Developing Their Minds without Losing Their Soul: Black and Latino Student Coalition-Building in New York, 1965-1969

[...]scholars theorize that the Black Power movement and its leaders influenced the student movements, and that the movements thus spread from historically black colleges and universities to predominately white campuses. In the late 1960s and early 1970s there were several programs for recruiting minority students, including CUNY's Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) and the College Discovery initiatives programs; the State University of New York's (SUNY) Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) program; and the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) of the state's private universities. [...]thanks to both public and private college and university programs, the number of black and Latino students on New York campuses increased dramatically. [...]student and parent participation and support in the school district had increased drastically.53 UNICA, moreover, wanted a representative from its delegation, "with an equal vote," to be part of the body making decisions about curriculum changes.54 UNICA's demands point to the likely reality that elements within the Puerto Rican student community found Kubanbanya insensitive and/or ignorant about the challenges facing recently arrived black and Spanish-speaking students from the Caribbean in New York City public schools. [...]the students demanded the hiring of a black administrator in the Registrar's Office, to assist in increasing the number of "minority students" on Lehman's campus.86 Shortly after the basketball game protest, the members of Kubanbanya turned up the heat, sending a letter entitled "Grievances from Kubanbanya" to the college president, Dr. Leonard Lief, and two of the college deans.87 The letter reiterated the students' demand that the Black Studies and Puerto Rican Studies courses in the Education Department be made mandatory, and it called for the creation of a separate Black Studies Department.