Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black Student Power in the Late 1960s

by Stefan M. Bradley

In 1968-69, Columbia University became the site for a collision of American social movements. Black Power, student power, antiwar, New Left, and Civil Rights movements all clashed with local and state politics when an alliance of black students and residents of Harlem and Morningside Heights openly protested the school's ill-conceived plan to build a large, private gymnasium in the small green park that separates the elite university from Harlem. Railing against the university's expansion policy, protesters occupied administration buildings and met violent opposition from both fellow students and the police.
In this dynamic book, Stefan M. Bradley describes the impact of Black Power ideology on the Students' Afro-American Society (SAS) at Columbia. While white students--led by Mark Rudd and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)--sought to radicalize the student body and restructure the university, black students focused on stopping the construction of the gym in Morningside Park. Through separate, militant action, black students and the black community stood up to the power of an Ivy League institution and stopped it from trampling over its relatively poor and powerless neighbors. Bradley also compares the events at Columbia with similar events at Harvard, Cornell, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Research, Politics, Education

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Collin Perryman · Rating 5 out of 5]

SEMINAL WORK AND REQUIRED READING!!🤩🔥📚
Dr. Bradley's book, "Harlem vs. Columbia University," taught me much, but I will share two points. (1) The collective protests and efforts of the Black student groups and the Harlem community singlehandedly changed higher education, and the U.S. and the world in general, for the better forever. We are eternally in their debt. (2) Black student organizers and White student organizers have different purposes and agendas. They overlap at times which is great; however, we need to acknowledge that Black students are organized and autonomous and strong, and get things done that no one else has. Thank you, Dr. Bradley!🙏📚

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stefan M Bradley provides an essential work if one is studying any of the following: town and gown relations, the history of colleges and universities, race and ethnic relations, education, gentrification, and more. While the "Gym Crow" debacle of Columbia has been mentioned in many histories, Bradley's excellent narrative and research consider attempts by Columbia to "take over" the community by purchasing apartments, including forming "Faculty Civil Rights Groups" that sought places "where the faculty can talk to people like themselves" (p. 28), which seemed antithetical to the goal of engaging the diverse socioeconomic emerging in Harlem after the renaissance. What emerges in Bradley's work, then, is a fascinating narrative of diverse groups coming together to challenge the system, but the focus is on the understudied student movement that was the Students' Afro-American Society (SAS) who used different tactics and movements, joining with citizens of Harlem, to address the needs of the community against the goals of the institution to build a gym that seemed to enable de facto segregation. Bradley's work captures the push and pull between the SAS and the Students for a Democratic Society who also took a role in the protests and how the differentiation is an important element.

Richly detailed and providing a compelling history of a key campus protest (that Bradley shows can be seen in other systems), this is a book well worth one's time to understand students and communities involved in social, political, and moral movements in history.

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant analysis of how Columbia University administrators, faculty, mostly White Students for a Democratic Society, Black Students’ Afro-American Society, Black Power leaders, and Harlem residents used a variety of un/civil, il/legal tactics to attempt to achieve a variety of conflicting and compatible ends. Bradley is the first to argue that race was a leading factor in the 1968 protests and that, together the Black students, Black Power leaders, and Harlem residents overcame class divides to achieve tangible, long-lasting goals.