The last negroes at Harvard : the class of 1963 and the 18 young men who changed Harvard forever /
Kent Garrett and Jeanne Ellsworth.
- xiv, 299 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Preface New boys: fall 1959 Curiosities Integrators: spring 1960 Bright shadows House Negroes: fall 1960, spring and summer 1961 So-called Negroes: fall 1961 The lost Negroes Rising sons of darkness: spring and summer 1962 Afro Americans: fall 1962 and spring 1963 Alumni Epilogue The gallery
"The untold story of the Harvard class of '63, whose Black students fought to create their own identities on the cusp between integration and affirmative action. In the fall of 1959, Harvard recruited eighteen "Negro" boys as an experiment, an early form of affirmative action. Four years later they would graduate as African Americans. Some fifty years later, one of these trailblazing Harvard grads, Kent Garrett, began to reconnect with his classmates and explore their vastly different backgrounds, lives, and what their time at Harvard meant. Garrett and his partner Jeanne Ellsworth recount how these young men broke new ground. By the time they were seniors, they would have demonstrated against injustice, had lunch with Malcolm X, experienced heartbreak and the racism of academia, and joined with their African national classmates to fight for the right to form an exclusive Black students' group. Part journey into personal history, part group portrait, and part narrative history of the civil rights movement, this is the remarkable story of brilliant, singular boys whose identities were changed at and by Harvard, and who, in turn, changed Harvard"--
9781328879974 (hardback) 1328879976 (hardback)
2019014973
Harvard University--Students--History--20th century. Harvard University--History--20th century. Harvard University --Historia
African American college students--Massachusetts--Cambridge. African Americans--Education, Higher--Massachusetts--Cambridge. Discrimination in higher education--History--United States--20th century. Discriminación en la educación superior --Estados Unidos Historia de las universidades --Estados Unidos