY Board of Higher Education reiterated the distinct
and innovative features of the newly created Community
College No.7 that would address the concerns and interests
of both the Federal government and local community groups.
These features would make the newly formed community
college (soon to become Medgar Evers College) a unique
institution within the CUNY system. The Board reiterated its
previous mandate that this newly established college would
be experimental in the following ways: it would be located on
the fringes of a poverty area in order to provide
“disadvantaged” students with post high school training,
provide “community service oriented to the special needs of
the community in which it is located,” and “develop new
admissions criteria that would not be based solely on high
school performance”.”°

These mandates, unique to Medgar Evers College,
defined the new institution as an “open admissions” college
before “open admissions “ became the standard for CUNY
schools. This new college would be one of the first CUNY
schools designed to meet the needs of the community in
which it would be located, and one of the first colleges in
CUNY to be slated for the border of a poverty area .° This
time, however, the plans for the College were more
concretely defined. The Board now established a five

member “Committee to Seek a President”, headed by a
23


Board member, Fred Burkhardt, and Central Brooklyn was
approved as the location for this new college.

Shortly thereafter, Chancellor Bowker wrote a letter to
Mayor Lindsay explaining that, in the decision to create this
college, he was honoring a long-standing commitment made
by the Board. He explained that when the Kingsborough site
was chosen, “ ... the Board had made a public commitment
that the next community college would be located in Central

Brooklyn.”°"

While this commitment to the Central Brooklyn
community may have entered into the Board’s decision, it
was clear that more than this commitment had entered into
CUNY’s decision to establish this type of college, in this
location, and at this time.

The Chancellor, in operationalizing the plans for
Community College No.7, tried to capitalize on a possible
new source of funds by bringing into the equation another
plan that had been circulating in 1967 by a group known as
Educational Affiliates of the Bedford Stuyvesant
Development Corporation.** This plan, which received
support from Senators Bobby Kennedy and Jacob Javitz,
had been developed by community activists, including Al
Vann of the African American Teacher's Association and
Preston Wilcox of AFRAM Associates, Inc., both of whom
would respectively become associated with Community
College No.7 as chair of the community's negotiating team
and as a candidate for president of the college. Others

involved in the plan included Civil Rights activists James
24

Farmer and William Biernbaum, who served as the group’s
president.

The Bedford Stuyvesant Development Corporation’s
plan, which had many similarities to the Board’s mandate for
Community College No.7, emphasized _ professional
programs in pharmacy, nursing, medical technology and
teacher education and strong community involvement in the
college. It included many features that would ultimately
characterize the newly created Community College No.7.

In his letter to Mayor Lindsay, the Chancellor elaborated
on the ways in which the Bedford Stuyvesant Development
Corporation’s plan was similar to the plan for the newly
approved Community College No.7. He explained that,
though the plan had been promised funds from private and
federal sources, the involved planners felt that the college
should be sponsored by a public agency. Bowker then
suggested to Mayor Lindsay that the University become
associated with this plan so as to tap into the promised
private funding. In this way, the University might be able to
secure additional funds that would aid in the development of
Community College No. 7. Bowker wrote, “Having given due
consideration to such a possibility, we have come to the
decision that this would be a wise course of action in the
public interest, and in fulfillment of the commitment which we
made to establish a community college in Central

Brooklyn.”

25


Bowker wanted to align himself with the plan backed by
Senators Javitz and Kennedy and prominent Civil Rights
activists in order to get their support for the college and
secure the additional funds. However, the salient fact was
that these diverted funds would be used to establish a two-
year CUNY institution rather than the four-year institution
called for by the plan, and this clearly shortchanged the
community. The issue of whether the new college would be
a two-year institution as planned by the Board or a four-year
institution as described by the community activists and
Senators would become a central theme in all future
discussions about the College.

This was clearly a time for celebration; a college was to
be established in Central Brooklyn. However, it was also a
time for vigilance. The community needed to carefully
monitor the Board’s activities to insure that community
members played a vital role in all future decisions
surrounding Community College No.7.

CUNY, in conjunction with the Borough President's
office, hosted an affair at the Brooklyn Civic Center where
they announced their plans to establish a college in Bedford
Stuyvesant. Borough President Abe Stark, Senators Bobby
Kennedy and Jacob Javitz, Mayor Lindsay, members of the
Board of Higher Education and community leaders were
among those present at this upbeat political event.
Prominent politicians spoke eloquently about the potentially

positive effects this new college could have on the Central
26

Brooklyn community and on higher education in America.
Senator Kennedy said that the Board’s decision to place a
two year institution in Bedford Stuyvesant represented an “...
imaginative and effective response to pressing needs”.*
The mayor declared, “Educational excellence must be our
goal and innovation and deep community involvement the
means to that end.” He went on to say, “I look to this college
for a model for the whole nation.”*° The Chairman of the
Board of Higher Education, Porter R. Chandler, called the
new institution, “... the first of its kind anywhere,” and termed
the “... education of disadvantaged students the single most
important problem facing the University in the next
decade.”*” He reaffirmed the new admissions requirements
and stated that the University would not penalize students
for their poor choices or poor performance in high school.
Though a great deal was invested by the city and the
community in this new institution, community activists were
angered because grass roots organizations had not been
invited to this political event announcing a new college in
Central Brooklyn. Others in the city were not completely
comfortable with establishing a CUNY college in a “slum.” A
New York Times article described this underlying reservation
when it stated, “It will be the first of the University’s two year
institutions to be placed in a slum.”** Interestingly, the Times
reporter seemed to know very little about the “slum”, which
was described as a Black and Puerto Rican section of

Brooklyn. While Latinos lived in the area, over 75% of the
27


residents were of African American ancestry. The word
“slum,” used in the Times article, did not capture the
residents definition of themselves or the active and complex
life of an African American community. The chasm between
the understandings of White institutions like the New York
Times and the CUNY Board and the reality of the Black
world of Bedford Stuyvesant was evident as was the anger
of many grass roots organizations.

This profound mistrust of mainstream educators and
politicians grew stronger among community groups when it
became clear that the Board had established a Presidential
Search Committee for Community College No.7, but, despite
its rhetoric of community involvement, had not invited the
community to participate on this committee. Outraged, the
community protested the composition of the search
committee and the fact that many grass roots community
organizations had not been invited to the public
announcement of the college. Walter Pinkston, of the
Bedford Stuyvesant Youth-in-Action Coalition, sent a
telegram on behalf of the community to Chancellor Bowker
stating that the news of the establishment of a community
college in Bedford Stuyvesant “... did not reach the people
for whom the college was intended,” and, therefore, it was
imperative that a “mass meeting” be convened in February
to address community concerns and questions.”*°
The Chancellor was asked to attend the meeting in order

to answer any questions the community might raise about
28

the new college. There was a large turnout of Community
residents, including activists and politicians like the
Honorable Shirley Chisholm. The public meeting was held
at Decatur Junior High School and was sponsored by a
coalition of community groups that included the Central
Brooklyn Coordinating Council, the Bedford Stuyvesant
Youth-in-Action Community Corp., the Ad Hoc Planning
Committee for Higher Education in Central Brooklyn, and the
Community Action Neighborhood Board. Community
residents raised many concerns about the relationship of the
new Community College No.7 to the community residents.*°
Though the Chancellor did not attend, members of his staff
tried to convey to him the tenor of the meeting as well as the
issues raised.

This meeting was enormously important to the history of
the College because it established in embryonic form much
of what would take place between the community and the
Board. Its immediate importance was threefold: (1) It
established the community as a viable partner in the
formation of the College; (2) It made the community's
concerns visible to the Board; and, (3) It provided the basis
for the formation of a new coalition that would represent the
community’s voice in future negotiations with the Board.

Community residents and activists who attended the
Decatur meeting provided the basis for two other well-
attended public meetings at the Bedford YMCA. At one of

29


these meetings, a steering committee representing twenty-
five community organizations was established. This group,
which would become known as the Bedford Stuyvesant
Coalition on Educational Needs and Services, insisted that,
“... any college in Bedford Stuyvesant must be community
controlled and offer BA degrees,” and that all planning for
the college be stopped until dialogue with the community
was established.“ The newly formed coalition, which
included representatives from the NAACP, the Central
Brooklyn Coordinating Council, and other groups that had
been part of the initial push for a college in Central Brooklyn,
became the voice of the community. This group would
articulate the needs, concerns, and interests of Bedford
Stuyvesant in all future negotiations with the Board.
Chancellor Bowker, apprised of the discussions that had
taken place at the Decatur meeting, wrote a series of letters
to many of the community groups that had been present. In
these letters he affirmed the University’s commitment to
community participation in the establishment of the college
and applauded the community’s enthusiastic support of the
college. He wrote, “The whole concept of Community
College No.7 rests on the promise of just this kind of
community enthusiasm.” In another letter to the Central
Brooklyn Coordinating Committee he stated, “I hope we will
be able to produce in this new college in Bedford Stuyvesant
true quality education of college level for young people of the

entire neighborhood.”* In a third letter sent to Walter
30

Pinkston, one of the conveners of the meeting at Decater, he
wrote of the college, “ ... it will be oriented to the Bedford
Stuyvesant Community and will be Operated in consultation
with the community.“* He went on to reiterate these
comments, “ It will have a community board ... It will be
rooted in the ghetto community but will embrace and have
access to the total educational resources of CUNY.” #

Bowker’s response to the Decater meeting clearly
showed that the community had successfully negotiated a
commitment from the University to be included in the Board's
processes. Yet the nature of this inclusion would demand
still further negotiations. Bowker’s understanding of
community participation and the community's desire for
community control were somewhat different. These
concepts would come into conflict as questions concerning
the extent of community participation in the creation of the
College reappeared in different guises throughout the
negotiations.

Despite the reassurances made by Bowker in his letters,
the community remained mistrustful of the Board’s
intentions. Agitated by what appeared to be a lot of rhetoric
and little action, Walter Pinkston sent another telegram to
Bowker in February 1968 which demanded, “... a halt to all
planning and negotiating for establishment of a community
college in Bedford Stuyvesant until the Board of Higher
Education has conferred with the Coalition which represents

the communities that would be affected by this proposed
31


institution.“° The telegram called for a meeting with the
Board so that the Coalition could define its role in the
establishment of the college. Bowker turned the telegram
over to Porter Chandler, Chair of the Board of Higher
Education, and shortly thereafter, Frederick Burkhardt, Chair
of the Presidential Search Committee, invited the Bedford
Stuyvesant Coalition on Educational Needs and Services to
meet with the Search Committee on March 14, 1968 at the
CUNY Central Headquarters.*” This meeting would initiate
the unique and momentous year long relationship between
the CUNY Board of Higher Education and the Bedford
Stuyvesant community.

Prior to the historic March 14" meeting with the CUNY
Board, the Bedford Stuyvesant Coalition on Educational
Needs and Services met to elect a steering committee. This
committee would represent the community at the March 14
Board meeting. The fifteen community representatives,
chaired by Al Vann, met with six members of the Board and
five CUNY staff members. The community representatives
were cautious, and it took a while to break the ice. As Vann
put it, “It soon became obvious that the ‘establishment’ was
almost as mistrustful of us as we were of them. The long
evening required a great deal of patience and dialogue on
both sides.”

By the end of the evening, the members of the Board
seemed very impressed by the level of concern exhibited by

the community representatives and by their singleness of
32

purpose.*® The community members emphatically raised
two basic concerns: (1) The college should be a four year
college granting BA and BS degrees, and (2) The college
should be controlled by the community. They also pressed
for a decisive role in the selection of a president, the
distribution of the budget (after allocation by the Board), the
determination of curricula, and the selection of all college
personnel.°? Even though the Board responded positively to
the community concerns voiced at the meeting, community
representatives saw this first meeting as a “polite
confrontation,” a tentative relationship that would require
expert steering and maneuvering if the interests of the
community were to be served.

The March 14" meeting obviously had an impact, and at
the official meeting of the CUNY Board of Higher Education
held on March 25, 1968, the Board passed an
unprecedented resolution to include an equal number of
community representatives on the Board’s Committee To
Seek a President for Community College No.7. The Board
also extended the work of the committee to include “... the
responsibility to plan for the development of and to activate
the college in the Central Brooklyn area designated as
Community College No.7”. °' The community group was
given extensive power as the Board went on to further define
their responsibilities by stating that this group would be “...
designated by these communities to participate fully in the

continuing deliberations of the committee in planning the
33


development and activation of the college. The committee
as thus enlarged shall be authorized to hear and consult with
any and all individuals and groups in the community in
question.”®*

The community representatives were given an equal
voice on the Board’s committee, and with this new role they
had successfully carved out for themselves, the first phase
of the struggle ended. A partnership had been established
between the Board and the community. The Search
Committee’s mandate, which had been extended to include
planning and operationalizing the new college in Central
Brooklyn, meant that the community, with its five member
representation, would now have an equal voice in all aspects
of establishing this new college. This was an_ historic
moment for the African American community and an historic
moment for The CUNY Board. For the first time in the
history of higher education in New York City, the African
American community would have equal voice in defining a
CUNY college.

34

Faculty





Faculty

Faculty





Cultural Life



Student Life Struggle Years



Community Environment Community Environment

New Victory

RESTAURANT ("=



Original Campus Buildings Original Campus Buildings



The photographs included in this history are

representative of faculty & staff in the founding

decades of the college. These pictures were culled
from existing college yearbooks. We apologize to all
faculty and staff whose pictures were unavailable.

Part II

Breaking Ground in the Racial
Divide of New York City

51


New alliances are often fragile and tenuous. They either
become stabilized and entrenched or fractured and never
heard of again. Within this context, the newly constituted
and unprecedented Presidential Search and Planning
Committee began the next phase of struggle where
members of the community and members of the Board
carefully traversed unchartered territory that they negotiated
through a veil of mistrust. These negotiations across a
gaping racial divide were a testament to new possibilities.
This section of the story explores both the potentialities and
shortcomings of this significant attempt to redefine race
relations in public higher education in New York City.

In April 1968, shortly after the newly constituted
Presidential Search and Planning Committee was
established, the Bedford Stuyvesant Coalition’s steering
committee sent a letter to the Board, Governor Rockefeller,
and Mayor Lindsay gracefully accepting their new role on the
Search Committee. At the same time the letter chastised the
Board for not seriously considering, “... our just demands ...
and irreversible concerns: A _four_year college that is
community controlled."** Vann, writing on behalf of the
Steering Committee of the Coalition, acknowledged the
positive actions taken by the Board in response to the
community. He continued by making a strong case for both
community control and a four-year degree-granting
institution. Vann noted the alienation of African American

52

youth from established educational institutions, and cogently
argued that when schools articulate and reflect the values of
the community, they counter this chronic alienation. Vann
then cited the ineffectiveness of City College in working with
the Black and Puerto-Rican community and the students’
resultant alienation. To counter this, Vann demanded that
Mr. Chandler (the Board Chair) indicate in writing the
mechanism whereby the community would be assured of a
“legitimate” college that was a community controlled, four
year degree conferring institution.™

This letter was important in two ways: It established a
pattern of negotiations which continued as long as the
community interacted with the Board, and it affirmed that the
community would accept the Board’s compromise but
continue to actively press for their primary demand, a four-
year degree-granting college that is controlled by the
community. In response, the Board would meet some of the
community's concerns but ignore others. Neither group was
truly comfortable with the compromises needed to insure
cordial negotiations. While these compromises allowed the
negotiations to continue, they also left unresolved issues that
hovered over the negotiations. When these issues finally
erupted, they widened the fault line of the Great Divide.

Shortly after accepting their role on the Presidential
Search and Planning Committee, Al Vann sent a second
memorandum of understanding on behalf of the Steering

Committee of the Bedford Stuyvesant Coalition that outlined
53


the two commitments he claimed the Board made to the
community: (1) The community would exercise final approval
in the presidential search; and (2) The Presidential Search
Committee would have a _ majority of community
representation.°° These commitments as defined by Vann
were never again mentioned in any correspondence with
the Board or in the Board’s correspondences or reports.
Most significantly, these claims never became part of the
actual operations of the newly formed committee. However,
Vann’s memo of understanding revealed the community's
profound mistrust of the Board and their desire to insure that
community needs were prioritized. This memo
foreshadowed the final conflict over the presidency.

At the next meeting of the Bedford Stuyvesant Coalition
Steering Committee, a five member negotiating team was
chosen to represent the community on the CUNY Search
Committee. The Negotiating Team, as they would
henceforth be called, would be headed by Al Vann, and
included: Ella Sease, PTA District 16; Judge Thomas Jones,
Chair, Board of Directors, Bed ford Stuyvesant Restoration;
Robert Carson, Community Relations Corporation; Jack
Panningam, Brothers and Sisters for African American Unity;
and Dr. Herman 8B. Patterson as an_ alternate
representative. The team represented a broad spectrum
of the African American community. There were community
members who believed that working through the law and the

legislature were the only way to meet their educational
54

needs; community activists involved in the Ocean Hill-
Brownsville struggle; political activists who defined their
understanding of racial politics in terms of human rights,
social justice, and principles of Black Power; and a PTA
representative and other community residents who just
wanted a better education for the children in the community.

Chancellor Bowker kept a small file of flyers and
newspaper articles that documented the political activities of
some of the newly elected community members. One
can only speculate on why these files were kept, as there
were no parallel files for other Board members. Most likely
the Chancellor felt the need to become better acquainted
with the range of perspectives held by the community
representatives in order to better negotiate the Board’s
position. One can also speculate that liberal members of
the Board might have been intimidated by the intense radical
political climate in New York City and were suspicious of the
more militant members of the Negotiating Team. Most
probably, this climate encouraged them to collect newspaper
articles, fliers, and other printed materials that kept them
abreast of nuanced changes in the thinking and beliefs of the
Black community.

One newspaper article in the Bowker files showed
Robert “Sonny” Carson Speaking at a July meeting of The
Peace and Freedom Party. The Party platform projected an
image of a revolutionary group working in the U.S. in a

situation that had deteriorated so badly that Black people
55


had to be in “... a state of rebellion which is what the Black
people are in now.”*” Another letter in the file from the
Black Caucus, a political action group who addressed their
constituency as “Brothers and Sisters,” listed Al Vann, a
veteran member of the Ocean Hill- Brownsville struggle and
a member of the African American Teachers Association,
as their campaign manager. The Caucus’ philosophy,
printed on the letterhead, stated, “We believe that Black
people, in order to participate in the present political
framework of the country, must have their own party and
political representatives. We feel that only men and women
based in the Black community can meaningfully represent
and serve the Black community.”° These letters, fliers and
newspaper clippings explained or encapsulated some of the
ideologies that the Board would confront as negotiations for
the development of the new Community College No.7
unfolded over the next year.

In the early stages of the negotiations, dissension was
kept to a minimum. The community members and the Board
representatives on the ten-member search Committee were
united around a common goal and were eager to begin their
task of defining a new college. The negotiating team setup a
small office in the community and put in a request to the
CUNY Board for a more comprehensive space, personnel,
and funds to help them effectively carry out their mission.
They believed they would need independent resources in

order to negotiate competently and to make intelligent and
56

free decisions on behalf of their community. To this end, they
formulated a budget, and they reaffirmed the community's
demands for a four-year college that would be community
controlled. They then sent their request for funds to the
Board.°°

In the series of memos and phone calls that followed this
initial request, the Coalition continued to negotiate for space
in Bedford Stuyvesant and for a support staff that would help
with their work on the Search Committee. They were looking
to rent offices and a conference room that would
accommodate 15 to 20 people. This additional meeting
space would be designed to encourage extensive
community participation in the planning of Community
College No.7. ©

When some time had passed and the community still
had not received space or funds, their negotiations with the
Board became tense. Al Vann chastised the Board for not
providing the bare essential services and personnel that had
been promised, and he warned that, “The community would
soon begin to once again suspect insincerity on the part of
the establishment.”®' Chancellor Bowker tried to persuade
the Board to meet the community's request for space even
though internal memos sent to Board members suggest that
he didn’t believe the community needed the space to
continue their work on the Search Committee. He acceded
to the request because he understood that this would be a

significant step in trying to bridge the power differences
57


between the two groups and because he felt that not
honoring the request would “... precipitate a major crisis.”

This cautious interaction set the tone for the initial stages
of the negotiations; both sides perceived a need for vigilance
as mistrust surfaced. In the attempt to negotiate uncharted
terrain, the Board was sensitive to disparity in power and
funds, and aware of the intensity of the larger racial struggle
within the city and the country. Concerned with maintaining
an adequate working relationship with the community, the
Board acceded to those community demands they felt they
could honor. The community, on the other hand, needed to
insure that they would be taken seriously, treated with
respect, and given the material conditions to function
effectively as a community group on the Board’s Search and
Planning Committee.

As negotiations over funding continued, CUNY
produced a document in 1968, entitled, “A proposal to
Establish Community College No.7,” which _ clearly
established that the Board was, “... moving to correct the
existing situation where several communities within New
York City receive a disproportionately small share of the
educational opportunities available to the city as a whole.” ©
The report contained the clearest statement of the goals and
principals of Community College No.7 and established that
this was to be the first truly neighborhood community college
in CUNY designed to meet the needs of a “ghetto”

population.“ For the first time the proposal mentioned the
58

possibility of, . an additional upper division institution
similar to Richmond” which would include a teacher training
institution like the one that had been proposed for Harlem. °°

The report continued to show that the University was
seriously grappling with ways to make the college, “... meet
the special needs of the students and community at-large in
a disadvantaged area,” while acknowledging that budgeting
and staffing limitations made it difficult to develop programs
based on the latest educational research for this new student
population. ©

There was clearly an unease with this new kind of
college as the report defined specific guidelines and
innovations like Saturday workshops, reduced loads, faculty
development, additional support services, and counseling for
the new student population.” While these new and
interesting ideas grew out of both the educational
innovations of the times and the particular interactions
between the Board and the community, it also seemed that
these guidelines were not only generated to improve
academics but also to make the Board feel more comfortable
with the idea that a college in a “ghetto” community could
succeed. In either case this new way of thinking about a
college education was important in democratizing higher
education in United States.

Amicable negotiations continued as the steering
committee of the Bedford Stuyvesant Coalition continued to

forcefully press for Baccalaureate programs. In fact, this
59


constant pressure for a four-year institution was probably the
most significant factor in finally establishing Medgar Evers
College as a baccalaureate degree granting institution.
Furthermore, the Board’s willingness to listen and respond to
the voices of the community effectively encouraged dialogue
across the Great Divide.

While Bowker personally agreed that Medgar Evers
College should be permitted to offer baccalaureate degrees,
he was bound by state regulations and the State’s official
designation of Community College No.7 as a two-year
institution. In his letter dated Aug., 1968, Chancellor Bowker
explains in detail the state imposed constraints on
establishing a four-year institution and claims that the
college was essentially approved and funded by the state as
a community college and, therefore, funds could not be
“diverted” to establish another entity.°° The Chancellor tried
to assuage the community by suggesting that there might be
creative ways to deal with establishing four-year programs at
the college. He then made a personal commitment to seek
permission from the Board of Regents and the State
University to “... permit Community College No.7 to extend
its course of instruction beyond the junior college level in
specialized professional lines such as teaching and nursing
and to award baccalaureate degrees in such fields.” ©

The Chancellor argued confidently that he could get this
authority, and promised that if the present plan failed, he

would explore alternate plans for establishing baccalaureate
60

programs. Bowker’s position was interesting on several
levels. It showed a strong desire by the Chancellor to meet
the demands of the community; however, it also clearly
asserted the power of the Board. Bowker put forth a veiled
threat stating that if the community was not interested in
Community College No.7 as it has already been defined, it
was unlikely that the Board of Higher Education would
proceed with the plan. He asked that the community accept
his promise and plan, and stated that if they didn’t accept “...
the current assurance that baccalaureate degrees will be
available to these students and that City University will work
on different approaches to this issue, then | don’t think the
Board of Higher Education will (would) proceed with this
plan." Bowker tried to persuade the community to accept
the plan as it was, with the assurances he had given.

The Chancellor worked on two fronts. The first was to
establish four-year programs for Community College No.7.
The second was to obtain additional funds for staffing and
space for the Bedford Stuyvesant Coalition Steering
Committee. When he finally succeeded in procuring funds
from the CUNY budget, he met with resistance from
members of the Board who did not want CUNY funds
diverted to community groups. Determined to
accommodate the Community, Bowker managed to obtain
grant money from the Ford Foundation for $442,000, some
of which was to cover the costs of the Bedford Stuyvesant

61


Coalition. Until the Ford money came through, Bowker
agreed to cover minor interim costs from University funds.”’

Conflict had been contained and another step in the
negotiations was completed. The community would now
have the money to staff an office in Bedford Stuyvesant.
Their next major focus was to extend the definition of
Community College No.7 to include Baccalaureate programs
as well as Associate degree programs. While the Board had
intimated that this was a real possibility and promised to
pursue the issue, there were still no official documents
acknowledging that the college in Bedford Stuyvesant would
offer four-year programs.

Yet on August 28", the Coalition issued a news release
entitled, “Bedford Stuyvesant Seeks President for
Experimental Community College.” In this release, the
Coalition asserted that a community controlled junior college
“... will open its doors to 500 students in September 1969 as
a result of Bedford Stuyvesant community's decision to
accept CUNY’s proposal to establish a two-year college in
the area which will grant Baccalaureate degrees in
specialized fields."”* | This news release seemed to be
based more on Bowker’s promise than on any official
documentation, and the issue of four-year degree programs
continued to remain an item for negotiation throughout the
Fall of 1968. The press release also established that the
president for whom they were currently searching would be

crucial in defining the new college because his educational
62

philosophy would be, “.... the fulcrum in creating this
revolutionary institution of higher learning ...” 7°

The release went on to enumerate criteria for the new
leader stating, “He must be aware and sensitive to the
problems, educationally and environmentally, plaguing
minority group youth in large cities; be able to identify with
the aspirations of the Bedford Stuyvesant area to develop an
institution of excellence; and have strong and positive
convictions about community control.””4 The release
concluded with a request that parties interested in the
presidency send resumes to the Coalition as soon as
possible.

That fall the entire Black community of New York City
closely watched the political activity surrounding the creation
of the new college in Bedford Stuyvesant. When an editorial
appeared in the Amsterdam News using harsh words to
describe the Negotiating Team and criticizing the slow pace
of the negotiations, Al Vann chastised the editor for the
newspaper's lack of support and stated, “In view of the
facts, the inference in the editorial directed at the Coalition
and its negotiating team are unwarranted and unjust. The
interests of community cohesion demands better
investigation.” ”

There had always been differing ideas within the African
American community about how negotiations should
proceed, and Al Vann, the Negotiating Team, and the

Coalition continually tried to address these differences so
63


that one voice would be presented across the Great Divide.
Vann and others felt that the editorial, which was critical of
the negotiations, was disruptive of what appeared to be a
unified presence. Meanwhile, the Steering Committee of
the Bedford Stuyvesant Community Coalition continued to
meet every two weeks to develop negotiating strategies,
address community concerns about the presidency, and
work on all other pressing issues regarding the
establishment of Community College No.7.

This was a particularly difficult and confrontational
period in New York City. The teachers’ strike had closed
down the City’s schools in September 1968, and tensions
within and between communities and between the
communities and the City ran high. Al Vann, Chair of the
Negotiating Team, was also an active member of the African
American Teachers Association, which was instrumental in
the ensuing struggle between the community of Ocean Hill-
Brownsville and the teachers’ union and the City. The
African American Teachers’ Association opposed the strike,
and many of its members worked in the schools of Ocean
Hill-Brownsville alongside parents in order to keep those
schools open. Vann was now forced to miss_ several
Coalition meetings in order to address the deepening crisis
in the adjacent community of Ocean Hill-Brownsville. Both
he and Sonny Carson, who was also a member of the
negotiating team, were deeply involved in that struggle.

Their involvement clearly had a profound effect on the
64

negotiations over community control and the presidency of
the new college.

By early October, the negotiating team began to review
the resumes of potential presidential candidates and then
readjust the criteria. Additional criteria now included, not
only those characteristics outlined in the September press
release, but also that the candidate must be Black, not more
than 55 years of age, willing to reside in the community,
have experience in public schools as well as higher
education, have creative ideas on curriculum development
and a willingness to accept community control of the
College. Judge Jones, another member of the Negotiating
Team, added to this list that the candidate should be married
so that he could be an important role model for youth.” The
Coalition then developed a survey which would be sent to
target populations in the community asking what would they
like to see in a college in the community, what turned them
off about going to college, and other pertinent questions.”
The questionnaire was designed to help the community plan
a college that would be attuned to the youth in the
community and would be able to meet their needs and
aspirations.

At this point it is interesting to note that only two
members of the ten members Search Committee were
women and that gender played a subtle role in some of the
team’s attitudes and decisions. We see gender issues at

play in the assumption that the president of the college
65


would be male, and, once again, when Ella Sease, the only
female community representative on the Negotiating Team,
defended the children’s right to an education over what she
believed were the politics involved in choosing a president
for the college.

The Coalition, in conjunction with the Negotiating Team,
reviewed the resumes of the candidates while CUNY
continued to pursue strategies that would allow the college
to provide Baccalaureate Degree programs. An internal
document, written in the Fall of 1968 and sent out from the
Dean of Community College’s office, claimed that there was
extensive opposition to adding Baccalaureate capacity to a
community college and that CUNY would now have to take a
new approach to the issue. The document stated that, “A
totally new approach has now offered itself for consideration.
This is to establish a specialized 4-year college which would
combine two year curricula with baccalaureate degrees in

78 The report went on to state

professional career fields.
that, “... all aspects such as funding, standards and general
orientation of the College would remain as_ presently
defined.” ’°

This new approach identified Community College No.7 as
a four-year college but limited the number of Baccalaureate
programs to those in professional career fields. The report
argued that this experimental senior college would be
exclusive to the Bedford Stuyvesant community and would

implement innovative ideas being tested around the country.
66

The new college was now being defined as a senior college
with associate degree programs rather than a community
college with baccalaureate programs. The report stated that,
“Under this plan the Bedford Stuyvesant college would be
considered in the same category as a senior college
although it would be a distinct and special type of senior
college.””° As we shall see, this new definition of the
College would have many positive implications for the further
development of the College.

CUNY needed approval from the Board and from state
Officials before it could publicly acknowledge the new plan.
During this interim period, information pertaining to the plan
was kept highly confidential and for internal consumption
only. The community's persistent pressure was finally
beginning to pay off.

In early December, a snag in the negotiations emerged
when the community discovered that CUNY had not notified
them of the funds received from the Ford Foundation that
were to be earmarked for their operating expenses.*' In
response, Al Vann sent a telegram to Chancellor Bowker
canceling all presidential interviews “... in view of the
developments which necessitate a meeting with the
presidential search committee to bring about clarification to
the Negotiating Team.” = The strong wording of the
telegram was directly related to the outrage felt by the
community at not being notified of the newly acquired funds.

67


This reticence by the Board “... reinforced many
negative expectations about CUNY and its representatives,
and preparation was made for inevitable confrontation at the
next meeting.” At this meeting, members of the
community's Negotiating Team confronted members of the
Board, and Fred Burkhardt, Chairman of the Planning and
Search Committee, reassured the Coalition that the
spending of the Ford Grant would be a cooperative effort. A
follow-up memo from Acting Dean Joseph Shenker
reaffirmed that the grant entitlements would be a cooperative
effort, and that the portion that was specifically delegated to
the community coalition would be given to them directly.

The memo calmed the Coalition, and Vann immediately
responded to the Board appreciatively, acknowledging the
Board’s immediate response to community concerns and the
sensitivity with which they addressed these concerns. Vann
stated that, “... both parties are sincere and have flexibility.”
He then went on to say that,"... since all the grievances had
been aired, it was now possible to build on the positive
relationship that had been established over the past eight
months.”®° Vann further acknowledged that the negotiations
between the different members of the Search Committee
had been an extraordinary accomplishment and perhaps
would provide a model that could be emulated by other
community groups and universities around the country.®
Both Vann and the Board were proud of the fact that this

experimental college and their collaboration charted new
68

territory in higher education, and they wanted to insure that
this innovative relationship continued to benefit both parties.

Things started to move rapidly, and in January 1969 the
Board approved the resolution to create a four-year
experimental professional college in Bedford Stuyvesant.
The resolution stated, “The Board is asked to authorize,
instead of a new community college in joint operation with
SUNY, a four year experimental professional college with
four-year professional and technological programs in a
variety of fields, also offering two-year career curricula in
technological areas and transfer programs in Liberal Arts

and Sciences ...”°”

This new resolution was adopted with a
nearly unanimous vote, and would now need final approval
from the State Board of Regents.

A new document outlined the need for this experimental
college in Brooklyn and demonstrated CUNY’s awareness of
the segregated patterns of enrollment in higher education.
The document argued that the present arrangement of
community colleges and senior colleges seemed to foster
segregation and that this, “... new type of baccalaureate
program afforded by the college of professional studies
would attract students from all parts of the city, thus

contributing to a desirable racial balance.”°°

It emphasized
the importance of this new college if City University was to
meet its target goal to increase enrollment in community and
senior colleges, and if City University was to be more

sensitive to the labor needs of New York City.8? The
69


essential point of the document was that both the community
and the university would benefit from this new four-year
institution. :

With the Board’s mandate for a new experimental
college in Bedford Stuyvesant that offered both select
Baccalaureate Degree programs in professional studies and
Associate Degree programs, one of the Coalition's primary
goals was achieved. This was another amazing victory for
the community and for the Negotiating Team. _‘ Traditional
separation of town and gown had been momentarily erased
when the town had clearly influenced the “gown”. Yet, this
historic moment remained fragile as the issues of community
control and who would be the president of the new
experimental college still needed to be addressed.

The community strongly believed that the president
would be crucial in defining the college and establishing the
complex and unprecedented relationship between the
college and the community. The stakes were high,
particularly if the vision of the community was to extend
beyond the negotiating stages and into the future life of the
college.

The January meeting of the Search Committee began
with an informal interview of Rhody McCoy, one of the
presidential candidates. The names of the other
candidates to be interviewed were reviewed and included a
number of significant figures in the Black community:

Samuel Westerfield Jr., Preston Wilcox, Samual O Proctor,
70

Deborah Wolfe, Jerome Holt, and Roscoe Brown. After
meeting with McCoy, Bowker clearly stated his belief that,
“... Should a man like McCoy be chosen ... one who has
great community support and less educational background,
he would not be academically respected.”®° He argued that
if the committee was going to consider a non-academic for
the role of president, they should focus on significant public
figures. The following week, at the January 13" meeting
held at the Graduate Student Center, the committee agreed
to continue interviewing candidates for a few more weeks.
Following those interviews, they would review their findings
and nominate the president of the new experimental college
in Bedford Stuyvesant.

Meanwhile, dissension within the Coalition became
more evident, and Al Vann tried to insure that the community
would continue to speak with a uniform voice. He was
aware that any crevice could weaken their bargaining power.
In a letter to members of the Coalition, Vann addressed this
concern by praising the community’s unified work and their
amazing achievements to date, Specifically mentioning their
victory in establishing an experimental College in the
community offering four-year professional programs. He
then went on to severely chastise members in the
community who he felt were, “... Brothers attempting to
destroy the achievements thus far and deter us from the
realization of our common goal.”*' Vann was very aware that

a split in the community would allow the Board to make
71


deals with those groups who were most accommodating to
the Board’s position and that this would dilute the power of
the present Negotiating Team. —

Vann accurately assessed a situation that would only
grow more fractious as the selection of the president
proceeded. However, in the early stages of the process,
while there was some grumbling and complaining, there was
little dissension over the Board’s and the Community's first
choice for president. On March 21, 1969, the Search
Committee sent an official letter offering the position of
president of Community College No.7 to the Honorable Hugh
Smythe, a U.S. ambassador to Malta. Dr. Smythe, a former
professor at Brooklyn College who also headed the graduate
program in Sociology, had received a unanimous vote from
the Search Committee. Unfortunately, Dr. Smythe declined
the nomination because he felt that as only one of four Black
U.S. Ambassadors, he must serve out his term.°? Several
other candidates were now offered the position, but they too
declined.

With the list of candidates almost exhausted, the
Committee meetings became more contentious. The
Negotiating Team began to assert its right to select the
president who would be most conducive to the needs of the
community. Rhody Mc Coy, who had been the
superintendent of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville School district,
became the choice of the five community representatives on

the Presidential Search Committee. The five CUNY Board
72

members on the search committee vetoed McCoy. The
battle lines were drawn along the fault line of the Great
Divide as the Community's position became more intractable
over the next few months.

After almost a year of negotiations, the Board’s Search
Committee had come to an impasse. Tensions reached a
feverish pitch at the May 1969 meeting held at the Graduate
Center. Community representatives insisted on McCoy as
president of College No.7, while the five Board members
refused to entertain their choice.

The ensuing arguments over the impasse concerning
who would be president of the College were intense. The
Chancellor received reports about verbal altercations, and
he was particularly disturbed by the Negotiating Team’s
insistence on one particular candidate. Chancellor Bowker
responded to the fractious meeting by expressing his
distress in a letter to Al Vann. For the first time Bowker
addressed Mr. Vann as Chair of the Bedford Stuyvesant
Coalition rather than as Chair of the Negotiating Team, the
position he had held for the last year.°? Bowker asserted his
power as Chancellor and dealt with the impasse by removing
Al Vann from his official position on the search committee. In
his letter to Vann, the Chancellor wrote, “I very much regret
that we have come to an impasse - a deadlock with the

”84 He went on to articulate his and the

Negotiating Team ...
Board’s position. He reaffirmed his commitment to a

community oriented and community involved college, but
2B


reiterated the initial agreement that the community would be
given equal weight in the choice of the first president of the
newly formed College No.7. He re-emphasized the phrase

"85 The letter went on to argue that, “The

“equal weight.
Board of Higher Education could not by law or policy divest
itself of its responsibility to establish and operate a college in
Central Brooklyn.”*° The implication of the statement was
that the Board and the Chancellor would not allow the
community to override the veto of the Board.

Bowker proceeded to clarify the agreement made
between the Board and the Community, and explained that
“The Board never pledged, suggested or implied that the
negotiating team could ever be given the power to name the
president regardless of the views of the Board.”*” He went
on to say that the joint committee operated on an implicit and
explicit agreement in which the Board would respect the veto
power of the representatives of the community and of course
the community would recognize the veto power and inherent
legal responsibility of the Board. The Chancellor strongly
suggested that the present impasse had not honored this
agreement, and that the Board’s Search committee could not
and would not endorse Mr. McCoy’s appointment.

It was clear that the Board would not let the community’s
voice override its concerns. While the Chancellor
acknowledged the candidate’s sensitivity to the needs of the
community and his strong support in the community, he and

the Board felt that Rhody McCoy was unacceptable because
74

he did not have adequate administrative experience in
higher education and would not be able to gain the respect
of other academicians or be able to attract good faculty.%
The Chancellor continued to explain that McCoy’s name on
the list of final candidates did not imply the Board’s approval
but rather implied that it was merely part of an agenda of
names the Board would consider.

Clear about the University’s and the Board’s decision
and clear about the ways in which the lines between the two
groups had hardened, the Chancellor felt forced to close off
all possibility of continued negotiations with the existing
community representatives. He ended his letter to Vann by
stating that plans for the College could not be pursued

unless, “... new arrangements for community participation in

the discussion and planning can be arrived at.” ®

Not surprisingly, the community saw the situation
differently. In a letter to the Chancellor, Vann discussed the
perspective of the community. He described a process
whereby McCoy became one of six finalists after the
committee had reviewed 100 resumes. Several of the six
finalists had declined and others already had positions, thus
leaving McCoy as the only viable candidate on the list of
finalists. Vann explained that it was his understanding that
in the Board’s agreement of the six finalists, they had made
a tacit agreement that McCoy was an acceptable candidate
for president. In the letter, Vann continued to take exception

to not being addressed as the Chair of the Negotiating Team
75


and asserted his view that the Chancellor did not have the
power to suddenly remove him from his elected position on
the Team. He reiterated that the community’s choice for
president of the new college was Rhody McCoy, and he
ended the letter by saying, “The coalition remains intact and
ready to continue to plan for a college of excellence. Our
Negotiating Team is our legitimate negotiating structure and
will continue to represent the community.” 1°°

In a recent interview, Vann clarified this position. He told
the interviewers, “Nobody (whom the community chose)
would have been acceptable. We had established a process
which they did not honor.”"*' Vann was referring to his
understanding that McCoy, who had made it to the list of the
six finalists, was a viable candidate and should not have
been discarded by Board members once he became the
only candidate willing to accept the position.

Each side had become more and more entrenched in
their position and the lines had hardened. Yet, it was not
completely clear why or how the positions had reached such
a hard line at this point. Not too much earlier the Negotiating
Team seemed much more amenable to the Chancellor's
position of equal voice and, in a progress summary Vann

sent to the community in March 1969, only two months
earlier, he proudly stated: “For the first time the community
will share in the selection of the person who will become
president of the College. This person must meet the
approval of the members of the Board of Higher Education

76

and of our negotiating team.” —_ Clearly, Vann’s progress
report in March accepted the notion of equal voice, but by
May this had all changed.

One explanation for the subsequent intractability could
have been directly related to the demise, in November 1968,
of the community control experiment in the adjacent Ocean
Hill-Brownsville. McCoy, who had been superintendent of
that school experiment, was no longer superintendent and
was now available for the presidency of the new college.
Perhaps Vann and others saw in McCoy an opportunity to
resurrect the dream of community control that had inspired
the Ocean Hill-Brownsville experiment. Perhaps they also
firmly believed that only someone who had worked with
community control, who was familiar with the Central
Brooklyn Community, and who was committed to the ideals
of community involvement would be able to create a
community-based CUNY college in Central Brooklyn. In a
recent interview, Vann confirmed these conjectures when he
queried, “How much community control can you have if the
man (President) is really chosen to follow their (the Board's)
tune?™'

Another explanation for the intractability could have
been that Vann and the others were concerned that opening

the search a second time would prolong the process to such
a degree that the College would not be opened for some
time. They might have felt that, in the delay, the momentum
and the promises of the four-year institution to be run by the

77


community would be further compromised. Perhaps they
were also concerned that the Board appeared to be less
supportive of the concept of a community-based college
since they rejected the only candidate who had experience
with community based education.

In either case, while Vann appeared to articulate the
position of the community, the dissension and questioning
that had always existed within the Coalition surfaced more
strongly. Not everyone agreed with the particular political
position Vann articulated, yet because everyone had agreed
to a common set of educational goals, dissension had been
kept to a minimum. All the members of the Coalition
supported a college that conferred four-year Baccalaureate
degrees and had community input in the designing of the
college and in the selection of a president. This common
understanding created a camaraderie that allowed for a
unified voice. Vann clearly held the respect of the
community and when disagreement surfaced, he was able to
rally this common voice to rise above the detractors so the
community could slowly edge toward its goal. However, the
rigid stance on McCoy sparked dissension in the ranks of the

Coalition. Now the muted voices became much louder as

division mounted and cracks deepened.
Interviews with two community activists, both of whom

were women, provide additional insight into the political
dynamics surrounding this impasse. Louise Glover, a long

time member of the Coalition, believed that this was
78

Particularly critical time in the African American community
and explained, “It was a time when everybody was trying to
be Blacker than everybody else. If you did not agree with Al
and his friends, then you were an outcast; you weren't Black
at all." In describing the controversy as it became more
and more entrenched, Louise said, “We all agreed that
McCoy was significant. He stood ten feet tall as he handled
the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis, but he was not college
president material.”1

Louise Glover expressed what others, who also did not
agree with Vann, were thinking. Previously, when
dissenting members felt they had a legitimate Position, they
kept their opposition Somewhat muted. They feared that
any show of disagreement would allow the Board to divide
and conquer, and the community would end up getting a
weakened version of what they wanted and what had thus
far been agreed upon. However, when it seemed that the
ten of the Negotiating Team was jeopardizing the
Primary goal of a four-year community-based college, the
dissenting voices grew more forceful. As these members
became more vociferous they were cajoled, coerced and

intimidated. Ella Sease described the situation when she
Said, “ Child, it was hot out there!”

Some of the dissident members responded by remaining

silent or working in like-minded pairs to help each other.

Ms. Sease recalled a time when she was intimidated at the

jubway station, and Louise Glover drove her to a section of
79


Brooklyn where she continued her journey by cab. She told
the interviewers that without Ms. Glover’s help, it would have
been very difficult for her to keep attending all of the
meetings. “Though this was a tense time in the negotiations,
there was enormous dedication,” said Louise Glover. “We
were at the Coalition office on Lafayette (street) all the time.
Whatever it took!”"°”

According to Ms. Glover and Ms. Sease, while the hard
work continued, so did the intimidation. “The feeling of
intimidation was everywhere,” said Ms Glover as she went
on to describe a chance meeting she had with Sonny
Carson, a member of the Negotiating Team’ Louise told
Sonny, “You better pray to Jesus that nothing ever happens
to me on Fulton Street because I'll always believe you did it,
and I’m coming to get you! My grandpa taught me how to
shoot and | can shoot welll’? Louise, a very proper, well
dressed and well mannered elderly women, went on to
describe how Sonny listened carefully, looked up at her,
and grinned. She ended this story by bringing it up to date
and saying, “Till this day if Sonny Carson is on one side of
the street and I’m on the other, he will come over almost
immediately and ask, ‘How are you.’ | in turn extend my
hand because | ain’t mad. | won!”""°

Dissension in the community became incorporated into
the ways in which community members would continue to
see each other even after the establishment of the College

and throughout the next few decades. Intimidation and
80

refusal to be intimidated lived side by side as Vann and the
Negotiating Team pressed for McCoy to be president and
the Board refused to continue the joint sessions after the
fiery May meeting.

Concerned that their work over the past few years might
turn to naught, a new group calling itself the Concerned
Members of the Bedford Stuyvesant Coalition was formed.
The group seems to have been spearheaded by Ella Sease,
Louise Glover and other concerned Coalition members.
Early on a Sunday morning, these community residents got
together in the Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council’s
office to sort out their response to the current impasse. “We
didn’t even go to church, and when we got to the office that
morning we didn’t even have a clue as to where we were
going.”"""

As she continued talking, Ms. Glover articulated that she
was somewhat surprised at the way in which this small
group of community activists produced a memo of
understanding that would be sent to the Board. She went on
to describe the writing of this memo: “I typed it on my little
Royal portable typewriter. We had decided to go it alone, so
we wrote our own manifesto and CUNY accepted the
manifesto.”""

This group, which became known as the Concerned
Members of Bedford Stuyvesant, sent the manifesto to
Chancellor Bowker on June 10, 1969, and stated that they

did not agree with the inflexible position taken by members
81


of the Negotiating Team. They went on to say, “Due to the
lack of integrity in which community meetings have been
conducted, there is no other vehicle through which we can
register our total disapproval. Therefore, we demand that
the negotiations be resumed immediately, and strengthened
with representatives of our majority dissident group.”
Signatures on the Manifesto included representatives from
the NAACP, Brooklyn chapter; the Salvation Army; the
Community of Bedford Stuyvesant and Bushwick; the
Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council; Bedford Stuyvesant
Youth-in-Action; Unity Democratic Club, Bedford Branch; the
Brooklyn YMCA; the Inter-denominational Ministerial
Alliance; and the Urban League.'4

Shortly thereafter, Ella Sease, the only women
representative on the Negotiating Team rendered a heartfelt
plea for a college in the community in a handwritten note to
Fred Burkhardt, Chair of the Search Committee. She wrote,
“| will not sell out for McCoy only. We need the college for
the children. Please, with tears in my eyes for the children,
open the negotiating to the community so we can get the
college in Bedford Stuyvesant .... Please hear my cry for
the children ...”""

feeling and passion that had gone into the hard work to

Ms. Sease articulated the depth of

locate a college in the community. Afraid she would lose

hold of the dream that had almost become a reality, she —

proceeded to ask the Chancellor if he had received the

petition sent by District 16 to move forward on the college
82

and if she could bring together community groups that would
help move things along."® Ms. Sease, as the sole women
on the Negotiating Team, sent out a powerful and dissenting
cry.

It then became the time for the dissident group to
confront the Steering Committee of the Bedford Stuyvesant
Coalition that had until this point represented the voice of the
community. A memo signed by Concerned Members of
Bedford Stuyvesant was sent to the Coalition steering
committee. The memo did not include specific names of the
Concerned Members, but they clearly articulated their
concern that College No. 7 would not become a reality
unless the negotiating team was augmented with other
concerned members of Bedford Stuyvesant.'"”

A great deal of political activity was mounted around the
new crisis. Everyone was afraid that because of the
impasse, the college would be lost to the community. Black
politicians in Albany like Sam Wright and Assemblyman

“

Thomas Fortune now became involved urging, . an

acceleration of action on College No.7” and that the coalition

be broadened.'®

After meeting with Albany politicians,
Julius Edelstien, a CUNY professor and administrator,
explained that Assemblyman Thomas Fortune had
requested a meeting with the Chancellor, elected officials,
and Bedford Stuyvesant organizations.'®

Evidence of whether there was an official meeting is not

available. However, it was clear that groups were forming
83


outside the original negotiating team in order to remedy the
impasse of the negotiations. The college, which according
to the community press release, was slated to open in
September 1969, was nowhere near opening. In fact, it was
unclear if it ever would.

On September 16, 1969, the Board officially
acknowledged the impasse in the presidential search and
passed a resolution stating, “ Since the leadership of the
coalition has declined to accept the principles of choosing a
president mutually acceptable to the negotiating team and
since the only name continuously being presented and
insisted upon by the leadership has been and is hereby
reaffirmed as being entirely unacceptable to the Board a
complete impasse is found to exist’.'7° The Board went on
to say that the impasse could only exacerbate the present
relationship between the Board and the community, and the
Executive Committee of the Board passed a resolution
discharging the Presidential Search and _ Planning
Committee for College No. 7."

Four months after the impasse and almost sixteen
months after the formations of the historic committee
consisting of equal representation of the Board and the
community, the joint committee was officially disbanded.
The Executive Committee of the Board was now placed in
charge of all further efforts related to College No. 7. This
new committee was mandated to adhere to the creative

concepts already in place in regard to College No. 7, and to
84

immediately begin the search for the new president.
However, the community was not officially represented on
this new committee. James Oscar Lee, an African American
who was a resident of Central Brooklyn, was among the
Board members who approved the resolution and, as a
member of the Executive Committee, he was now put in
charge of the new search.

The new committee of the Board appeared to receive
some community in-put from the Concerned Members of
Bedford Stuyvesant, but this group did not seem to have
voting power or a defined role in the new process. Shortly
thereafter, the community offices on Lafayette Street were
dismantled, making it clear that there was no longer any
official community representation involved in the new search.

It was a sad day in Brooklyn and at CUNY. After
having traveled together through uncharted territory together
for over one year, the Search Committee’s bonds had
disintegrated. What had once been a subtle and not so
subtle set of interactions between the educational
establishment and the Bedford Stuyvesant community had
always been tempered by a joint commitment to the larger
goal of creating a community-based college in Central
Brooklyn. Now the movements back and forth across the
“Great Divide” ended. The positions hardened as
commitments to political ideologies came to the foreground
and the larger goal of the college became subsumed under

these ideologies.
85


Vann and his supporters advanced a clear idea of Black
power, community power and community control of the
college in terms of the Negotiating Team’s choice of
president. His side asserted the parameters of community
control that were very similar to those that had previously
been asserted in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville struggle. To
Vann, the college in the community would only be a college
for the community if the African American community had
the final say in choosing a president.

For the Board, this frozen terrain could not be traversed
or negotiated any longer because the community's stance
removed all power from the University, where the Board felt
the essential responsibility for the functioning of the new
college resided. They saw community control as shared
and participatory, rather than total, and for them, even this
was a radical departure from the way in which CUNY had
traditionally operated. In fact, the Board had received a
great deal of flack from community groups, alumni, and
faculty for their adventurous negotiations with the Bedford
Stuyvesant Community.

A group of concerned City College alumni voiced
serious questions about the level of community involvement,
and sent a letter to the Board asking that the University
refrain from sending the mandate for College No.7 to the
State Board of Regents until there was a public hearing on
the matter.’ The University faculty was also concerned

with the negotiations, and drafted a document entitled,
86

“Discussion of the Legal Authority of the Board of Higher
Education in Relation to the Establishment of a Special
College No.7.” These faculty members highlighted the legal
role of the Board in all searches and the limitations placed
on all other groups participating in such activities. They felt
that the precise role of the special committee for College
No.7 had to be clearly delineated, and its activities must take
place within the framework of an informal community
delegation.

The New York Times was also among those who
voiced concern. It suggested that the College was too
community-based and that this would make it “... difficult to
distinguish. between the College and the community.” On
another level, some Brooklyn community residents had
voiced concern that a community activist who chaired the
negotiating team had voiced what were perceived as anti-
Semitic remarks in the newsletter of the African American
Teachers Association. It was unclear if these allegations
were true or not, yet what was clear was that there had been
both pressure and concern by residents of the city, alumni,
and members of the University about the Board's activities
surrounding the new College. Even if these voices did not
directly affect the Board’s decision, they certainly buttressed
the new position of the Board. Politics won! What this
meant was that when negotiations became difficult and
tense, whoever had power asserted that power, and the

87


prospect of creating a new and unconventional entity in
CUNY was lost.

Unofficially, however, a community group of concerned
Brooklyn residents continued meeting with members of the
Board on an ad hoc basis, thus allowing the Board to feel
they were honoring their commitment to community
participation. Yet, the exact role of the concerned community
group and the exact role of the manifesto in the negotiations
were not clear. There seemed to be no official
documentation or archival material to suggest that they
played an official role in the final stages of creating College
No. 7. Yet they were consulted on college issues.

Ms. Glover describes how she and the Concerned
Members of Bedford Stuyvesant were asked by Dr. Lee,
Chair of the Executive Committee of the Board, to review
and comment on the resumes of three applicants for the

position of president of College No.7.'7°

Community
members now acted as advisors to the Board’s Executive
Committee rather than as equal partners in the creation of
College No.7. Several months later, Dr. Richard Trent was
appointed president of College No.7, effective March 1,
1970.2”

Those in the community who did not agree with the
Board's decision sent a series of letters to the Board and to
Dr. Trent himself. Al Vann’s telegram to Chancellor Bowker
asserted that the Board was perpetuating colonialism by

choosing a group in the community with which the Board
88

was willing to work. Vann asserted that the Board chose
those, “... it (the Board) wishes to deal with ... who will do
their bidding.” Vann demanded that the Board insure
community participation through a process of popular
election."° Letters were also sent directly to Dr. Trent
urging him not to accept the appointment because “...Your
acceptance of the appointment will only throw our
community into a more chaotic state.”"° Despite the letters,

Dr. Trent accepted the presidency.

89


Part [IT

Medgar Evers College

Is Born

91


In March 1970 Dr Trent began to operationalize plans for
College No.7. He formed an Ad Hoc Committee of
community residents with which he would work. It is not clear
how many members of this committee were from the
Concerned Community group that had emerged in 1969 and
worked with Dr. Lee on the Presidential Search Committee.
However, the members of this newly formed Ad Hoc
Committee for College No.7 included community activists
and politicians, many of whom worked on the College after
the Negotiating Team had been disbanded.

Thomas Fortune and Shirley Chisholm were among the
community members who came to the first meeting with Dr.
Trent in March 1970 where they discussed the name for the
college. This Ad Hoc Committee received official approval as
the community’s representatives who would work with the
president to define the newly established college. At this
first meeting, members considered Martin Luther King as
one possible choice for the College’s name, and they also
discussed enlarging the committee to include community
activists like Louise Glover and Ella Sease, as well as
representatives appointed by Fredrick Burhardt, Chair of the
CUNY Board of Higher Education. On March 16", Burhardt
selected James Oscar Lee, Luis Quero Chiesa, and
Minneola Ingersoll to serve on the College Committee. '*"

The Ad Hoc Committee would meet every month with

President Trent, and was responsible for keeping the
92

community informed of the developments regarding the
College. It was also charged with overseeing the hiring of
faculty and administration and defining the curriculum. At
the second meeting of the Committee, John Enoch,
representative of the Bedford Branch of the YMCA, was
elected acting Chair of the Committee.*? A sub-committee
was formed to look at and discuss the professional degrees
to be offered at the College, and at the May meeting, the
Committee approved the former Brooklyn Preparatory High
School located on Carroll Street in the Crown Heights
section of Brooklyn, as the first site of the new College in
Central Brooklyn. Chairperson Enoch also established a by-
laws committee that would clearly define the membership
and function of the Ad Hoc Committee, and the Committee’s
relationship to the University’s Board OF Higher Education
and the President of the College.’

On June 22, 1970, the Board approved the name of
Kings College, and on June 30, 1970, the name of the Ad
Hoc Planning Committee was changed to the Community
Council of Kings College of The City University of New
York.'** (It is this Community Council - with, of course, a
changing membership - that is still functioning at the College
today.) However, in July, 1970, the Community Council was
informed that there was a small college in Ossining New
York with the name of Kings College; therefore, they would
need to find a new name. The members compiled a list of

93


suggested names which included, T. McCann Steward,
Medgar Evers, Charles Drew, and Weeksville."*°

According to Louise Glover, the Community Council felt
concerned that the Board might choose a name that would
not be in keeping with the community's wishes, so the
Community Council took action. Ms. Glover describes
meeting at a local McDonald’s restaurant where several
members talked about possible names for the college.
Later, when she and some of these members were on their
way to an NAACP meeting in upstate New York, they
agreed to advocate for the name of Medgar Evers, the slain
Civil Rights leader who had been head of the NAACP
chapter in Mississippi.'*°

At the August 28 meeting of the Community College
Council, the name Medgar Evers was agreed upon, and on
September 28, 1970, it became the official name of what had
formerly been known as College No.7 in Central Brooklyn. It
was also announced that President Trent had received a
letter from Governor Rockefeller officially approving the
College as a four-year CUNY institution.” This letter
confirmed the Board’s earlier vote in 1969 that recreated
Community College No.7 as a four-year institution of CUNY.
Though it had taken over six years of hard work by
community activists, Medgar Evers College was finally
acknowledged by CUNY and the State of New York. '%
The slain Civil Rights leader's name would help define the

mission of the College and convey the message that a
94

college born in struggle would remain committed to the
struggle for social justice.

Following a year of meetings, hiring staff, defining the
curriculum a small pilot group of students entered the
College in the summer of 1971. In September 1971 the
College formally opened its doors as a four-year CUNY
institution in the Crown Heights community of Brooklyn in a
combination of owned and rented facilities."

In creating more opportunity for Black and Latino
students, CUNY endorsed new admission standards. As an
experimental college in an urban community, Medgar Evers
College was an open admissions college where a special
“drop out program” designated for 200 CUNY “dropout”
students would be located. These students would be
provided with a second chance for a university education,
and through this new CUNY program housed in the College,
the University would be able to identify factors associated
with “dropping-out.” It would then develop and evaluate
measures to counteract these factors. The University
believed that, “This identification and evaluation during the
early stages of open admissions would provide the
University with information that would prove helpful in the
further development of the program.” From its inception,
the experimental nature of the College included working with
a student population, many of whom were under-prepared
and were, for the first time, being given a chance to attend a

CUNY school. The College in turn was to develop new ways
95


of working with the students in order to expand opportunity
and ensure excellence.

In the early years the role of the Community Council was
extensive. As an official body of the College, it chose sites
for the College, worked on curriculum, and explored possible
new degree programs in Library Science and Inner City
Studies. It also examined resumes for faculty and
administrators, and investigated the possibility of
establishing a day care center. The stated purpose of the
Community Council was to provide community support for
the administration and assist with the development of the
College. While the institution of a community council as an
official arm of a public institution was unique to Medgar
Evers College, it operated differently than originally
envisioned by the Negotiating Team in 1968. Yet the
involvement of the community in defining the College
remained unique in CUNY and an important and
distinguishing feature of the College.

In March 1971, the Board approved several new BA
programs, including a BA in Teacher Education, Inner City
Studies, a BS in Accounting, and an AAS in the Sciences
with a medical option in Nursing. These programs, which
would become the backbone of the College, fulfilled the
College’s primary mission as had been envisioned by the
founders, that is, to provide professional studies in fields that
enriched the community. The Board of Higher Education, in

approving these programs, documented the City’s need for
96

well prepared elementary teachers trained to work with inner
city children. The Education and Nursing programs were to
be innovative in that the Education Program would pilot the
use of performance criteria, and the Nursing Program would,
“specifically be directed ... to nurture the well.”"4"

Though the old Brooklyn Preparatory High School in
Crown Heights was the initial space for the College,
additional space was rented in other Central Brooklyn
locations to house the growing student population. In 1972,
a BS Degree in Nursing was approved to articulate with the
already established AAS degree, and new programs were
continually added in these early years. By 1973 these
included a BA in Psychology and a BS in Biology to prepare
students for professional studies in Dentistry, Medicine and
Psychology.

The vision and energy evident in the first few years
became compromised in the 1975 -1976 economic and
political crisis in CUNY. Under President Trent, the College
lost its senior college status and became a community
college with six baccalaureate programs, an unusual hybrid
which caused a great deal of confusion among students and
the Community. Questions were raised about the meaning
and worth of a Baccalaureate degree obtained from a
community college. While the degree granting privileges at
Medgar Evers College did not change, the mood and energy
shifted. The deal made between the Board and the

College’s administration angered the community, faculty and
97


students. It seemed to them that the long struggle to make
Medgar Evers a four-year institution had been forgotten.
Additionally, CUNY, for the first time in its more than one
hundred years of serving New York City, imposed tuition at
the University in spite of student and faculty protests.

The Medgar Evers College student body, which at this
time was comprised mainly of African Americans and a few
Latino and Caribbean students, was politicized, as was the
faculty and staff. A new energy surfaced in response to this
crisis. | Medgar Evers faculty and students acted in
conjunction with faculty and staff from around CUNY to fight
the imposition of tuition and the proposed changes that
would be made to several of the Colleges within CUNY.
There were many demonstrations by the College community,
including a take-over of the Board of Higher Education
(BHE) buildings as well as a sit-in on the East River Drive.

In spite of this political activity, tuition was imposed on
CUNY students, and Medgar became a two-year institution
with four-year programs. The long hard struggle by the
community representatives - in the body of the Negotiating
Team - was reversed. Angered that President Trent had
compromised the intent of the founders, many began to
rethink the original struggle over who should be president of
the College. Perhaps Al Vann and the other community
members who thought similarly to him were right to believe
that the central issue in obtaining a college for the

community involved choosing a president who demonstrated
98

a belief in community control rather than someone who had
been put in place by the Board of Higher Education. These
faculty and community activists argued that the Board’s
choice for president had, in fact, jeopardized the integrity of
the College community and the vision of the founders. It was
most evident in the compromise over four-year status.
Medgar had become the only CUNY College to accept
community college status while many of the other CUNY
schools gained back their original status. In addition, while
other CUNY units had quality day care facilities, the lack of
day care facilities at Medgar Evers increased the anger of
the largely older female student population.

These contradictions and concerns hovered over the
College for the next five to six years. It was, therefore, not
surprising that in April 1982 differences between President
Trent and a popular Dean of Administration erupted into a
full-scale uprising. Students were consistently angry at the
President and his administration. They had numerous
complaints ranging from their perceived mistreatment in
administrative offices to their concern over the lack of Black
Studies at the College. Fueled by this anger, students took
over the President's office and drew up a list of demands
that were later submitted to the Board. These demands
included: the removal of President Trent; the renewal of
senior college status; the creation of Black Studies and
Women Studies, and an Honors program; funds for an

99


expanded library; the creation of a Women’s Center; and the
development of day care to help the 75% female population.

Perhaps, the greatest betrayal (felt by everyone) was
that the President had accepted community college status.
Even though the College was allowed to keep its
Baccalaureate programs, this change in status was a
betrayal of the many years of struggle by the community for
a senior college. It also meant that the College would receive
inadequate funding that often resulted in inferior physical
conditions, a lack of technology, and an increase in the
number of adjunct faculty. President Trent was castigated
for selling out the College and the Community, ignoring the
needs of the students, and fostering his own self-interest at
the expense of the founders’ dream of a four year
community controlled college.

The student takeover, which was supported by some
faculty, staff, and community members led to the
establishment of the Student, Faculty, Community Coalition
to Save Medgar Evers College. “The Coalition,” as they
became known, made it clear that they wanted a president
who understood the mission of the College and insisted that
they were willing to continue the struggle begun eighteen
years earlier. Many of the original community members who
were associated with the negotiating team to establish the
College, including Al Vann, Jitu Weiusi, and Job Mashiriki
joined hands with the students, faculty and staff to wage this

new battle.
100

Once again Medgar Evers College would make New
York history. The formation of a coalition between students,
staff, faculty and the community to accomplish the goal of
removing a college president set a precedent. Furthermore,
the threat of police removal of Coalition members from the
President's office, which might have lead to violent
confrontation, forced the Coalition to engage renowned
lawyers William Kunsler, C. Vernon Mason, and Randolph
Scott McLaughlin.to help them. The lawyers took the case
before the Brooklyn Supreme Court, and the Coalition
gained a historic victory that granted them the right to remain
peacefully in the President's office. The students were
elated, as were the other members of the Coalition. The
courts had recognized their right to protest. The protest and
the take-over of the President's office lasted 110 days, and
besides the successful removal of the president, the
Coalition subsequently gained the victory of establishing a
day care center in what had been his plush office. That day
care center, named the Charles Romaine - Ella Baker Child
Care Center after a deceased popular science professor and
a Civil Rights activist respectively, still exists to date.

The 1982 graduation was also without precedent. Held
at the Brooklyn Academy of Music without the deposed
president, the graduation was presided over by the Student,
Faculty, and Community Coalition. Many students, faculty
and staff wore African inspired attire while others wore

traditional caps and gowns. The graduation was attended by
101


CUNY administrative representatives and _ prominent
members of the Black Community. Graduation speakers
spoke of the need for Medgar Evers to remain wedded to the
community that it serves, and for the students and graduates
to continue to “give back” to the community. The graduates,
faculty, and community representatives marched out of the
Academy auditorium to the tune of Living on the Front Line
by Eddie Grant, instead of the traditional Pomp and
Circumstance.

Like most coalitions, the Student, Faculty, Community
Coalition was a tenuous group. Friction developed when
some of the more conservative faculty became critical of the
Coalition's demands that went beyond the removal of the
President. These faculty members argued that continued
confrontation with the Board would hurt the College. The
Coalition prevailed, however, and their continued struggle
proved fruitful when the College developed a women’s
center and a day care center for the children of the largely
female student population. Both institutions remain a
significant part of the College and greatly benefit our current
student population. The resolution of the rest of the students’
demands, including senior college status, would only begin
to materialize when a new president was in place.

Immediately following the removal of President Trent, Dr.
Dennis Paul, a faculty member at the college, was appointed
Interim Administrator by CUNY while a search for a

permanent president was implemented. He remained at the
102

College from 1982-1984 when Jay Carrington Chun II was
selected as the second president of Medgar Evers College.
Chun’s tenure at the College was short lived. Within three
years President Chun was asked to resign and was replaced
by Dr. Leo Corbie who became the Acting President until
1989 when, after an extensive search, Dr. Edison O.
Jackson was selected president.

Though four-year status was still not granted, the
College continued to offer Baccalaureate degrees while
remaining a community college, and this hybrid situation hurt
the College both financially and in terms of the community's
perception of it. The College received less money than other
senior colleges in CUNY, and many people felt that students
who graduated from a community college with a bachelor’s
degree would not receive the same respect as those
students who graduated from a senior college. Many in the
College community felt that it was ridiculous and racist for
CUNY to keep the College’s two-year status while “allowing”
it to offer Baccalaureate degrees. With this issue on the
front burner, there was an intensification of political activity
around four year status and tuition hikes.

The 80's were an energized, creative, and tumultuous
period in the College’s history. It was a period which gave
rise to a decade of strong cultural programming that included
the College and community-based Kwanzaa celebrations;
anti-apartheid programs and activity; the establishment of

an annual Tribute to the Ancestors of the Middle Passage;
103


the Melanin conferences; international travel and study; the
extension and elaboration of Black History and Women’s
History month activities and more.

The College grew to become an intellectual and cultural
force in Central Brooklyn. Dr. Betty Shabazz, the widow of
Malcolm X, was Dean of Institutional Development and
Outreach and Professor of Nursing. She brought speakers
and funds to the College, and her dynamism meant that the
College’s impact as a cultural and political center of Black
life would expand. Other important initiatives like the
International Cross-Cultural Black Women’s Studies Institute
brought together community activists, students, workers, and
faculty from around the world. The Institute, whose
information headquarters is located at the College, held
conferences at different international sites, including
England, Hawaii, Costa Rica, South Africa, Panama, and
Japan. The National Black Writers Conferences brought
prominent writers like Derek Walcott, Gwendolyn Brooks,
Henry Louis Gates, Quincy Troup, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri
Baraka, Walter Mosley, Bebe Moore Campbell, Terry
McMillan, and others to the College and became a major
event for both Black writers/intellectuals and the College.

Under the third and present president, Edison O
Jackson, there was a shift in the student population. The
College began servicing a predominantly immigrant
population from the Caribbean, as compared to the

predominately African American population of the previous
104

decades. The nineties brought a less political and decidedly
more career oriented student population to the College, and
the political activism of the previous decades became muted.
Many of the intellectual, cultural and community programs
initiated in the 80s continued, and initiatives like the newly
funded Africana Resource Center, which brought Black
leaders and intellectuals like Molefi Asante, Cornel West,
Bernice Johnson Reagon and Lonnie Greunier and which
did outreach in the schools of the Community, were
promoted. Study Abroad programs were encouraged, and
the faculty developed summer study opportunities for
students that included study in countries like Brazil, England,
and France.

The new president, Dr Edison O. Jackson galvanized the
College community's energy toward the ongoing struggle for
senior college status. Dr. Jackson, who helped to stabilize
the College, built upon the efforts of the many who came
before him, utilized personal vision, commitment and
excellent work with New York’s Black and Puerto Rican
Caucus, other City and State elected representatives, and
the Board to have four-year status reinstated. In July 1994
Medgar Evers College once again became a senior college
within CUNY, though it would continue to be plagued by
inadequate funding.

During this same period, the College lived under the
constant fear that the economic problems of CUNY and the

CUNY-wide cuts would be felt the hardest at Medgar Evers,
105


still the only college in CUNY that had a predominately Black
faculty, staff, administration and student body. According to
many, Medgar seemed to remain the stepchild of City
University. It was perhaps due to political savvy and
recruitment efforts of the President and his administration,
and the continued commitment and resolve of the
community (as shown in the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus
of New York State Assembly), as well as the diligent work of
an outstanding and committed faculty and staff that the
College not only survived the fiscally lean years of the
nineties but also increased its student population and
eventually got approval for two new buildings.

With maturity, the old fire and turmoil, which had
characterized the earliest years of struggle and the opening
of the College, grew less evident. This was definitely a
period of stability for the College. The community, as
represented through the Community Council (a standing
committee in the College), continues meeting monthly, yet it
functions mainly to generate scholarship money and political
support for the College. The Council maintains a voice
within the College’s governance through elected seats on
the College Council (the governing body of the College)
though the community's influence and power is not as
evident as in the founding years. Additional support for the
College comes through the Black elected officials that have
continued to assist Medgar Evers by sponsoring a number of

106

college based community programs, including the Center for
Law and Social Justice and the Caribbean Research Center.

By the mid-nineties, there was a new energy devoted to
academics within the College community. Work commenced
on developing the new Interdisciplinary Studies program
(which would house Black Studies and Women’s Studies),
revising curriculum, developing more rigorous entrance and
program requirements in the [Education Department,
enhancing skills programs, and an intensive Freshmen Year
Program. New BA programs in such areas as Math,
Environmental Science, English, and Liberal Arts, among
others were encouraged. Today the College has 18
Baccalaureate Degree programs, a nationally accredited
Business program, an approved Nursing program, and a
nationally accredited Education program.

Most recently, the dream was brought forward by the
College’s groundbreaking ceremony for its’ new building. On
a bright sunny June morning in 2004, the Jackie Robinson
band could be heard in all the blocks surrounding the
College, as elegantly dressed community members, faculty,
students, staff, and CUNY administrators milled around with
prominent politicians as they ate a sumptuous brunch,
laughed, talked and reminisced. It had been thirty-three
years since the founding of the College and everyone had
gathered for the much awaited ground breaking ceremony.
Two new buildings would be constructed with state of the art

technology. Those who had struggled with so little for so
107


long were finally getting the much needed space and
technology. It was clearly a joyous day!

The Governor of New York had come to mark the
occasion, as had City Councilman, Al Vann, a major figure in
the founding of Medgar Evers College. Other community
activists and residents were present, as were faculty and
staff who had been there from the earliest days when energy
to build a college in the community often demanded round
the clock commitment to new ideas. People came from as
far as Massachusetts and as close as Crown Heights. They
knew they had to be there for this momentous occasion
when finally there was evidence that the disparate buildings
would become an enlarged urban campus with two new
state of the art buildings. The College had come a long way
from its earliest days when faculty and students wandered
the many religious institutions of Central Brooklyn to attend
class. Medgar Evers College, which had been a dream in
the minds of community residents, had come of age.

Under the leadership of Dr. Jackson, the College
entered a period of significant growth, and began promoting
teaching excellence through its Carter G. Woodson Award
and its newly established Center for Teaching and Learning.
Workshops for faculty development and _ mid-winter
conferences on teaching and learning were encouraged, as
was exploring new ways of working with and encouraging
students through mentorship programs, the nationally

108

acclaimed Freshmen Year Program, and the Black Male
Development and Empowerment Center.

The College, an important and integral part of The City
University of New York, has a special place in Central
Brooklyn. It is a college that is designed to be of the
community and for the community; it is a College that
addresses some of the central social concerns facing higher
education in the United States, including poverty, racism,
inequality, and immigration.

Of course, questions and concerns remain as
community members, faculty, and students wonder whether
Medgar Evers College will ever receive parity with the rest of
CUNY, and whether it will truly embody the image of Medgar
Evers, the man. Only time will tell whether the College will
continue to move in the direction envisioned by the
community that fought so hard to establish it or whether it
will become someone else’s dream.

Most people agree, however, that the College has
come a long way, and that it has produced some of the finest
graduates that the country (indeed the world) and local
community have ever had. It is the graduates who remain
the real testimony of the meaning and purpose of the
College. The College has graduates who have become
certified teachers, lawyers, surgeons, pediatricians, nurses,
United Nations program developers, computer technologists,
elected officials, prominent artists, social change workers,

business people and more. Many of the graduates have
109


returned to their communities to make a difference despite
the difficulties they have faced. They are the ones who
carry forth the dream of the founders. In fact, the story of the
founding of the College tells only a small though very
important part of the entire story of Medgar Evers. The
stories of the students and how they arrived at the point of
graduation (or in some cases did not arrive at the graduation
point) are a significant part of the College story too. It is the
uniqueness of the entire story, that is, the College history,
the stories of the students, and the power of a community
that must inspire all who enter the doors of the College to
continue to bring the dream forward. More importantly, the
expansion of the College and the success of many of its
graduates offer proof of what community struggle and
community participation can bring forth, and they are shining
examples of what the struggle for access, social justice and
excellence in the tradition of Medgar Wiley Evers, the man,
really means.

110

Part I

Endnotes

1. In several memos from the Chancellor and the
Board of Higher Education, and in several articles in The
New York Times, the community of Bedford-Stuyvesant is
referred to as a “slum”. See memorandum and articles in
Bowker Files, CUNY Archives and select New York times
articles such as M.A. Farber, “City University Will Build in a
Brooklyn Slum; Community College to Rise in Bedford-
Stuyvesant,” The New York Times, 2Feb. 1968, 32.

2. “ No Nonsense Education; Albert Hosmer Bowker,”
New York Times, 26 July, 1963, p.23.

3. At this point, the newly formed City University
consisted of the following four senior colleges: City,
Brooklyn, Queens, and Hunter College. City College, the
first of the CUNY schools, began in 1847 and over the next
century, each of the other senior colleges and the three
community colleges developed into separate schools that
would, in 1961, become the City University of New York.
Under Chancellor Bowker, additional senior colleges,
included John Jay, Richmond, Lehman, York, Medgar
Evers, and Baruch. The additional community colleges,

111


included Hostos, La Guardia, New York City Community
College, Borough of Manhattan and Queensborough.

4. Vann, Al. “ Medgar Evers College,” Table |, N.D.
p.15. (this pamphlet has been lost and no copies can be
currently located).

5. Ella Sease, interview, June 2000.

6. Louise Glover, interview, June 2000.

7. Membership list appeared on letterhead entitled,”
The Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council Inc: Building a
Better Bedford-Stuyvesant,” Louise Glover Archives.

8. “A Beach Is A Beach, A College A College,” Long Island
Star Journal, 24 Jan. 1964, p.6.

9. Charles G. Bennett, “Planner Opposes Site for
College,” The New York Times, 21 Jan. 1964, p31.

10. Ibid.

11. Memorandum, “To All Members, ” from Dr.
Gloster, M.D., President, Brooklyn Coordinating Council,
Feb. 4, 1964, Louise Glover Archives.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Chancellor Bowker to Mayor Lindsay, 29 Jan.
1968, Bowker Files, CUNY Archives. We do not hear about
this commitment directly until 1968 when Bowker refers to
this commitment in the above cited letter to Mayor Lindsay.

15. Conference flyer, One Day on the War on Poverty
in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Louise Glover Archives, 21 Oct.
1964.

112

16. Louise Glover, interview, June 2000.

17. Memorandum, “ To Administrative Council’ By
Chancellor Bowker,Jan. 31,1967 in Minutes, Board of
Higher Education, 27 Feb. 1967, pp. 59-60.

18. Title VI, Section 601, of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 stated that Federal Funds could be withdrawn from
public institutions that were segregated/refused to
desegregate. The Higher Education Act of 1965 provided
more money for schools and these funds were only allocated
to desegregated institutions. The U.S. Department of
Justice was now authorized to file discrimination suits and
the Office of Education developed guidelines for school
desegregation. By the mid-1960s the federal government
was exerting pressure on all educational institutions to
become integrated. This had a profound effect on CUNY.

19. Memorandum, “To Administrative Council,” by
Chancellor Bowker, 31 Jan., 1967, in Minutes, Board of
Higher Education, 27 Feb. 1967, pp. 58-9.

20. “Undergraduate Ethnic Census “, Office of the
Vice Chancellor for the Executive Office , CUNY, Fall, 1967.;
Memorandum “ To Administrative Council,” by Chancellor
Bowker, 31 Jan, 1967 In Minutes, Board of Higher
Education, 27 Feb., 1967. p. 58, records figures for 1966
and these 1966 figures are the first time we see evidence of
this ethnic data.

113


21. “Undergraduate Ethnic Census”, prepared by
Office of the Vice Chancellor for the Executive Office, CUNY,
Fall1, 1967, Bowker Files, CUNY Archives.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., pp. 4 & 6.

24. Ibid., p. 12.

25. Peter Khiss, “Sociologist Predicts Increasing
Negro Militancy,” The New York Times, 15 Oct. 1967, p.76.

26. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 27 Nov.
1967, $294-96 and “A Proposal for the Establishment of
Community College No. Seven,” 28 Nov. 1967 p.14,
Bowker Files, CUNY Archives.

27. Ibid.

28. Gittell , Marilyn and Berube, Maurice R. 1969.
Confrontation at Ocean Hill-Brownsville. New York: Prager,
1969.

29. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 22 Jan.
1968, Executive Sessions pp. 9-10.

30. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 22 Jan.
1968, Executive Session p.18.

31. Chancellor Bowker to Mayor Lindsay, 29 Jan.
1968 Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

32. Educational Affiliates, | Bedford-Stuyvesant
Development and Service Corporation Plan, in Vann, Al, “
Medgar Evers College,” N.D.

33. Ibid.

114

34. Chancellor Bowker to Mayor Lindsay, 29 Jan.
1968, Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

35. M.A. Farber, “City University Will Build in Brooklyn
Slum; Community College to Rise in Bedford-Stuyvesant,”
The New York Times, 2 Feb. 1968, p. 32.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid.

39. Telegram, Walter Pinkston, Executive Director,
Bedford-Stuyvesant Youth in Action Community Corporation,
to Fredrick H. Burkhardt, Chairman, Committee to Seek a
President for Community College Seven and Eight, 6 Feb.
1968, Bowker Files, CUNY Archives.

40. Vann, Al, “Medgar Evers College,” N.D.

41. Ibid.

42. Chancellor Bowker to Thomas R. Jones,
Chairman, Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation,
Feb. 13, 1968, Bowker Files, CUNY Archives.

43. Chancellor Bowker to Lionel Payne, Chairman,
Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council, 13 Feb. 1968,
Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

44. Chancellor Bowker to Walter Pinkston, Director,
Bedford-Stuyvesant Youth in Action, 13 Feb. 1968, Bowker
files, CUNY Archives.

45. Ibid.

115


46. Telegram, Walter Pinkston, Director, Bedford-
Stuyvesant Youth in Action to Chancellor Bowker, 19 Feb.
1968, Bowker Files, CUNY Archives.

47. Fred Burkhardt to Walter Pinkston, 27 Feb. 1968,
Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

48. Al Vann, interview, Feb. 2001.

49. Vann, Al, “Medgar Evers College,” N.D. 15

50. Ibid.,

51. Minutes, BHE, 25 March, 1968, pp. S44-45; letter,
Fredrick Burkhardt Chair, Committee to Seek a President for
Community Colleges 7 & 8, to Al Vann, 13 April 1968.

52. Ibid.

116

Part II

Endnotes

53. Letter, Al Vann, Chair, Steering Committee,
Bedford-Stuyvesant Coalition of Educational Needs and
Services to Porter Chandler, Chairman, CUNY Board of
Higher Education, 15 April 1968, Bowker files, CUNY
Archives.

54. Ibid.

55. Memo of Understanding, Al Vann, 25 May 1968,
on letterhead entitled “African American Teachers
Association", Bowker files, CUNY archives.

56. Telegram, Al Vann to Fredrick Burkhardt, 16
May, 1968, Bowker Files, CUNY Archives.

57. Susan Brownmiller, "Whatever It Is It Is Not
Ecumenical," The Village Voice, 25 July 1968.

58. Les Campbell to Brothers and Sisters of the Black
Caucus, August 1968, Bowker Files, CUNY Archives.

59. Al Vann, Chair, Steering Committee, Bedford-
Stuyvesant Coalition of Educational Needs and Services, to
Porter Chandler, Chair, Board of Higher Education, 15 May,
1968, Bowker Files, CUNY Archives.

60. Seymour Hyman, Vice Chancellor, Campus
Planning and Development to Honorable Ira Dutch, Deputy
Commissioner, Department of Real Estate, 13 June, 1968.

61. Al Vann to Porter Chandler, 15 May, 1968, CUNY
Archives, Bowker Files.
117


62. Memoranda, Chancellor Bowker to Chairman
Porter Chandler, 2 July 1968; Chairman, Porter Chandler to
Chancellor Bowker, 3 July, 1968, Bowker files CUNY
Archives.

63. "A Proposal to Plan and Implement Experimental
Programs for Community College No. 7, 3 July, 1968, Office
of Development, Community College Affairs, p.2, Bowker
files, CUNY Archives.

64. Ibid., p. 2.

65. Ibid., p. 7.

66. Ibid., p. 2.

67. Ibid., p.7.

68.Chancellor Bowker to Al Vann, 8 August, 1968,
Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

69. Ibid.

70, Ibid.

71, Memorandum, Chancellor Bowker to Hon Dr.
Ashe, 8 August, 1968, re: Dressner, Ford Foundation Grant.

72. Press Release, 28 August, 1968, “Bedford-
Stuyvesant Seeks President for Experimental Community
College," Bedford-Stuyvesant Coalition for Educational
Needs and Services, Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

73. id.
74. Ibid.

75. Al Vann to Editor, Amsterdam News, 10 October,
1968, Bowker files, CUNY archives.

76. Minutes, Steering Committee, Bedford-Stuyvesant
Coalition of Educational Needs and Services, 10 October,
1968, Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

118

a

77. id.

78. Memorandum, regarding the Establishment of the
Professional College in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Office of the
Dean of Community College Affairs, CUNY, N.D. in materials
of Sept-Oct. 1968, Bowker files, CUNY archives.

79. Ibid., p. 2.

80. Ibid.

81. Howard Dressner, Ford Foundation to Chancellor
Bowker, December, 1968, Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

82. Al Vann, telegram, to Chancellor Bowker, 9
December, 1968.

83. Vann, Al, “Medgar Evers College,” p. 17, N.D.

84. Joseph Shenker, Acting Dean, to Al Vann, 10
December, 1968, Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

85. Al Vann to Frederick
December,1968.

Burkhardt, 10

86. Ibid.

87. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 21 Jan.
1969, p. S-4.

88.Summary, 1, N.D., Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

89. Ibid., 1.

90. Minutes, Presidential Search Committee meeting,
on letterhead entitled, “Bedford-Stuyvesant Needs and
Services, 8 Jan. 1969, Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

91. Al Vann to members of the Bedford-Stuyvesant
Coalition, 21 Jan. 1969.

119


92. Dr. Smythe, Ambassador to Malta, to Chancellor
Bowker, 7 April 1969, Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

93, Chancellor Bowker to Al Vann, 22 May 1969.

94. Ibid.

95. Ibid.

96. Ibid.

97. Ibid.

98. Ibid.

99. Ibid.

100. Al Vann to Chancellor Bowker, 22 May, 1969.

101. Interview, Al Vann, February 2001.

102. Progress Summary, 1 March, 1968, Bowker files,
CUNY Archives.

103. Al Vann, interview, February 2001.
104. Louise Glover, interview, June 2000.
105. Ibid.

106. Ella Sease, interview, June 2000.
107. Louise Glover, interview, June 2000.
108. Ibid.

109. Ibid.

110. Ibid.

111. Ibid.

112. Ibid.

113. Manifesto, Bedford-Stuyvesant Concerned

Members to Chancellor Bowker, 10 June, 1969, Louise
Glover Archives.

114. Ibid.

120

115. Ella Sease to Burkhardt, 17 June, 1969, Bowker
files, CUNY Archives.

116. Ibid.

117. Memorandum, Concerned Members of Bedford-
Stuyvesant Coalition, to Steering Committee, 17 June, 1969,
Louise Glover Archives.

118. Reference to Assemblyman Fortune is found in a
letter from Julius Edlestein to Chancellor Bowker, 22 June,
1969, Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

119. Ibid.

120. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 16
September, 1969, S-126A.

121. Ibid.

122. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 18
September, 1969, S-126A.

123. Policy Statement on Coalition adopted
unanimously, City College Alumni Association, 13 March,
1969, Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

124. Faculty Senate Document, “The Legal Authority
of the Board of Higher Education in Relationship to the
Establishment of Special College No.7, N.D.

125. M.S. Handler, "Colleges That Would Blend Into
the Community Proposed for Bedford-Stuyvesant and Other
Slum Areas," The New York Times, 9 March, 1969, 47.

126. Interview, Louise Glover, June 2000.

127. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 24
February, 1970.

128. Vann to Chancellor Bowker, telegram, 24
February, 1970, Bowker files, CUNY Archives.

121


129. Ibid.

130. Jack Panaagen, President, Brothers and Sisters
of African Unity, to Richard Trent, 24 February, 1970,
Bowker Files, CUNY Archives.

131. Ad Hoc Planning Committee, submitted by
Richard Trent, President, Medgar Evers College, 21 March,
1970.

132. Summary, 28 April, 1970 Ad Hoc Planning
Committee meeting.

133. Summary, 13 May, 1970 Ad Hoc Planning
Committee meeting.

134. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 28 July,
1970, 52-3, “Summary, 30 June Ad Hoc Planning Committee
meeting.

135. Memorandum, Summary 30 June, 1970 Ad Hoc
Planning Committee meeting.

136. Louise Glover, interview, June 2000.

137. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 28
September, 1970.

138. Summary, 28 August, 1970 Ad Hoc Planning
Committee meeting.

139. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 17
August,1970, p. 269.

140. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 28
December, 1970, p. 269.

141. Minutes, Board of Higher Education, 22 March,
1971, pp.52-3.

122


Medgar Evers College

of the City Untversity of New York

Dr. Zala Highsmith-Taylor is a retired Professor of the Departments of
English and Interdisciplinary Studies at Medgar Evers College of the
City University of New York where she taught English Composition
and Black and Women's Studies. She currently resides in St. Petersburg,
Florida where she is continuing her work as a writer, artist, and human
rights activist. She has a studio in Salt Creek Art Works, and several
fine arts paintings in four galleries in St. Petersburg. She continues to
serve as Co-Chair of the Board of MADRE, a national humanitarian
organization that partners with women and children in the United
States, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the
Middle East.

Dr. Florence Tager is Professor Emerita of the Education Department
at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York where she
has taught for 34 years. Currently she enjoys spending time with her
grandaughters and meeting her many students who are teachers,
principals, teacher trainers in the schools of Brooklyn. Dr Tager is
currently working on a children’s book and has completed a Master's
program which would allow her to work as a psychotherapist.

Published by Caribbean Diaspora Press, Inc
Caribbean Research Center, Medgar Evers College (CUNY)
1650 Bedford Avenue

fl York all 1 ee Wwey<s> Me yo we

Medgar Evers G6Hege (CUNY)

;
4
1650 Bedford Avenue F

Brooklyn, New.York 11225
ISBN: 1-878433-40-7

ISBN 1-878433-40-7

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