By the fall of 1967, then, as AAAAS became more activist-oriented, the establishment of an Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard became its primary political objective.

For a time AAAAS had little success in penetrating the University's wall of indifference. The aftermath of Martin Luther King's murder in April of 1968 brought, finally, a positive response from the University.

A nine-member Faculty committee, chaired by Economics professor Henry Rosovsky, was commissioned to investigate establishing some form of Black Studies program at the University. The Ad Hoc Committee of Black Students, the negotiating arm of AAAAS, worked closely with the Faculty group during the rest of the spring and the following fall. In January of 1969, after eight months of exhaustive research, the Rosovsky Committee issued its long awaited report.

Foremost among its recommendations-which included the creation of a black students' cultural center, more courses in African Studies, and an increased enrollment of blacks in the University's graduate schools-was that of the "development of undergraduate and graduate degree programs in Afro-American Studies." (The wording of this specific recommendation is important to note. By a prior agreement between the Ad Hoc Committee of Black Students and the Faculty Committee, the document was purposely ambiguous about what form-whether departmental or interdisciplinary-Afro-American Studies at Harvard was to assume in order to make its passage before the Faculty smoother. But the Ad Hoc Committee had made it clear to the Rosovsky Committee that AAAAS would not be satisfied with anything but a department of Afro-American Studies.)

The report was overwhelmingly ratified by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in February. At the time it appeared that Afro-American Studies had come to Harvard peacefully.

Two months later, however, in the midst of the general student strike, the Rosovsky Report became-the focal point of a bitter confrontation between the administration and AAAAS.

On April 7 (1969) the Standing Faculty Committee, which had been set up to supervise the staffing of the program, issued to potential concentrators a communique which outlined the structure and concentration requirements for Afro-American Studies.

According to the Committee's plan Afro-American Studies would be an interdisciplinary field like Social Sciences. Students were actually to do most of their work in an "allied field" such as Government, or History, or Social Relations. The only courses offered in Afro-American Studies itself were to be tutorials, and the material in them would be under external control. Finally, students concentrating in Afro-American Studies would be required to take both the tutorials and general examinations of the Allied Field as well as those of the program.

Black students were incensed. AAAAS charged that the program of the Standing Faculty Committee was "completely inadequate," and "a betrayal of the spirit of the Rosovsky Report and of the trust of black students."

AAAAS also charged the Standing Committee with violating the terms of the Rosovsky Report, under which it was empowered only to select a chairman for the new department.

The Standing Faculty Committee at first maintained that its plan was satisfactory, then modified that plan in an attempt to placate AAAAS. It didn't work. AAAAS drew up its own proposal for the temporary structure of the department. The black students' proposal called for a departmental governing board consisting of Faculty members of the department and four students-two selected by and from concentrators, and two selected by AAAAS. This board, the Afro-American Studies Executive Committee, under the direction of the department chairman, would supervise the program until May of 1970.

The situation then seemingly reached an impasse. Tension mounted, and the threat of disruptive action by AAAAS appeared imminent. At a critical juncture, however, the Faculty approved the AAAAS plan, and the tension subsided.

II.

The purpose of the Afro-American Studies Department is to give its students (which include 22 concentrators-five of whom are white-and approximately 160 other students) a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of the black experience. Sixteen courses are offered; no single area of study is emphasized at the expense of another.

Students can choose AAS 13: Africa in World Politics, which examines the emergence of African states as independent actors in international politics; or AAS 14: Caribbean Social Structure: The Black Experience in the West Indies and Latin America, which examines the effects of slavery on contemporary social and cultural patterns among blacks of these regions. Students can choose AAS 31: History of African Art, which examines primarily the geographical, anthropological, and historical background of African art south of the Sahara; or AAS 33: Afro-American Letters and Thought 1914-32, which examines black intellectualism of this period.

In addition, eleven related courses were given this past year in eight other departments.