Cleaver Course Position Paper
Black Power
The University of California-Berkeley was one of the key sites of 1960s-era campus activism. During the early and mid-1960s, Cal students participated in the southern civil rights struggle and protested the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. In 1964, a conflict near Sather Gate sparked the Free Speech Movement. The Students for a Democratic Society were strong on campus and led student activists into the anti-Vietnam war era. During the late-1960s and early-1970s, UC-Berkeley played a pivotal role in the rise of the Black Studies and Third World Student movements.
In 1966, African Americans made up a mere 1% of the student population at the University of California-Berkeley. At the time, the Afro-American Student Union (AASU) was the lone black student political group on campus. On October 29, 1966, SDS sponsored a conference at the Greek Theater, titled, “Black Power and It’s Challenges,” which was attended by an estimated 12,000 overwhelmingly white students and featured keynote speakers, Ron Karenga (US Organization), James Bevel (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and Stokely Carmichael (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), who called UC-Berkeley the “white intellectual ghetto of the West.” AASU opposed the conference, calling it “farcical,” “insidious” and “detestable.”
By 1968, the number of African American students on campus began to rise. Early that year, a coalition of black student activists and local community members demanded the creation of a Black Studies Department. In a March, 1968 issue of the Daily Californian, the group wrote, “We demand a program of ‘BLACK STUDIES,’ a program that will be of and for black people. We demand to be educated realistically and that no form of education which attempts to lie to us, or otherwise mis-educate us will be accepted.” In response Chancellor Roger Heyns promised the establishment of a new department by the Fall of 1969. In the meantime, African American students worked with the College of Letters and Sciences to offer a selection of courses on the “Black Experience” during the 1968 school year, including a course titled, “Social Analysis 139X: Dehumanization and Regeneration of the American Social Order,” which was co-organized by four university faculty, but was to be guest taught by controversial Black Panther Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver. The 10-lecture class was sponsored by the Center for Participation in Education (CPE), a university supported effort to empower students to help devise classes that focused on pressing contemporary issues. Yet, as students began to enroll in the course, conservative Governor, Ronald Reagan, and state legislators pressured the Board of Regents to pass a new rule stating that classes could only include one guest lecture per semester, an obvious ploy to severely limit Cleaver’s platform on campus. The move set off a new controversy over academic freedom on campus and helped spur the mobilization of the Third World Liberation Front, a coalition of black students, Latin American students, Asian American students and Mexican American students that organized the longest student strikes in U.S. history. Ultimately, Cleaver gave six lectures on campus in 1968.
This document puts forth a defense of the "Cleaver Course," as it became known on campus.
Center for Participant Education
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1968
position paper
Eldridge Cleaver Controversy at UC-Berkeley
(196 images)
Black Power
The University of California-Berkeley was one of the key sites of 1960s-era campus activism. During the early and mid-1960s, Cal students participated in the southern civil rights struggle and protested the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. In 1964, a conflict near Sather Gate sparked the Free Speech Movement. The Students for a Democratic Society were strong on campus and led student activists into the anti-Vietnam war era. During the late-1960s and early-1970s, UC-Berkeley played a pivotal role in the rise of the Black Studies and Third World Student movements.
In 1966, African Americans made up a mere 1% of the student population at the University of California-Berkeley. At the time, the Afro-American Student Union (AASU) was the lone black student political group on campus. On October 29, 1966, SDS sponsored a conference at the Greek Theater, titled, “Black Power and It’s Challenges,” which was attended by an estimated 12,000 overwhelmingly white students and featured keynote speakers, Ron Karenga (US Organization), James Bevel (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) and Stokely Carmichael (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), who called UC-Berkeley the “white intellectual ghetto of the West.” AASU opposed the conference, calling it “farcical,” “insidious” and “detestable.”
By 1968, the number of African American students on campus began to rise. Early that year, a coalition of black student activists and local community members demanded the creation of a Black Studies Department. In a March, 1968 issue of the Daily Californian, the group wrote, “We demand a program of ‘BLACK STUDIES,’ a program that will be of and for black people. We demand to be educated realistically and that no form of education which attempts to lie to us, or otherwise mis-educate us will be accepted.” In response Chancellor Roger Heyns promised the establishment of a new department by the Fall of 1969. In the meantime, African American students worked with the College of Letters and Sciences to offer a selection of courses on the “Black Experience” during the 1968 school year, including a course titled, “Social Analysis 139X: Dehumanization and Regeneration of the American Social Order,” which was co-organized by four university faculty, but was to be guest taught by controversial Black Panther Minister of Information, Eldridge Cleaver. The 10-lecture class was sponsored by the Center for Participation in Education (CPE), a university supported effort to empower students to help devise classes that focused on pressing contemporary issues. Yet, as students began to enroll in the course, conservative Governor, Ronald Reagan, and state legislators pressured the Board of Regents to pass a new rule stating that classes could only include one guest lecture per semester, an obvious ploy to severely limit Cleaver’s platform on campus. The move set off a new controversy over academic freedom on campus and helped spur the mobilization of the Third World Liberation Front, a coalition of black students, Latin American students, Asian American students and Mexican American students that organized the longest student strikes in U.S. history. Ultimately, Cleaver gave six lectures on campus in 1968.
These photos, taken by Roz Payne show Eldridge Cleaver lecturing, as well as Kathleen Cleaver on campus, Ronald Reagan at Regents meetings and some of the campus protests surrounding Cleaver's lectures and the broader Third World Liberation Front activism on campus.
Roz Payne
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1968-1969
Liberated Guardian Supplement, April 15, 1971
New Left
The National Guardian was a radical, left newsweekly published out of New York City from 1948-1992. The paper was established by James Aronson, Cedric Belfrage, who were committed activists for the Progressive Party and Henry Wallace presidential campaign, as well as John McManus and Josiah Gitt, both liberal newspaper men, though Gitt quickly dropped out. In addition to the Progressive Party, the newspaper also held ties with American communists and the labor movement. The Cold War took a toll on the newspaper, with the decline of the Progressive Party and the rise of McCarthyism in the U.S. During the post-WWII era, the newspaper focused coverage on opposition to the Cold War and militarism, support for emerging anti-colonial struggles around the world, defense of those targeted by McCarthyism, advocacy for the black freedom movement. The newspaper continued to hold a cozy relationship with the Communist Party U.S.A., though it did break with the group over some issues, particularly support for independent political action beyond party control. The 1960s-era brought a new period of political rancor within the editorial ranks of the newspaper. In the end, the periodical changed leadership and renamed itself The Guardian. The Guardian took an increasingly Maoist line, supporting armed struggles against colonialism. During this period, the newspaper attempted to forge ties with SDS and SNCC, writing that "The duty of a radical newspaper is to build a radical movement.” "We are movement people acting as journalists," the Guardian′s staff now proudly declared. The Liberated Guardian formed out of a workers strike at The Guardian newspaper in New York City in the Spring of 1970. The Liberated Guardian was notable for it strong stand in favor of armed struggle. An ideological and political split within the ranks of the Liberated Guardian staff led to the newspaper’s demise in late-1973. The original Guardian pressed on and took on a more hard-line Marxist-Leninist ideology in the late-1970s, eroding that newspaper’s reputation for investigative journalism. Readership and support for The Guardian declined through the 1980s and the paper ceased publication in 1992.
These pages are from an 8-page supplement focused on revolutionary art, COINTELPRO and FBI files, and debate within the anti-war movement over strategy.
Liberated Guardian
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
April 15, 1971
underground press
Liberated Guardian, vol. II, no. 5, September 1971
New Left
The National Guardian was a radical, left newsweekly published out of New York City from 1948-1992. The paper was established by James Aronson, Cedric Belfrage, who were committed activists for the Progressive Party and Henry Wallace presidential campaign, as well as John McManus and Josiah Gitt, both liberal newspaper men, though Gitt quickly dropped out. In addition to the Progressive Party, the newspaper also held ties with American communists and the labor movement. The Cold War took a toll on the newspaper, with the decline of the Progressive Party and the rise of McCarthyism in the U.S. During the post-WWII era, the newspaper focused coverage on opposition to the Cold War and militarism, support for emerging anti-colonial struggles around the world, defense of those targeted by McCarthyism, advocacy for the black freedom movement. The newspaper continued to hold a cozy relationship with the Communist Party U.S.A., though it did break with the group over some issues, particularly support for independent political action beyond party control. The 1960s-era brought a new period of political rancor within the editorial ranks of the newspaper. In the end, the periodical changed leadership and renamed itself The Guardian. The Guardian took an increasingly Maoist line, supporting armed struggles against colonialism. During this period, the newspaper attempted to forge ties with SDS and SNCC, writing that "The duty of a radical newspaper is to build a radical movement.” "We are movement people acting as journalists," the Guardian′s staff now proudly declared. The Liberated Guardian formed out of a workers strike at The Guardian newspaper in New York City in the Spring of 1970. The Liberated Guardian was notable for it strong stand in favor of armed struggle. An ideological and political split within the ranks of the Liberated Guardian staff led to the newspaper’s demise in late-1973. The original Guardian pressed on and took on a more hard-line Marxist-Leninist ideology in the late-1970s, eroding that newspaper’s reputation for investigative journalism. Readership and support for The Guardian declined through the 1980s and the paper ceased publication in 1992.
This special issue of the Liberated Guardian includes a variety of articles that explore the murder of George Jackson and the circumstances surrounding his killing.
Liberated Guardian Worker's Collective
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
September 1971
underground press
The Guardian, April 16, 1975
New Left
The National Guardian was a radical, left newsweekly published out of New York City from 1948-1992. The paper was established by James Aronson, Cedric Belfrage, who were committed activists for the Progressive Party and Henry Wallace presidential campaign, as well as John McManus and Josiah Gitt, both liberal newspaper men, though Gitt quickly dropped out. In addition to the Progressive Party, the newspaper also held ties with American communists and the labor movement. The Cold War took a toll on the newspaper, with the decline of the Progressive Party and the rise of McCarthyism in the U.S. During the post-WWII era, the newspaper focused coverage on opposition to the Cold War and militarism, support for emerging anti-colonial struggles around the world, defense of those targeted by McCarthyism, advocacy for the black freedom movement. The newspaper continued to hold a cozy relationship with the Communist Party U.S.A., though it did break with the group over some issues, particularly support for independent political action beyond party control. The 1960s-era brought a new period of political rancor within the editorial ranks of the newspaper. In the end, the periodical changed leadership and renamed itself The Guardian. The Guardian took an increasingly Maoist line, supporting armed struggles against colonialism. During this period, the newspaper attempted to forge ties with SDS and SNCC, writing that "The duty of a radical newspaper is to build a radical movement.” "We are movement people acting as journalists," the Guardian′s staff now proudly declared. In 1970, further ideological fracture lead to the creation of a short-lived rival publication, The Liberated Guardian. In the later-1970s, a more hard-line Marxist-Leninist ideology eroded the newspaper’s reputation for investigative journalism. Readership and support for the newspaper declined through the 1980s and the paper ceased publication in 1992.
In this issue, articles cover the orphan airlift from Vietnam; the end of the U.S. war in Vietnam; Attica; Dominican protests in New York; United Farm Workers organizing in San Francisco; Joan Little; CIA red-squads; auto workers; unemployment; aerospace workers strike; San Francisco “Zebra trial”; government repression against the left; Milwaukee VA protest; the San Quinten Six; housing foreclosures; the Socialist Workers Party; economic recession; the October League; sectarian conflict on the left; Third World liberation struggles; Thieu regime in Vietnam; Soviet socialism; marketplace and letters.
Weekly Guardian Associates, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
April 16, 1975
newspaper
Vietnam
Vietnam War
Comic created in 1967, written by Atlanta SNCC leader, Julian Bond, and illustrated by T. G. Lewis. Bond wrote the comic while battling to be seated in the Georgia House of Representatives. He had been elected to the Georgia House of Representative in 1965 with 82% of the vote, but the Georgia state legislature refused to seat him because of his statements (on behalf of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) in opposition to the Vietnam War. In the comic, Bond draws linkages between the war in Vietnam and the struggle for racial justice in the U.S., which was increasingly common among more militant activists during this period.
Julian Bond and T.G. Lewis
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1967
comic