When Ivory Towers Were Black: A Story about Race in America's Cities and Universities

Published by Fordham University Press 2017

When Ivory Towers Were Black

A Story about Race in America's Cities and Universities

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823276141

Overview
Contents

About this book

Tells the story of how a cohort of ethnic minority students earned degrees from Columbia University’s School of Architecture. Follows two university units that steered the school toward an emancipatory approach to education. Assesses the triumphs and subsequent unraveling of an experiment to achieve racial justice in the school and in the nearby Harlem community. Informs contemporary struggles for racial and economic equality.

Author / Editor information

Sutton Sharon Egretta :

Sharon Egretta Sutton is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington and a fellow in the American Institute of Architects, a Distinguished Professor of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, and an inductee into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.Sharon Egretta Sutton is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington and a fellow in the American Institute of Architects, a Distinguished Professor of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, and an inductee into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.

Reviews

Sutton’s analysis critically examines the intersection of race, higher education, and urban development in a way that surely shows how the profession of architecture is equipped to and can aid in social justice initiatives around the country.

The most inspiring of [this book’s] positions is an unwavering faith in the power of affirmative action as a means of changing the design professions and, consequently, the spaces they shape . . . A profession that reflects the diversity of the world it shapes requires something more ineffable: an open acknowledgement of persistent oppression combined with 'an amazing, almost breathless sense of possibility' (201). It is that breathless sense that distinguishes When Ivory Towers Were Black. It is clear that it enabled Sutton’s participation in this experiment, her success that followed, and her retelling of that story in the book, which can hopefully pass some of that optimism to its readers.

...an unusual hybrid of memoir, institutional history and broadside against the entrenched whiteness of the architecture profession in this country.

Sutton tells a story that has yet to be told: a time, an era, a passion, a hope, a tale recounted with the skill and energy of a mystery novel. She tells of young people who believed that the injustices they found on their college campuses also believed that they could be righted, that racism could be battled and defeated. When Ivory Towers Were Black encourages us to reflect on the dreams, hopes, battles and defeats as a way of measuring how far we have come—and how far there is yet to go.---—Diane Ghirardo, University of Southern California

[Sutton] examines the development and unraveling of an experimental education initiative at Columbia University’s School of Architecture that arose out of the school’s 1968 student rebellions, aimed at recruiting of minority students and transforming the school’s curriculum into “humanistic, justice-oriented” education. . . The recollections of the alumni that infuse and inform the text. . . give the book value as an oral history."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Foreword James Stewart Polshek Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Prologue Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Pre- 1965 Context Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	16
2 1965–1967 Context Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	36
3 1968 Insurgency Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
4 1968–1971 Experimentation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
5 1969–1971 Transgression Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
6 1969–1971 Unraveling Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	128
7 1972–1976 Extinction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
8 Alumni Years Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	176
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Appendix A: Biographies of the Oral History Cohort. Listed Alphabetically in Order of Graduation Date Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Appendix B: Academic Credentials of All Ethnic Minority Recruits Attending the School of Architecture, 1965–1976 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275

Language: English
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Pages
- Main content: 312
Keywords: race relations; urban development; higher education; New York City; Columbia University; Black Power Movement; minority students; civil rights movement; racism; social injustice; affirmative action

eBook

Published: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 9780823276141