The Tuskegee Student Uprising: A History

by Brian Jones

The untold story of a dynamic student movement on one of the nation’s most important historically Black campuses

The Tuskegee Institute, one of the nation’s most important historically Black colleges, is primarily known for its World War II pilot training program, a fateful syphilis experiment, and the work of its founder, Booker T. Washington. In The Tuskegee Student Uprising , Brian Jones explores an important yet understudied aspect of the campus’s history: its radical student activism.

Drawing upon years of archival research and interviews with former students, professors, and administrators, Brian Jones provides an in-depth account of one of the most dynamic student movements in United States history. The book takes the reader through Tuskegee students’ process of transformation and intellectual awakening as they stepped off campus to make unique contributions to southern movements for democracy and civil rights in the 1960s. In 1966, when one of their classmates was murdered by a white man in an off-campus incident, Tuskegee students began organizing under the banner of Black Power and fought for sweeping curricular and administrative reforms on campus. In 1968, hundreds of students took the Board of Trustees hostage and presented them with demands to transform Tuskegee Institute into a “Black University.” This explosive movement was thwarted by the arrival of the Alabama National Guard and the school’s temporary closure, but the students nevertheless claimed an impressive array of victories. Jones retells these and other events in relation to the broader landscape of social movements in those pivotal years, as well as in connection to the long pattern of dissent and protest within the Tuskegee Institute community, stretching back to the 19th century. A compelling work of scholarship, The Tuskegee Student Uprisin g is a must-read for anyone interested in student activism and the Black freedom movement.

264 pages, Hardcover

Published October 4, 2022

Reviews

[Maxine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tuskegee Student Uprising by Brian Jones gives a well-written well-researched look at the history of the Tuskegee Institute from its founding in 1881 but with most focus on the student uprising of 1968 and its ties to the Black Power movement. Using both secondary and primary sources including interviews with many of the students involved, he explains the main reasons for the uprising, the leaders, what it accomplished and what it didn’t. Along the way, he points to previous unrests, the difficulties which developed between the Black students and the white population as well as class divisions within the Blak population. Overall, a very informative, interesting, and, best of all, highly readable book.

Thanks to Netgalley and NYU Press for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest opinion

[Diane Rembert · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first glance, I was intrigued because I love learning about our history. Imagine my shock when I found out that the student uprising began after a Black male student was killed off campus. I also had no idea of its relation to then Hampton Institute.
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It was purely coincidental that I picked it up during Black History Month. I'll just say an extra special thank you to @nyupress and @netgalley for sending it to me. I'm looking forward to so much more.
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If you're into black history like I am, then you will enjoy this one.

[Debra Foster Greene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story specifically of the April 1968 student campus takeover at Tuskegee University and the call for the Black University concept to be implemented at Tuskegee. More broadly its the story of student protest over the decades of the school history.