“For many of us (student activists), this period of our lives was one of excitement and exhilaration, a sense of the possibilities not even evident just a few years earlier when merely calling an individual ‘black’ could lead to confrontation,” the Natchez native said. history that spurred the founding of the nation’s first Black Studies Department and School of Ethnic Studies. Joined by thousands of black and white students, the group spearheaded a five-month-long strike, the longest student-led strike in U.S. Smith’s presentation “On Strike Shut It Down: The 1960s Call for Black Studies” highlighted his years at San Francisco State University (SFSU), including his role as a participant in the school’s Black Student Union. “We need black studies to continue and flourish for all of our futures and for the country’s well-being because it’s only when we really understand who we really are as a people that we can grow and develop into who we need to be as a people,” she emphasized. Smalls said while “the killing starts in kindergarten, the healing and helping is at Mississippi State University with your black studies program.” We teach it to every generation of children.” “I wondered, ‘Where do the attributes of good and bad, inferior and superior begin? I think that’s where racism comes from. It doesn’t mean anything, though,” Smalls said. Her interest in writing children’s books, she said, developed out of a fascination with the origins of racism. Smalls also has penned 15 books for black children and twice has performed her stories by invitation at the White House. “We needed the right to press our hair if we felt like it, play our music and hear the kinds of cultural aspects that reinforce our psyche and our souls, so I came up with the idea of Wari House, which is still on Cornell’s campus 40 years later.” “We needed the right to be ourselves,” Smalls said of her fellow black female students. She also became a founding member and first president of Cornell’s Black Alumni Association and its Wari House residence for undergraduate women of color. Smalls went on to initiate and direct the first sit-ins and demonstration that led to the takeover of Cornell’s Student Union, Willard Straight Hall. “I was electrified by that class I took because one of the things the professor said was the function of religion, education and sociology was basically to take folks who were aggressive, original thinkers and mark them so they can be forced out of society and the status quo can be maintained.” “There was an instance where we had a young, brilliant girl from the south Bronx who was having all of these confrontations with the administration, and they were saying she was crazy and they were going to put her out,” Smalls said. Smalls said she decided to enroll in an interesting-sounding myth, ritual and symbol class, which inspired her to challenge the definition of “normal” or “socially acceptable” behavior and advocate for change.

You’re talking about my mother.’ Growing up in a community like Harlem that provided support and love, I knew they were talking about the women who made sure I had everything I needed. “In my classes, the predominant thinking of some of the professors was that black women are promiscuous and have low moral values,” Smalls recalled.

Smalls said that she experienced culture shock after arriving at Cornell, an environment that was drastically different from the fully-faceted New York neighborhood in which she grew up during the 1950s.

“By looking at history, scholarship and actual accomplishments, we have the ability to make changes as people,” she added.Ī native of Harlem, New York, Smalls holds a bachelor’s in black studies from Cornell University, as well as a master’s in business administration from New York University. She was joined by Vernon Smith, a former journalism and radio-TV-film production student and Black Student Union member at San Francisco State University. “Black studies programs are so important because they provide us a chance to break down, examine and recognize the implicit biases that we all have,” award-winning author, historian and literacy entrepreneur Irene Smalls told a packed crowd in Colvard Student Union’s Bill R. STARKVILLE, Miss.-Just as they did more than 40 years ago, two trailblazing figures of the 1960s Black Studies movement in higher education emphasized the importance of African American studies programs during their recent visit to Mississippi State University.

Sfsu bsu email