The Black Revolution on Campus

September 15, 2012
Biondi reexamines the national cultural revolution of the 1960s with the actions of black college students at the core. A confluence of circumstances placed a substantial increase of working middle-class black students at many public and private universities as well as historically black colleges. Biondi exposes the inverted emphasis of American media coverage, for the perceptively white student antiwar uprising at Columbia was preceded by a black student demonstration against racism. Similarly, the student deaths at Kent State were preceded by substantial numbers of deaths and arrests at black colleges as students protested racial discrimination and segregation. Biondi argues that this population of black students had an outsize impact on changing social conditions, an impact that has often been overlooked. A major legacy of the black student protests was the creation of black studies departments, followed by others of other ethnic, as well as gender, studies. Those academic programs have continued for more than 40 years, not without controversy centered on their origins, with compelling ideological and political priorities. Biondi's work offers a fresh perspective on the student protest era, acknowledging the major and overlooked contributions of black students.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)