Hi. My name is Maia Hill, and I am the founder and lead for The Black Student Alumni Oral History project at Penn State. The project began over a year ago, as I was deciding what part of Penn State’s history I would write on for my final 20-page history research paper. I initially thought I would do something focused on wartime and campus life, but I slowly drifted away from that topic once I realized I had not heard much about Black student history being a part of the history of Penn State. I knew those histories were out there, but I wasn’t sure how and where I would access the material to write a strong research paper about Black student life at Penn State. After learning about the African American Chronicles: Black History at Penn State website, I realized that this information was available and that I could tell a story about Penn State history from an African American student perspective during the late-60s.
Having had my own experiences of being an African American student at Penn State, I thought that it would be informative to explore other African American student life from decades prior to see if there were any similarities. I knew that during the late-60s activism was at an all-time high at campuses across the nation. Many protests were held in resistance to the Vietnam War as well as Black student led protests with a list of demands to implement changes, which in modern day terms means an actionable commitment to “inclusivity and diversity.”
While my interest of this history continued to develop, I wanted to learn more about what Black students in the late-60s and early-70s did on Penn States’ campuses. One of the requirements of the assignment was to go visit the Eberly Family Special Collections Library at University Park’s Paterno Library to research archival material on the topic. With the help of Angel Diaz, the former University Archivist — who eventually became my advisor for this project — I gathered material for my topic. In exploring more about Black student experiences, I found that the information was far too limited for the time period I wanted to focus on, the years from 1969-1971. As a result, I found myself piecing together a research paper without first-hand accounts of what the real experiences were.
Since this material and research was largely absent in the archive, I knew that I wanted to continue to pursue the project after graduating and was encouraged to do so by Professor Martha Few and Professor Michael Milligan (Professors in the history department at Penn State). I realized that this idea of searching out Black student experiences sounded amazing, but in order to really tell the story, I had to find a way to contact the student leaders and independents from this time.
Through my membership in the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, I was able to meet Mrs. Carol Merrill-Bright, who was the central connection to all the participants in this project. I interviewed over 13 Black alumni who were students and graduates during the time frame of 1969-1971. Through the many stories and experiences shared in the interviews, the project provides an essential narrative of the Black student experience at Penn State.
These alumni share how they felt, lived, and survived with only 250 Black students amongst 25,000 White students. The combined narratives present a deeper story of how community and legacy prevail for generations as well as being a testimony to the continual struggles faced by Black Americans.
This is The Black Student Alumni Oral History Project.