“We Are Here and We Must Be Reckoned With”: Memphis State University, the Black Student Association, and the Politics of Racial Identity

In 1968 African American students at Memphis State University created the Black Student Association (BSA) to “foster the ideals of human brotherhood gained through the unifying ideals of race and to develop the traits and talents of black people.” This paper discusses the evolution of the African American student population at Memphis State and the formation of the Black Student Association culminating with the 1969 sit-in at the school’s administration building. The students, many of whom did not categorize themselves as Black Power activists in the “conventional” way that history has viewed Black Power ideologues, combined their traditional civil rights sensibilities with principles from the emerging Black Power Movement to change the racial dynamics at the institution. African American students at Memphis State University, and more specifically, the BSA, placed the issues of racial identity at the forefront of their struggle for recognition and parity on campus. In their quest, the students evoked the language of Black Power in their push for programs that mattered to them as African American students on a predominately white campus.