In a Dec. 12, 1968 edition of The Acorn, a Hyera member was quoted as saying: “For three hundred years black people have been enslaved and will continue to be enslaved…until people know black history and culture.” Entitled “Hyera asks for courses in black history,” the short article serves as the start of a year-long conversation regarding the topics Drew students felt mattered in their classrooms.
Hyera was a group of undergraduate students dedicated to voicing concerns of their Black peers on campus. The discourse they began eventually resulted in the first courses to focus on Black history and anthropology.
The group and their allies expanded course offerings, encouraged the hiring of the College of Liberal Arts’ first Black professor and worked hard to ensure Black students had their voices heard on Drew’s predominately white campus. The effects of these students’ actions are still seen on campus today.
To celebrate Black History Month this article is dedicated to breaking the silence of this story in an attempt to display the value of Black history education at Drew.
Hyera, today’s Black Student Union, first emerged at Drew in the late 1960s. Throughout this tumultuous period, colleges diversified, the Civil Rights Movement garnered national attention and students increasingly sought ways to ensure their voices were heard on college campuses.
The group started out as a part of the undergraduate Student Government, originally called the Student Committee of Racial Awareness, and is credited with initiating the conversation about student desire for courses pertaining to Black history and culture.
The organization circulated a list of names of prominent Black figures who have had an influence on American history to gauge the student body’s knowledge of Black history. The results must have been unimpressive; Hyera spoke out in the Acorn shortly thereafter, voicing the need for a course in Black History to be added to Drew’s course offerings. The initial article from December 1968 even goes on to list courses in Black music and literature the group hoped to see offered in the future.
The previous summer, a discussion on how to make “white colleges” a more sensible choice for Black students took place in the Drew Magazine.
Richard Cheshire, an aide to Drew’s Director of Development, noted in his article “A Plan for Negro Colleges” that predominately white institutions, such as Drew, must be willing to do their part in pursuing equality through access to education.
Cheshire made it clear that in order to attract and retain Black students universities must be willing to not only provide funding and scholarship opportunities but also educational environments that Black students feel welcomed in. Cheshire argued for the importance of ensuring Black contributions to society are intertwined with the white narratives that already saturated classroom lectures and discussions. The conversation of integrating Black narratives into the educational environment was erupting in academia and being reproduced in Drew publications.
Hyera students used the momentum of this larger conversation to continue their pursuit of a representative education. By March 1969, Hyera gained the approval from Student Government to move forward with their pursuit.
Following coordination and collaboration with the Educational Policy and Planning Committee, a two-semester series of courses in Black history were officially approved by the university by May of the same year. This victory is reported in large bold letters on the cover of the May 2, 1969 edition of The Acorn. Two weeks later, The Madison Eagle also covered the story and quoted newly elected student body president Robert Smartt saying “The student voice is listened to at Drew: but we must keep it articulate and resolute so that it won’t become listened for.”
The two-semester series of courses was an interdisciplinary pursuit shared between the Anthropology and History Departments. The first semester featured “Peoples of Africa and the African Legacy” taught by professor of linguistics and anthropology Dr. Roger Wescott. The second semester, taught by associate history Professor Dr. Charles Wetzel, featured a course titled “The Black Legacy in America.” It is important to note that while both of these courses promised to dive into Black history and culture, they were taught by white faculty, as the CLA would not hire the first Black professor, Chester Williams, until 1970.
Hyera spent months working through the systems of adding courses at Drew to ensure the Black student voice was heard. The Madison Eagle praised Hyera for pushing forward in their pursuit “without fanfare” and not using the demand for Black history courses as a “cry for battle,” as similar situations created tensions on other campuses nationwide.
This is not to say the conversation about representation in Drew classrooms was without its conflict and tension. In an October 1969 letter written to President Robert Fisher Oxnam, Hyera president Reginald Parris worked within the system of the university and “respectfully submitted” various requests for apologies for racial profiling incidents, the demand for a Black dean to represent Black students, desired revisions to be made to the newly added courses in Black history and, importantly, the hiring of a Black professor to teach said Black history courses. Oxnam’s response refuted most of the requests and allegations of racial profiling concerns. He even went so far as to say he did not “foresee a college, school, or department for black studies for primarily academic reasons.”
Oxnam was not an oracle by any means. Hyera’s continued pursuit of integrating Black narratives into an increasingly diverse academic setting proved to be successful.
The late 1960s was an era of activism in which students learned lessons not only from their professors but also from organizers across various campuses and cities in the United States. These valuable lessons shaped the rhetoric of actively seeking representation in academia in hopes of further promoting racial equality beyond The Forest.
This story of Hyera’s student-led advocacy is rich and inspiring. Hyera provided an avenue for the Black voices on Drew’s campus to be heard. The classes the students first called for in 1968 are now core parts of Drew University course offerings that consistently draw in students. In the next edition, I will work to connect the history of Hyera’s efforts to the way classrooms have been changed by their aspirations. Interviews with professors from various departments and disciplines will explore how Drew’s faculty grapples with this legacy today and how they intend to deal with it tomorrow.
Jocelyn Freeman is a junior double-majoring history and English with a minor in Chinese.
Featured image courtesy of The Drew Acorn. Featured image caption: Headline from May 2, 1969 proclaiming Hyera’s victory.
