Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This is a profoundly moving story of Black colleges in Mississippi during a watershed moment in their history. It is also the story of young Americans trying to balance their pursuit of higher education with the parallel struggle for civil rights. Radicalizing the Ebony Tower examines colleges against the backdrop of the black freedom struggle of the middle twentieth century, a highly contentious conflict between state agents determined to protect the racial hierarchy and activists equally determined to cripple white supremacy. Activists demanded that colleges play a central role in the Civil Rights Movement (a distinct challenge to the notion of the ivory tower) while state agents demanded that colleges distance themselves from the black freedom struggle and promised to mete out harsh penalties if they did not. Through the words and deeds of actual participants, this path-breaking study documents how activists ultimately transformed non-political institutions into libratory agents.
Synopsis
This path-breaking examination of black colleges in Mississippi during the civil rights and black power movements offers a unique opportunity to understand how institutions are transformed into liberatory agents. Williamson examines how campus constituents negotiated and clashed over local, state, and national pressures against the backdrop of the highly contentious conflict between those determined to protect racial hierarchy and others equally determined to cripple white supremacy. She shows how students challenged the notion of the university as an ivory tower, aloof from community affairs, and documents how these colleges tried to resolve the tension between activism and academics. Through the words and deeds of actual participants, this profoundly moving account also provides firsthand knowledge of how students balanced their pursuit of higher education with campus and societal reform.