Alabama U. breaks racial ground

Breaking the mold for southern universities, the University of Alabama at Birmingham is scheduled to offer an undergraduate degree in African American studies next year.

But in light of the fact that the major will be the only one of its kind among universities in neighboring states, professors said the South may be far behind some Midwestern and Eastern schools such as the University of Michigan in minority issues.

"The important point is that this major will make history in the South as the only offering between Georgia and Mississippi," UAB associate Prof. Virginia Smith said.

Smith, who was appointed director of African American Studies at UAB in 1994, said that year she and a nine-member committee began investigating the possibility of offering a degree in African American studies, which had to first be approved by the two schools that fund the program.

"It was stalled two years at this level," Smith said. "It passed approval of the Undergraduate Council last June, and the Faculty Senate in August. Now it has gone to the Board of Trustees, and after that, it will have to be approved by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education."

Many are left confused, asking why the process is taking so long.

"The state is rooted in tradition," Smith said. "It is hard to change ideas. Ironically, a major in Asian Studies was passed in a year's time with no opposition."

Student demand and the influence of newly elected Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman, Smith said, prompted UAB to consider an African American studies major.

Political climate was also a factor in the University of Michigan's decision to establish a program.

The University's Center for Afroamerican and African Studies department was a result of African American students' demand for the program in the late '60s, which led to its establishment in 1970.

"The whole effort behind African American studies is to bring a greater understanding to all people about African Americans," said University theater and drama Prof. OyamO, who teaches a black theater course that includes black history.

"It's really American studies," OyamO said. "African American people and experiences have been left out of history."

He said important student movements of the late 60's prompted protests on campuses across the nation "to institute what they called black studies programs."

He said Alabama and other states in the South have to get rid of their narrow view of African Americans, and implementing these majors at colleges is a good start.

"The south has been behind because they have been unwilling to let go of their perception of black people as slaves," OyamO said. "Some try to maintain that perception even to this day. But African American studies obviously proves that to be wrong - it shatters the mythological perception of the South."

Greene County, home of UAB, is one of the poorest in the nation, but it was key in voting the previous conservative governor out of office, "who did not value education," Smith said.

"That is the kind of mentality that has kept the African American studies major from being valued," Smith said. "With its passage, it promises hope for the future of Alabama that it can move into the 21st century."

Ohio State University Professor William Nelson, Jr., who teaches African American/African studies and political science, agreed Alabama's conservative political climate has kept it "behind the times" and "is finally beginning to catch up."

Smith said more than 200 colleges nationwide offer degrees in African American studies, but very few of the schools are in the South. Nine of the 11 schools in the Big Ten, including OSU, offer an undergraduate degree in the program.

"Alabama has been slow to recognize the need to examine the black history ... that has been ignored in the state," Nelson said. "They will finally be able to provide realistic information in the state instead of the distorted information they have provided in the past."

Like many southern schools, Florida State University offers a minor, but not a major in African American studies.

Dr. Phyllis Walker, interim director of the black studies program at FSU, said she hopes her school will also have an African American studies major in the future.

"It's almost always political and economical," Walker said of UAB's thrust for the new program, but she also acknowledged student demand as motivation.

"There would probably have to be a big push by the students," she said. "There's more complacency now with 'We've integrated the universities,' but with the threat of losing affirmative action programs, the motivation has resurfaced."

She said many protests in the late '60s led to a "big push for students" who wanted African American studies programs available on their campuses.

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