Malcolm X and The College Campus 1960-1963 by S. Damian

Malcolm X speaks with a group of students at Queens College, Queens, N.Y., May 5, 1960.

The sixties were the age of youth, as 70 million children from the post-war baby boom became teenagers and young adults. The movement away from the conservative fifties continued and eventually resulted in revolutionary ways of thinking and real change in the cultural fabric of American life. No longer content to be images of the generation ahead of them, the youth wanted change, and these changes affected values, lifestyles, laws and especially education.

Serving as Elijah Muhammad’s National Representative, speaking engagements poured in for Malcolm X from  college campuses which became nerve centers of debate and scenes of protest more than ever before. Great numbers of young adults and baby boomers, reaching military age, but not yet voting, caused a struggle which played out on many campuses as the country became more involved in the Vietnam War and this generation gap became a growing phenomenon.

As Malcolm's magnetic appeal and demand to address college students intensified, his presence, alone, created an upsurge in the minds of college students across the country. This surge continued through the ’60s, when universities were the very heart of intense public discourse, and vocal citizen involvement in the issues of the times. It was during this time, too, when college students were given access to a variety of subject areas and the possibility of expanded learning - even religiously. 

The Liberal Arts stood at the center of a college education, and students were exposed to philosophy, anthropology, literature, history, sociology, world religions, foreign languages and cultures. Of course, something else happened, beginning in the late fifties into the sixties — the uprisings and growing numbers of college students taking part in popular dissent — against the Vietnam War, racism and moral destruction of the environment in a growing corporatized culture. In protests unprecedented in this scope at the time, students further insisted that their college/university administrations lift the ban of on-campus political activities and acknowledge the students' right to free speech and academic freedom. Where did much of that revolt incubate? Where did large numbers of intellectual and vocal youth congregate? - on college campuses. 

On a Friday evening in October, 1961, the phone rang at the residence of William Neal Brown in Montclair, New Jersey. Clyde Ferguson, the Rutgers Law School professor, originally scheduled to debate Malcolm X on November 3rd, cancelled immediately-requesting that Brown, his associate, take his place. Brown accepted without reservation.

The student organization at Rutgers requested the debate as a result of Malcolm’s widely reported debate tour throughout the United States in 1961. The Newark Board of the N.A.A.C.P. sponsored an anticipated square off at the Rutgers College School of Pharmacy. Perhaps, some felt Ferguson backed out because it might negatively affect his status if he lost the debate to a “Black Muslim” Minister with an 8th grade education. Much was definitely at stake for Ferguson who was a graduate of Ohio State (1948), the Harvard Law School (1951) and holding doctorates of law degrees from Rutgers University and Williams College.

It was announced by James Teague, a field representative of the Rutgers branch of the N.A.A.C.P., that William Neal Brown, an associate professor of social work (at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey) would step into the breach. Knowing Professor Brown’s previous experience as an academic scholar and skilled debater, Rutgers College students were even more excited to attend the event. 

By October 19th, the Liberal Arts Student Council’s “Project Awareness”, of Howard University, was pleased to learn, through Bayard Rustin, of Malcolm X’s willingness to participate with him in a debate discussion entitled “Separation or Integration”. The debate, held on October 30, 1961, at the Cramton Auditorium, in an effort to stimulate student interest in major controversial issues, was held at 7:30 p.m. It was hoped by Student Council President Michael R. Winston that Malcolm X would have dinner with a small group of students and faculty members in the Mahogany Room of Frazier Hall. After the debate, a reception was held for Bayard Rustin and Malcolm X where they both answered informal questions as they relaxed with refreshments. Malcolm X mailed a complete text of his address to Howard University, where it was permanently filed in the university archives for posterity.

Arriving in New Jersey on October 31st, Malcolm X addressed students at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at Princeton University. The central feature of the undergraduate work at the school was its conference on public affairs, in which students investigated specific problems of policy and tried to formulate recommendations. The conference was concerned with recent changes in the relations between blacks and whites in North America.

Malcolm X gave a mimeographed statement describing the task of the conference in greater detail. The usual procedure was for guest speakers to have dinner with several students and members of the faculty following the speaker’s given talk of about three-quarters of an hour. Though, Malcolm X’s talk was open to only students at the conference, including a few faculty members interested in the subject, Conference Director Morroe Berger pushed for the Muslim minister to address a larger audience that afternoon. The budget of the school permitted Malcolm X a $50.00 fee plus travel expenses.

"You may be assured that you will always be a welcome and honored guest at Howard University. The student body is extremely proud to have had the opportunity to serve your host, and hopes your visit to Howard was both memorable and pleasant.” Michael R. Winston to Malcolm X,  November 7, 1961