Post About “BLAC memo on community service program”
This text is part of a collection of student work from the Fall 2017 class HIST 294-04/AMST 294-01, Public History: African American Life — Past, Present and Future. Students selected, described, and analyzed items from the Macalester Archives pertaining to Black history. The entire class collection can be found here.
This memorandum from 1968 was sent from the Black Liberation Affairs Committee (BLAC) to the school president and was in regards to a community outreach program BLAC wished to undertake. They give us a tiny bit of insight into the BLAC org 50 years ago, and the types of things they wanted to accomplish. Richard Cambridge was the president of BLAC at the time and he along with the other members decided to select 16 BLAC members to begin working at the Inner City Youth League (ICYL). The youth league was an apartment building on 861 Selby Avenue, and it assisted with programs of education communication in some of the black communities of St.Paul. In order for this to happen however, BLAC needed funding. For 10 weeks of work for each member- and with each member working no more than 15 hours per week at a rate of 2 dollars per hour- the program was expected to cost about $4,800 dollars. This price didn’t include costs such as transportation and other minor incidentals, but those were covered by the students. If everything worked out well, an additional 4 weeks during the interim and 13 weeks during the second semester would cost $8,160. As previously mentioned, the memorandum was dated October 1, 1968 so undoubtedly this would be a large sum of money to be investing at that time period (let alone, now). This apparently wasn’t considered when the proposal had been made; that the college pledge the initial $4,800 for the first semester, but also pledge its support for the rest of the school year.
After reading this, two questions presented themselves: Was the program successful in getting the necessary funding and were all the participants black? Both of them were answered in the second document, which I believe is a follow up report (maybe the assessment that was mentioned in the proposal). It said that 14 black students-half male and half female- had been participating in the program since October 1, and that it was being funded by the school. It also delves deeper into the program, saying that it was originally just meant to organize sport-related activities but the Macalester students implemented Afro-American history classes, cooking and sewing skills, and even photography and darkroom techniques. Unfortunately, the program had a bad reputation with the residents of the area-both black and white-who tagged the program as “radical”. Believing this to be an unjust labeling, the Macalester students set out to change the public perception by educating them on the difference between black pride and black power. They decided to perform random house calls by calling about every 10th house in a neighborhood and doing a few home visits- both of which helped them reach a more diverse and representative group of people than if they had just chosen one neighborhood. The document concludes by listing the plans of the program for the future and noting that “no negative reports [had] been heard…” The overall tone of both pieces is rather distanced; they both state what needs to be stated, and little more. This is fine though because it adds some seriousness and respectability to the content.
–Demani Shikomba
Cited from: BLAC memorandum dated October 1, 1968 and follow-up report- BLAC Projects Folder
MetadataTitle: Post About 'BLAC memo on community service program'
Creator: Shikomba, Demani
Description: This text is part of a collection of student work from the Fall 2017 class HIST 294-04/AMST 294-01, Public History: African American Life — Past, Present and Future. Students selected, described, and analyzed items from the Macalester Archives pertaining to Black history. The entire class collection can be found in the Fall 2017 Public History Class tag.
Date Created:
Dates of Content: October 1, 1968
Type of Content: Text
Source: BLAC memorandum dated October 1, 1968 and follow-up report- BLAC Projects Folder
URL: https://dwlibrary.macalester.edu/counterbalance/activism/blac-memo-on-community-service-program/
Suggested Citation: Shikomba, Demani. "Post About 'BLAC memo on community service program'." Counterbalance, Macalester College Archives. . Text. https://dwlibrary.macalester.edu/counterbalance/activism/blac-memo-on-community-service-program/.