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Eastern Michigan University Department of Africology and African American Studies
EMU Black Student Organizing Conference
TRANSCRIPTION:
Ana Longoria: This is 89.1 WEMU News. I’m Ana Longoria. Students, alumni, and community members are gathering at Eastern Michigan University to discuss the historical impact Black activism has had on the campus. Joining me today is Peter Blackmer, associate professor at EMU’s Department of Africology and African American Studies. We’re discussing how said activism has shaped the Black student experience. From what I understand the three goals of this conference are: learning more about past student activism here at EMU, evaluating progress made toward improving the Black experience on campus, and discussing the future direction for Black student organizing. So, I guess let's start with the roots of Black activism at EMU because it really got its start with the founding of the Black Student Association.
Peter Blackmer: Yeah. So, starting with the Black Student Association in 1969, they're really entering into organizing on campus amidst the Black Power movement. So a lot of influences upon students that are coming into Eastern, that were growing up in Detroit, witnessing the 1967 Detroit Rebellion, being influenced by the emergence and popularization of the Black Panther Party throughout the country. And so the era and the spirit of the Black Power movement was really charging the political consciousness of students on campus to draw from that national movement and apply that energy and the politics to make certain demands on campus. So, there was a 10-point series of demands that was issued in 1969. And if we go forward, as we'll discuss at the conference, Black students in various eras put forth their own demands to the administration to create more spaces for Black students on campus, to create what is now the Department of Africology and African American Studies. I don't want to get too far ahead here with some of the more recent demands. But the 1969 Black Student Association protests really laid an important groundwork that subsequent generations of Black students have continuously built upon here at Eastern as well.
Ana Longoria: How did Black organizations and student activism on campus evolve throughout the rest of the 20th century and into the 2000s and 2010s?
Peter Blackmer: Social movements kind of ebb and flow throughout years and decades. But there has been at Eastern kind of this undercurrent of Black student organizing. That was true in the early 2000s. And in our first panel at the conference, we're going to have an intergenerational group of alumni, including organizers from the Black Student Association in the late 1960s, early 1970s, from the early 2000s, and from the early 1990s as well to speak to these different eras. But really what we're talking about here is the ways that particularly national contexts are shaping local politics on campus as well. So, whether we're talking about hip hop in the 1980s or we're talking about the election of Barack Obama in 2008, like the possibilities that that represented for so many folks. But all alongside, you know, the local and national context of police brutality and systemic racism are very much shaping the consciousness of Black students on campus and fighting to become part of a national movement while also addressing the very local circumstances here at EMU and in Ypsilanti.
Ana Longoria: Now, let’s focus on the 2020s. It’s funny to think that 2020 is the past because that's six years ago. So, I guess after learning a little bit more about 2020 and the years that followed it, we'll then leapfrog into what progress has been made towards improving the Black experience on campus.
Peter Blackmer: You know, it's really strange because I started working here in the fall of 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. I didn't see anybody for the first year, at least, of my time here. But I'm saying that to say that the pandemic so deeply impacted the organizing culture on campus, as it impacted so much of the ways that we have related with each other and in communities over the last several years. And one of the things that I think we're getting back to now is kind of a flourishing of more student organizations, people finding ways to build spaces together based on their shared interests and priorities and concerns. But one of the things that we're hoping to accomplish with this particular conference is to like revive some of these traditions of progressive political organizing on campus that are so central to Eastern's legacy.
Ana Longoria: Do you think it’s fair to say then that the pandemic really put a dent into organizations on campus in general?
Peter Blackmer: I think so.
Ana Longoria: If you’re just joining us, I’m Ana Longoria, and I’m with Peter Blackmer, an associate professor of Africology and African American Studies at Eastern Michigan University. The college is holding a two-day conference focusing on the historical and ongoing impact of Black activism on campus and in the broader community. What sort of progress has been made towards improving the Black experience at EMU and meeting the demands that have been made throughout the years. Have they been met or have some fallen short?
Peter Blackmer: So, there's certainly been a lot of progress made, like because of the work of student organizers and their allies in the community. And I think that's always important to name explicitly that progress doesn't come just because people in decision-making positions decide one day that they've woken up and changed their minds. It comes through that kind of concerted organizing effort. But we've seen a number of things celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Department of Africology and African American Studies. That has been a, you know, consequential outcome and victory of student organizing. And from 2016, one of the demands of the Black Student Union and their allies was to create a PhD program in Africology and African American Studies. We haven't gotten there yet, but we did as a result of those 2016 protests get a master's program. This fall, we are welcoming one of our largest incoming classes in that program. So, for us, it feels like a really important opportunity to celebrate where this master's program comes from and to immerse our students in these kinds of traditions and legacies too.
Ana Longoria: What would you say is the current state of Black activism and organization here at EMU?
Peter Blackmer: What I've noticed on campus is kind of a resurgence of a number of Black-led student organizations, whether we're talking about the Black Student Union or the Divine Nine or we're talking about You Beautiful Black Women or Sisters That Care. Like, there's been so many organizations that are designed to like build community and advocate for the interests of black students on campus. But I think what we haven't been seeing as much of since 2016 is like the really kind of political organizing on campus that was so much characteristic of these past generations of Black student organizers, which isn't to say that this is a shortcoming of current student organizations so much as that there might be different interests and different priorities at play right now because we're in different periods of time as well.
Ana Longoria: Looking towards the future then, what sort of future directions can Black activism take?
Peter Blackmer: Well I think what we're seeing right now is directly related here because when we study the history of Black social movements, what we understand is that mass movements emerge when there are strong communities that are organized. So having this renewed culture of organization on campus is really critical to building collective consciousness and collective power because the next time that there is either an incident or a spark that creates kind of mass energy for political organizing, there are already organized bases here.
Ana Longoria: For people beyond EMU's campus and for the wider community of Washtenaw County, like what sort of things do you wish to share with them about this conference that maybe we just haven't touched on yet?
Peter Blackmer: I think this is an opportunity for us to build relationships, to renew relationships and to kind of create that culture of community between campus and community and Ypsilanti. But we also want to invite our alumni back to not just participate in this conference but also to participate in oral history interviews, to share archival collections, whether that's photos or documents that they might have, so that we can be preserving this kind of history as well. Because we know that so much of the organizing that's happened hasn't just been on campus, that in all these eras Black students have intentionally built relationships with Black communities in Ypsilanti, and so we want to see this conference be one that is bringing different generations of community members and community activists together with multigenerational groups of alumni and current students as well.
Ana Longoria: That is Peter Blackmer, who is an associate professor of Africology and African American Studies at Eastern Michigan University. We discussed a two-day conference examining the history of Black student activism at EMU and how that history can shape the future of the Black student experience on campus.
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