Black Space

Negotiating Race, Diversity, and Belonging in the Ivory Tower

Sherry L. Deckman

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781978822528, 9781978822535
• eBook ISBN: 9781978822566
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Protests against racial injustice and anti-Blackness have swept across elite colleges and universities in recent years, exposing systemic racism and raising questions about what it means for Black students to belong at these institutions. In Black Space, Sherry L. Deckman takes us into the lives of the members of the Kuumba Singers, a Black student organization at Harvard with racially diverse members, and a self-proclaimed safe space for anyone but particularly Black students. Uniquely focusing on Black students in an elite space where they are the majority, Deckman provides a case study in how colleges and universities might reimagine safe spaces. Through rich description and sharing moments in students' everyday lives, Deckman demonstrates the possibilities and challenges Black students face as they navigate campus culture and the refuge they find in this organization. This work illuminates ways administrators, faculty, student affairs staff, and indeed, students themselves, might productively address issues of difference and anti-Blackness for the purpose of fostering critically inclusive campus environments.
 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Foreword by Richard J. Reddick
• Introduction: How Do You Lift Every Voice?
• Prelude: (Un)Safe Space and Racial Diversity in the Ivory Tower
• Verse I: Being Black
• Verse II: Staying Black
• Bridge: Non-Black Members in the Black Organization
• Chorus: Learning to Care
• Coda: Lessons from the Safe Black Space
• Appendix A: Interview Participants
• Appendix B: Note on Methods
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author
• Series Titles