Word: afros
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...campus organization now known as the Association of African and Afro-American Students (AAAS) is a product of the uniquely stimulating years from 1960 to 1963. The student demonstrations in the South, African independence, and the Black Muslims -- especially Malcolm X -- captured the imagination of Negroes in intellectual communities throughout the country...
Before AAAAS ("Afro") was organized, standard procedure was for Negroes, passing one another in the Yard, to cast down their eyes or become immediately engrossed with tying their shoelaces. Kilson would address everyone as "Hey spook! Hey Negro!" and people began looking looking up and saying "Hi," as if they had been caught stealing cookies...
This was the setting. Out of it Harvard's Negro students formed two groups: the activists -- those who sought political power, and engaged in demonstrations in Roxbury and at the Portuguese consulate--and a "cultural discussion group"--interested in the exchange of ideas between Africans and Afro-Americans, the exploration of common problems. The activists felt strongest about excluding whites from their efforts...
...leaders. Others involved were Epps (then 1G), Claude Weaver '65, and Thomas Atkins (1G). A new concept was being formulated, of which Armah was the most articulate spokesman. It was Armah who originated both the name of the organization, AAAAS, and the membership clause -- "open to African and Afro-American students currently enrolled at Harvard and Radcliffe...
...SNCC and Afro-American groups no longer have whites in their membership. For Afro-Americans it is a decision of tactical importance arising out of a conscious, creative effort to see black students determining the direction of their own movement. For SNCC, the decision of white-exclusion is more deeply rooted in a chauvinistic dogma that says black exclusivism equals black superiority -- a romantic contrivance that even the late Malcolm X abandoned. It is disheartening that the only visible product of SNCC's collective array of striking personalities is a kind of street-oriented, ultrahip, political lingo that makes...