We Can! We Will! We Must!

Abstract

The chapter discusses the explosive history of Southern University in the years leading up to the Black Power Movement. Baton Rouge, Louisiana was the setting for one of the largest student protests in the country as thousands of students flocked to the streets in protests against Jim Crow policies. Prior to this emergence, students were nurtured for years in a space cultivated by Joseph Samuel Clark, who served as the school’s first president and was succeeded by his son, Felton Grandison Clark. Like many black college presidents, Clark enjoyed the reputation of a fervent race man who embraced the tenets of the second curriculum. Yet as the modern civil rights movement approached, Clark succumbed to the pressures of the state and transformed into one of the most notorious HBCU presidents during the era – expelling students, firing faculty, and running the campus with a vise-like grip. Nevertheless, the Southern student body powered through these obstacles and created one of the most radical spaces for black youth in the deep south.