35 years later, issues more complicated

As one of the first members of Pitt’s Black Action Society, Jack Daniel was threatened three… As one of the first members of Pitt’s Black Action Society, Jack Daniel was threatened three times, twice at gunpoint, during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.

Daniel, the current vice provost of academic affairs and dean of students, negotiated a set of demands with Pitt after BAS members took over the University’s computer center. These demands led to the creation of today’s Africana studies department and the African-American collection at Hillman Library, as well as the University’s commitment to increase recruitment of black students, faculty and administration.

Even with these improvements, BAS members continue to strive for the same goals, though they are faced with different challenges.

BAS Vice President Charis Jones acknowledged that Pitt has made great strides, but said that there is still progress to be made. Jones said BAS’s founding goals remain the same, though there is a different black community with a different mindset at Pitt today.

“When you are only 12 percent of a national population, the more spread out and diverse you become in ideals, the more difficult it becomes to come together and affect the massive changes made when BAS was formed,” Jones explained.

The civil rights struggles of the 1960s brought the majority of the black community together. Today, without a mainstream movement, BAS has difficulty uniting black students at Pitt.

“In 1969, we were affirming ourselves,” Jones said. “Since we are no longer forced to be together and we can do whatever we want, essentially, some of us choose to assimilate to the mainstream society that may not always have the best interests of the black community at heart.”

Jones explained that BAS still has the job of reaching out to all black students. There are approximately 600 card-carrying members of BAS at Pitt, and 60 students comprise BAS’s executive board, consisting of officers and committee members. BAS has nine committees that serve purposes such as fund-raising, political action and public relations.

BAS also faces the challenge of being responsible for both programming and speaking for its students.

“The unique thing about BAS is the weight we have to carry,” Jones said.

BAS also deals with the University administration: The BAS president meets with Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and Daniel each year to discuss the needs of the black students at Pitt.

“Pitt does things in the community to improve the black community,” Jones said, explaining that certain administrators are receptive, citing Daniel as an example.

More work remains

“Pitt is now one of the best in the nation as far as admissions for African-American students,” Daniel said. According to Daniel, Pitt is a national leader for recruitment, retention and graduation of black students.

“If you look at the evolution of African-American faculty and administration at Pitt since the civil rights struggles of 1968, you will see African-American faculty and administration of absolute distinction,” Daniel said.

Though the University has become more diverse, Daniel said it still has a ways to go.

“If you look at all the power positions and who has control of the resources and decision-making, Pitt is predominantly a white male institution to this day, but I am too convinced that will change,” Daniel said.

White men still have a disproportionate number of senior positions, including roles as administrators, department heads and full-time professors throughout the University, according to Daniel.

“I don’t think Pitt will be the great institution that it is in the process of becoming until it appropriately reflects the diversity of society,” Daniel said.

Student experience important

Chenits Pettigrew, the current dean of social work, began his career at Pitt in July 1969 as the assistant dean of students. He, like Daniel, has seen many of the changes that BAS’s demands brought to the University.

“We’ve stayed in the game since 1968,” Pettigrew said.

Pettigrew explained that to figure out how Pitt fares in racial relations, diversity and discrimination, one must look at how students experience their education.

“I really think it’s a measure of whether or not we’ve put together an infrastructure that sustains a diverse educational community,” Pettigrew said. “Ideally, I do think we need to be able to react with people that have different experiences of our own.”

“And I think the university does try to do that,” he added.

Classroom experience positive at Pitt

Student Government Board member Jennifer Anukem, a sophomore, is experiencing something different with her education this semester.

She is taking her first class with a black professor: Daniel, who is teaching African-American rhetoric through the communication department.

“By having Dr. Daniel as a professor in the communication department, it has enriched my personal experience at Pitt through the African-American rhetoric class,” Anukem said. “He understands that there is more to diversity than just race.”

Anukem, born in Nigeria, moved to the United States when she was 6 years old. She attended a predominantly black high school where “there was never any talk about race relations.” Taking Daniel’s class has taught her what it means to be black in America.

“I don’t perceive myself as a black leader. I see myself as a leader who is black, and I define those two things differently,” Anukem said. She explained that Daniel’s class has taught her to take back the “power to define,” and she is able to define herself not just by her race, but by her achievements.

“As the African female that sits on the board, I have a responsibility to project myself accordingly,” Anukem said. She believes she has to show that black people are not lazy or losers or any other negative stereotype.

“Black people are intelligent, black people are professional, and black people are beautiful,” Anukem said. “When I sit on that board on Tuesdays at 7 p.m., I am the pinnacle of what black is.”

But Anukem could not define herself as a member of BAS. She left the organization in the fall.

While Anukem is no longer a part of BAS, she noted instead the diversity of the current SGB.

“When it comes to student leaders, I’ve never seen a board so diverse,” Anukem said, pointing out the many races, religions and other differences among the current board members.

Greeks work together

While Anukem found new meaning in her racial identity through a classroom experience, K. Chase Patterson, the vice president of the National Pan-Hellenic Council and the former fundraising chair of BAS, explained that the University gave him and others the opportunity to learn on a social level.

Patterson explained that leaders of the three Greek councils were able to understand the others’ needs better after leaving Pitt for a weekend and placing themselves in a different social setting. The councils have worked together throughout the school year. Patterson explained it as “putting missing planks back on the bridge.” They have hosted their spring Meet the Greek events together, and will support each other in the upcoming NPHC step show and Greek Week.

BAS not for some

Patterson also resigned from BAS because of “managerial differences.”

“I think we all want the best for BAS,” Patterson said. He explained that his style of leadership is very business-oriented and that there wasn’t enough structure or stability in the organization to keep him as a member.

Jones said both she and President Lauren Evette Williams appreciated Patterson’s “zeal for improvement.”

“If we lose a leader, it’s a sad reality, but we still have to press on,” Jones said, explaining that she, Williams and former BAS adviser Michelle Scott Taylor appointed chairs and vice chairs to each of their nine committees to share the load.

“It was an attempt at creating a leadership pull by giving some students certain responsibilities and others the responsibilities of assisting them,” Jones explained.

Anukem, the former vice chair of political action, resigned in November. She said BAS was a good organization, but it suffered under bad leadership

“That is the problem we have with BAS currently,” she added.

Jones said Anukem never told the leaders of her problems.

“Whatever criticism with her she never brought to the BAS leadership,” Jones said.

Patterson also acknowledged that Pitt’s black student body possesses many mindsets, mentalities and strategies.

“You would think from the outside that we all get along, but we don’t,” Patterson said.

Patterson said he was happy to find a union of black students when he came to Pitt, but he does not think black students come to Pitt simply because BAS exists.

“They are quite able to hold their own,” he said.

Racism and discrimination still issues at Pitt

While Daniel acknowledged the many improvements for black students, faculty and staff members at Pitt, he also said things today are still not equal.

“Some people don’t even think they are being discriminated against,” Daniel said. He said many students who have grown up in “suburbia” do not realize that inequalities among different races, religions and genders still exist.

Jones agreed with Daniel.

“If it exists in America, it exists at Pitt,” she said of discrimination and racism.

“When students don’t know they are allowed to get upset, these injustices perpetuate,” Jones said. “BAS’s job is to put the balance into an equation, in America and on Pitt’s campus, that began unbalanced.”

Anukem said she has never felt discriminated against while at the University, though she added, “That’s not to say it’s non-existent.”

Patterson said he believes racism, both white and black, exists at Pitt and that he would be the first at bat if he saw it causing a problem. But he added, “I’m either too naive, or I don’t give a damn.”

He said racism simply “stems from ignorance of each other’s cultures.”

Daniel says has been working for diversity and against discrimination and racism since the 1960s, and he will continue to do so. He no longer has to worry about death threats to continue making progress. But while civil rights struggles at Pitt have taken the University a long way, Daniel believes there is more that can be done.

“Because of the love that I have for the University of Pittsburgh, I hope to never stop helping the University become all that it should be in terms of diversity,” Daniel said. “We have made giant strides regarding diversity in the widest sense of the word. Still, we have miles to go.”

Staff writers Rochelle Hentges and Erin Clarke contributed to this article.