Portland State Magazine Fall 2019

18 FIFTY years ago, following one of the greatest decades of change for Afri- can Americans since the Civil War, Portland State became the first college in the Pacific Northwest to offer a program in Black studies. Over the years, it went from being an experimental program to a full-fledged department. Now, after a half-century, it remains unique in the region. While other universities in the Northwest offer courses in ethnic studies or African American studies, PSU is the only one with a full degree-granting department with the word “black” in its name. “At the time of our founding, ‘black’ was a very powerful and political term,” says recent department chair Shirley A. Jackson. “It was a way of throwing off the older ways of referencing people who had black skin.” An influential assortment of students and faculty pushed the idea of starting the program in 1968 and 1969 as part of a wave of other universities around the country doing the same. Portland State—which had just gained university status—approved it as an “experiment” on August 22, 1969. “It was deemed experimental because it was so new—there was no guarantee that this would actually be something that would continue to exist,” Jackson says. In fact, according to former department chair Darrell Millner, who came to PSU as a history instructor in 1975, Portland State essentially put up road- blocks to undermine the success of Black Studies, making the launch of the program tenuous indeed. “Portland State did not invite Black Studies to come to campus. In many ways it was hostile to the concept of Black Studies—as much of the high- er education structure in the country was in the late ‘60s,” he says. These programs were created essentially because of pressure from students and the black community. Universities—and I would include Portland State—looked at Black Studies with great disfavor, even hostility, and didn’t consider it to be a legitimate academic discipline.” For example, Millner says the program originally required 60 hours of coursework for a student to earn a certificate—not a degree—in Black Stud- ies. And courses taken in Black Studies were not accepted to satisfy normal degree requirements. So, a student majoring in history could take a history class through Black Studies, but it wouldn’t count toward the student’s major. “No doubt about it, that was one of the ways Black Studies was made unat- tractive and unavailable to students. You had to be highly motivated to decide to be part of the Black Studies program. That was not accidental. That was part of the tradeoff in getting Black Studies approved,” he says. Through years of struggle, PSU’s Black Studies Department remains unique in the Northwest. Turning 50: Black Studies Director Phil McLaurin accepts books and papers that Jeannette Gates is donating to the PSU Library. WRITTEN BY JOHN KIRKLAND