of Public Policy. Her research focuses on U.S. higher education policy, political behavior, American Political Development (APD), and the politics of identity, particularly in relation to gender, race, and socioeconomic status.
Rose applied the “Page 99 Test” to her new book, The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy, and reported the following:
Page 99 of The Power of Black Excellence provides an account of the background behind the speech that legendary civil rights activist, then-future congressman, and HBCU alumnus John Lewis delivered at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington. Lewis, who was the chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), had shared a draft of the speech with the White House, religious leaders, and the march’s organizers who urged him to tone down his fiery rhetoric. In one passage, he asserted that:Visit Deondra Rose's website.“The time will come when we will not confine our marching to Washington. We will march through the South, through the heart of Dixie, the way Sherman did. We shall pursue our own 'scorched earth' policy and burn Jim Crow to the ground—nonviolently.”Leaders feared that such language would only impede the progress that civil rights leaders had made. Lewis ultimately moderated his rhetoric, but his impatience with the slow pace of movement toward racial justice exemplified the frustration of many Black youth who fought on the frontlines of the civil rights movement and who desired bolder efforts to demand justice and Black liberation. As the example of John Lewis illustrates, HBCU students, their alumni, and their campuses played a central role in the civil rights movement. While this snapshot on page 99 does not offer the best microcosm of the entire work, it does illustrate the energy, deliberation, and purpose that so many HBCU alumni have brought to the long fight for Black liberation and multi-racial democracy.
--Marshal Zeringue
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