A collage of the the original Medgar Evers campus buildings included in Tager and Highsmith-Taylor’s “Medgar Evers College – The Pursuit of a Community’s Dream”

Community College No. VII: Medgar Evers College

The New York City Board of Higher Education 1967 proposal for Community College No. VII called for a new experimental college to be placed in a low-income area and serve as a resource to the community through programs designed to “provide a means for mobilizing community involvement to resolve community problems”. (1) When Chancellor Albert Bowker and Brooklyn Borough President Abe Stark announced that this college would be in Central Brooklyn,  the encountered an unsatisfied coalition of community organizations and businesses with the political capitol to steer policy. 

List of members of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Coalition on Education Needs and Services (3)

In the press release, Bowker referenced the involvement of the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, The Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council (CBCC) and Youth in Action, yet he declined to meet with community members to answer questions. (2)  As a result, community organizations called for a halt to all planning until the New York Board of Higher Education met with the newly formed Bedford-Stuyvesant Coalition on Education Needs and Services. Only a few years after losing the battle to keep Kingsborough in Central Brooklyn, these organizations were enraged that despite the rhetoric of community involvement, they had not had a voice in its creation. (4)

In the years before its opening in 1970, the Bedford-Stuyvesant Coalition and its leader Al Vann helped establish community control of the  college and named it in honor of martyred civil rights leader Medgar Evers. They were also successful in reclassifying Medgar Evers as a comprehensive college that offers both bachelors and associate degrees. Advocacy that was first stoked by the loss of Kingsborough fueled the creation of an institution aligned with the needs of the community, not the agenda of planners and politicians.

Shirley Chisholm in front of Youth In Action, Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn December 20th, 1968 shortly after her election to US Congress. (AP Photo/John Duricka, File) (Source: John Duricka) (5)
 

  1. New York City Board of Higher Education (1967) A Proposal for the Establishment of Community College Number Seven CUNY Digital History Archive, accessed April 1, 2021 Retrieved from Link

2. MacFarland, Lois, “Press Release – A New Experimental College,” CUNY Digital History Archive, accessed May 1, 2021, Link

3. Bedford Stuyvesant Coalition on Education Needs and Services, “List of Members of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Coalition,” CUNY Digital History Archive, accessed May 11, 2021, Link 

4. Tager, Florence, and Zala Highsmith-Taylor. (2008) Medgar Evers College: in Pursuit of a  Community’s Dream. New York: Caribbean Diaspora p. 24-25

5. Duricka, John. Shirley Chisholm in Front of Youth In Action, Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn . December 20, 1968. Photograph.