Afro-American Society: Black Safe Haven
It was evident there was a need for Black space because of the lack of a Black community on campus. Black students sought to fix this problem, and at the hands of Woody Lee ’68, C. Siddah Webber ’69, Dennis Young ’69, and Keith Jackson ’70, the Afro-American Society was created in 1966 . At its beginning, it was rare for Black students not to be involved in the Afro-American society in some way.
The Afro-American society became the only sense of a Black community at Dartmouth. As mentioned by Stefan Bradley in Upending the Ivory Tower: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Ivy League, Dartmouth's Afro-American Society differed from Black organizations at other Ivy League institutions because support from sources outside Dartmouth was not as accessible. The Afro-American Society was responsible for coordinating events, inviting special speakers, and being the voice for Black students on campus. Bogan thanks the Afro-American Society for not only campaigning for Black students but also for fostering their community. The Afro-American Society was also recognized as a social entity for Black students as much as it was a political one. "It [Afro-American Society] was where we would go and we would hang out. We would just have a good time with one another," Bogan remembers. The Afro-American Society was a small community for Black students, but they were a tight-knit community and provided each other with a sense of security.
The Afro-American Society was deemed necessary by Black students because during this time there was constant oppression to combat. Black students were heavily involved in the Afro-American Society because it was not only their solution to isolation but a means of coming together to fix larger issues that pertained to their interests and well-being. They were able to protest and get the college to allow more freedoms and privileges to minorities on campus, including the designation of Shabazz-Cutter Hall [now Shabazz Center for Intellectual Inquiry]. The Afro-American Society also fought for the establishment of Black Studies and was able to get Dartmouth to create a course geared to the African American perspective. Bogan partook of these course offerings and in one ourse, he wrote a play about a boy whose life resembled his.