Challenging White Cultural Hegemony, Advancing Black Liberatory Education: The Black Student Struggle for Black Studies at Cornell University, 1968-69
Author:
Agyei Tyehimba
Degree Date:
May, 1997
Committee Chairperson:
James Turner
Call Number:
Thesis DT 3.5 1997 T97
Description:
xii, 222 leaves; 29 cm.
Abstract:
This thesis examines the Black student struggle to create Black Studies at Cornell University (1968-1969). The thesis will demonstrate that the immediate struggle for Black Studies represented a larger struggle by Black students to resist white cultural hegemony. Hegemony is defined here as dominance and the attempt to negate a group of people by structural manipulation of societal institutions. The activities of the Afro- American Society at Cornell are treated as a socio-political case study, reflective of the larger national movement for liberatory and relevant Black education in the 1960's. Inspired largely by the Black nationalist ideology of the Black Power Movement, Black students at Cornell participated in a "defensive and offensive attack" on white cultural hegemony. On one hand, they challenged whites' efforts to distort and delegitimize Black people. On the other hand they worked to develop a new curriculum at Cornell, one that would prepare them to fight for social justice and to liberate their communities. This thesis explores the dialectical relationship between local and national events pertaining to the Black student struggle for Black studies.