Evolving, But Remaining Vital

At Registration each fall. Harvard undergraduates enter an area reserved for undergraduate organizations where they are barraged by the campus's countless extracurricular groups.

Although all students must traverse this proselytizing gauntlet, the experience can be particularly bewildering for the College's approximately 400 Black students. No less than eight active Black organizations vie for these students' time, often offering entirely different ways for Blacks to involve themselves in the community.

While a white student journalist or student politician can choose between a relatively small number of groups, a Black undergraduate finds in addition three essentially political groups, three performance groups, a science club and a literary magazine. Leaders of these organizations say that membership in these groups overlap and that many participants involve themselves in mainstream groups as well. But they describe the selection of extracurricular involvement as a particularly unique experience for Blacks, who have so many alternatives and often feel that their choice of involvement outside the classroom carries political overtones.

Although most of the campus's groups date back to the late 1960s, student leaders describe the Black extracurricular climate in the past few years as having been different from even the late 1970s. The College's integrationist race relations policy coupled with pervasive apathy among all students, has made minority involvement in mainstream political and cultural groups more common, students and officials believe. And a cooling of divisions within the Black community also makes extracurricular involvement more fluid today than it has been in past years, students say.

Now each of the eight groups claims healthy membership and a healthy feeling of independence, despite their perception that the College discourages Black political activism. This spring the biggest Black group, the political Black Students Association (BSA), has shifted to a more moderate style of operation. But perhaps as significant has been the growth in size and visibility by the William J. Seymour Society, an often radical Black Christian group which devotes its energies to community service and downplays the significance of minority involvement on campus. And keeping pace with both of those developments has been the success of cultural groups--the Black C.A.S.T. Drama group; the Kuumba Singers; Expressions, a dance group; and the literary magazine Diaspora--which have begun to assert themselves as independent organizations after initially being under the auspices of BSA through its sister organization, the Afro-American Cultural Center.

The diversity and more moderate stances by Black groups this year represent a departure from the beginnings of Black student groups.

Until the late 1960s, virtually all of Harvard's miniscule Black population was composed of African students. But as the civil rights movement gained national support, Harvard began to admit Black Americans in larger numbers. These students brought with them concerns and attitudes that differed greatly from white and African students at the College.

In 1967, a group of students established the African and Afro-American Student Association--known as "Afro." Initially created to bring together African and American Blacks on campus, the group soon shifted toward the interests of the increasing number of Afro-American students and eventually in 1975 changed its name to the Black Students Association (BSA).

As the Black group gathered momentum, it formed its own cultural groups, including Kuumba. Black C.A.S.T., and Diaspora, a Black literary magazine. Despite their cultural orientation, these groups were initially political. The Kuumba sisters, for example, frequently sang in prisons and at political rallies, says Diane A. Crawford '83, the group's former president. Other groups, although less overtly political, were at least implicitly so in their efforts to define a unique cultural identify or "Black Nationalism." Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III believes these cultural groups were highly influenced by the emergence of radical basis within Black society, their growth moving parallel to the rise in Black consciousness nationwide.

By the late 1970s, however, these groups increasingly as contact with the BSA and, at the same time, largely shed their political undertones. Recent leaders of Kuumba, Diaspora and Black C.A.S.T. agree that their respective organizations have become more exclusively artistic endeavors. "The Black contribution to American art is important enough and of itself to be the sole concern of Black C.A.S.T., former president Patricia S. Bellinger '83 says, adding "politics is not higher than art."

The depoliticization of the Black cultural groups coincides with their increasing independence from the BSA--a shift apparently promoted in part by widespread disenchantment with that organization. Led by a core of out-spoken, often radical, Black students, the BSA gained unprecedented influence in the mid-1970s. Buoyed by ever greater numbers of Afro-American students on campus, the organization called for direct political action by Blacks in America and on campus.

As one Black student recalls, protests against the Ku Klux Klan and nationwide discrimination against Blacks were regularly tied in to anger about racial incidents and insensitivity on campus Students called for recognition of the importance of Black history in the form of an Afro-American Studies Department and, after the department was formed in 1969, continued to seek increased University support for that field of study.

As late as 1980, when a controversial report by an assistant to President Bok suggested that achievement scores of minorities and women overpredict their College academic performance, the BSA was highly visible. More than 200 students protested then, demanding a retraction of the report and the anger helped to forget a University wide Black students coalition.

While that era in some ways marked a highpoint of BSA activities, it also signaled a decline in that organization's preeminence within the Black community as the BSA began to focus on Black issues on campus, earlier community projects--such as tutoring and political support for public schools in the predominantly Black Roxbury area--were neglected by the group. This shift in emphasis drew fire from some Black students, particularly from the Seymour Society, formed in 1980.

In addition to tutoring, food programs and teach-ins concerning the effect of military spending on social services, the Seymour Society this year helped organize a local march against drug usage. Admitting that some perceive the society as "self-righteous," former president Jacqueline O. Cooke '83 defends the group's outward goals and tactics: "We're really struggling to challenge racism at its deepest roots, not simply trying to get Blacks into Harvard." Echoing criticisms of the BSA's lack of concern for national issues and community work, about 15 students in 1981 picketed a BSA-sponsored cabaret held on the anniversary of the death of Malcolm X as part of the organization's annual Malcolm X weekend.

But complaints about the BSA have been directed as much at the organization's style as at its substance. The radical tone of many BSA leaders during the 1970s alienated both Blacks and whites, who came to perceive the groups as "separatist" or simply overly militant, current Black students say. The focus of the organization "was more anti-Establishment than it needed to be," says current BSA president Alan C. Shaw '85. Adding that the organization has been perceived as anti-white. Shaw says that by toning down the group's former combativeness he can reduce that separatist image.

Former BSA president Lydia P. Jackson '83 rejects the idea that the Black groups constitute a rejection of traditional white groups. "There is a perception of Blacks escaping to BSA rather than exercising their leadership capacity in the Undergraduate Council," she says. "[BSA] is also legitimate and it is an alternative that has to exist."

But the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, a Black administrator who has worked formally and informally with Black student groups over the years, claims that Black students who join these groups continue to be viewed as "anti-white," adding that Black students face mainstream pressure not to join Black groups as well as pressure from the Black community not to join predominantly white organizations.

Some Black students believe that the College challenges their groups by encouraging mainstream involvement. When Harvard commissioned a study in response to student demands for a Third World Center, the study praised groups like Kuumba and Black CAST for bringing students of all races together and proving a forum for the expression of cultural diversity. This support was instrumental in the formation of the race relations Foundation in 1981. Harvard's response to the demands for a Third World center which explicitly encourages integrationist efforts by minority students and whites. Many minority groups have boycotted the Foundation's offer of funding, following Harvard's unwillingness to establish a center catering solely to minority interests.

So the College is perceived by Black leaders to have smiled on the Black artistic groups while closing their eyes to their lingering political roots. And this official stance has encouraged less political involvement within the Black student community, students say.

While some Black students attribute the decrease in political awareness to a general trend of apathy, most feel there is a substantive change in the nature of Black students coming to Cambridge today. An Q. Fitzgerald '84, a BSA member who also serves as a minority student recruiter, says earlier Black student leaders in the 1970s brought with them "a political perspective that is 180 degrees different than the perspective of a lot of Black students coming in now" Jackson agrees, saying that Black Harvard students today are more a part of the mainstream than their predecessors were and react accordingly.

More cautious about defining themselves by their race, incoming Black students today are more likely to join an all-Black cultural group than a political one, several Black leaders say. These groups appear less threatening since Black students, "can join without buying an ideology," says Gomes. A member of Diaspora agrees, saying, "We don't tell anyone they're politically incorrect" In addition, these more conservative--and often more affluent--Black students have formed new types of groups such as the Percy C. Julian Society, a Black pre-med support group, and intercollegiate Black fraternities and sororities. By the late 1970s, Gomes explains, "diversity within the Black community meant that not everyone thought they had to take a loyalty oath to the BSA." Whereas it was once a fair assumption that Black students wanted to be defined by and incorporated into the Black community, it is no longer true that Blacks automatically want this affiliation.

While administrators seem to welcome this change in the make-up of the Black student body, many Black campus leaders bemoan, what they perceive as an apathetic community. Cooke criticizes the University for this: "The University has made a concerted effort to integrate Black students and lessen the perception of us as a unit." She sarcastically adds, "I think it's been successful--I tip my hat to them."

But Shaw, however, believes the Black student

"Is it wise to continue to blame the University for our incohesiveness or should we change?"--Black Students Association President Alan C. Shaw '85 community must look inward to overcome its divisions. "Is it wise to continue to blame the University for our incohesiveness or should we change?" he asks. According to Shaw, the BSA lost support in recent years because it did not adapt its policies to the new, more moderate group of Blacks on campus. These students are not apolitical, he argues, but rather would prefer to work within the mainstream where possible.

Shaw points to a hunger strike this spring in support of Harvard divestiture from companies that do business in South Africa as a forceful, yet non-confrontational form of protest. By modifying the organization's political tactics. Shaw believes he can draw more widespread student support for the group, which he says has been perceived as a small clique of Black students. This can be done without sacrificing its commitment to Black issues on campus, he adds.

Shaw's strategy for the BSA is based on the premise that Black students will be attracted to a dynamic, activist Black political organization. Since the organization has reawakened this spring, it has drawn less criticism and more members.

The organization has also worked in concert with other Black groups recently. On the divestiture issue, the BSA has joined forces with a coalition of groups that includes the Harvard African Students Association, which is predominately Black. Defunct for nearly two years, the groups has worked to promote an understanding of African politics and culture.

Even more indicative of the recent cooperation among Black groups has been the minority student protest of the College's refusal to publicize minority orientation events in its official freshman week calendar. The College's has objected to publicizing the events--which the students claim are crucial to non-white freshmen because they are perceived as separated Kuumba and Expressions joined the protest by refusing to perform as part of the College's official freshman week program. In the eyes of Black students, this double standard translated into a statement that minorities were only allowed to "sing and dance," not to organize politically.

The artistic boycott illustrates the bottom line of common interests that still unite the diverse Black groups. This bottom line can only be, as Jackson states it, "that there will always be particular needs and interests that will have a different effect on Black students than on whites." Black student leaders agree that changes in the incoming Black students have only mandated new priorities for Black groups, the underlying need for the organizations remain unchanged. So while, it is unlikely that these groups will regain the united, close-knit structure of the early 1970s, the evolution of the Black organizations speaks well for their capacity to endure. Whatever their tone, these groups will continue to be heard on campus.CrimsonTimothy W. Plass"Politics-is not higher than art."--Patricla S. Bellinger, '83, former president of Black C.A.S.T.