The last negroes at Harvard : the class of 1963 and the eighteen young men who changed Harvard forever / Kent Garrett and Jeanne Ellsworth.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Garrett, Kent, author.

Ellsworth, Jeanne, 1951- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Harvard University--Students--History--20th century.

Harvard University.

Harvard University--History--20th century.

History.

African American college students--Massachusetts--Cambridge.

African American college students.

African Americans--Education (Higher)--Massachusetts--Cambridge.

African Americans.

Discrimination in higher education--United States--History--20th century.

Discrimination in higher education.

African Americans--Education (Higher).

Students.

Massachusetts--Cambridge.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xiv, 299 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020.

Summary:

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

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.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [291]-299).

Other Format:

Online version: Garrett, Kent, author. Last negroes at Harvard

ISBN:

9781328879974

1328879976

OCLC:

1080246920