Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania has recently announced its Black studies program has officially become an academic department with an undergraduate major. Joseph Derrick Nelson, current program coordinator for Black studies and associate professor of educational studies, will serve as department chair.
Transitioning the Black studies program to department status will allow the college to provide a more cohesive curriculum for its students, as well as hire tenure-track faculty who are dedicated to Black studies. Prior to the department’s official formation, all professors affiliated with the program had primary appointments in other departments.
At a recent event to celebrate the department’s launch, Brooke Vick, vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Swarthmore, stated, “History-making change doesn’t happen all at once, nor is it linear. Forward steps, especially in the march toward racial justice and liberation, are often met with backward steps, frequently driven by a backlash rooted in fear.”
She continued, “They want people to believe that diversity work is about exclusion. But this is what it’s about. It is about creating spaces where representation not only matters but is delivered.”
Also present at the celebration were several co-authors of Seven Sisters and a Brother (Books & Books Press, 2019), a memoir chronicling Black student activism at Swarthmore in the 1960s. The book tells the story of eight students who conducted a sit-in protesting decreased enrollment and hiring of African Americans at Swarthmore, and demanding the development of an African American studies curriculum.
During the event, Marilyn Holifield, one of the students who participated in the historic protest, announced she and her co-authors will donate all of the book’s royalties to the college. Additionally, the co-authors announced they will donate $100,000 to establish an endowment that will benefit the Black studies department at Swarthmore in perpetuity.
