Michigan State University saw its first Black graduates more than 100 years ago during the first decade of the 20th century.
In the years since, more and more Black students have come to the school and left their mark on campus.
MSU Distinguished Professor in the Department of History, Vice Provost and Graduate School Dean Pero Dagbovie is the author of a new book chronicling their history and impact at MSU. It’s called “Forever in the Path: The Black Experience at Michigan State University.”
WKAR's Sophia Saliby spoke to him about the book and the decades of work that it took to put it together.
Interview Highlights
On the title of the book
That comes from the "Negro" National Anthem, the Black National Anthem. And I chose that title because it really speaks to the, again, legacy of the first groups of African Americans as students, faculty and staff to step foot in Collegeville or East Lansing and lay the foundation for future generations to walk in that path.
On Black student activism at MSU prior to the Civil Rights Movement
In the 1930s, you had some Black student athletes who protested against the university because they weren't allowed to do their student teaching in East Lansing or Lansing. In the early 1940s, you had a Black student who was protesting being segregated in the dormitories. In the 1950s and 1960s, you had the campus NAACP who was fighting for open housing. So what I'm saying is that I learned that there was a lot of precursors to this whole movement during the Civil Rights Movement that was extremely surprising to me.
On how the book caused him to reflect on his own relationship with MSU
I would argue that part of this book is, in a strange way, autobiographical, and when historians, true sleuths decide to spend so much time on a book, it's got to be part autobiographical. It has to be part enjoyable. One has to see oneself in it. And so, I talk about my experience coming of age at Michigan State University during the late 1980s, early 1990s as a student, undergraduate, graduate, and then as a faculty member after a brief stint at Wayne State University teaching. And the book really helps contextualize every step that I take on campus.
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: Michigan State University saw its first Black graduates more than 100 years ago during the first decade of the 20th century.
In the years since, more and more Black students have come to the school and left their mark on campus. MSU Professor, Vice Provost and Graduate School Dean Pero Dagbovie is the author of a new book chronicling their history and impact at MSU. It’s called “Forever in the Path: The Black Experience at Michigan State University.”
Vice Provost Dagbovie joins me now. Thank you for being here.
Pero Dagbovie: Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.
Saliby: What brought you to deciding to write this book?
Dagbovie: I've wanted to complete this book for some time. I've been at Michigan State as a professor for a long time, probably about 25 years now, and I've taught a flagship course: The Black Experience since Reconstruction. And every time I taught this course, I integrated Black history at Michigan State into this course, and I learned a little more each time I taught this course about the Black experience on campus.
I spent probably the last five years dedicating myself to completing this book as part of my own personal trajectory and as part of a legacy that I'd like to leave to the MSU community.
And I started going into the archives, doing some more research, piecing things together, and by the time, let's say, the pandemic rolled around, I found myself with a little free time and decided to go all in.
And so, I spent probably the last five years dedicating myself to completing this book as part of my own personal trajectory and as part of a legacy that I'd like to leave to the MSU community.
Saliby: When it comes to legacy, you write about others before you compiling parts of Black History at MSU, but their work was either never finished or maybe stayed more in academic circles.
Why do you think now was the right time for a comprehensive history like this to become accessible in a book?
Dagbovie: You know, back in the day when folks started this project, different people in different spaces trying to write about the Black experience, they were usually not professional historians like myself. Not to say that amateur historians can't write a book of this nature, but they were just kind of piecing things together in a non-systematic manner.
And based upon what they have at the university archives and historical collections right now and all the different sources that are available online, it's really ripe, and there's been a lot of documents that have been compiled for some time that people just haven't taken advantage of.
For example, the Project Grapevine records which talks all about the Grapevine Journal are amazing, and I think I was probably one of the first to really go in and dig deep into these materials.
Saliby: Where did the title "Forever in the Path" come from?
Whether we acknowledge it or not, future generations will forever be in that path that was cleared by previous generations who made great sacrifices for a future that they knew not about.
Dagbovie: That comes from the "Negro" National Anthem, the Black National Anthem. And I chose that title because it really speaks to the, again, legacy of the first groups of African Americans as students, faculty and staff to step foot in Collegeville or East Lansing and lay the foundation for future generations to walk in that path. And whether we acknowledge it or not, future generations will forever be in that path that was cleared by previous generations who made great sacrifices for a future that they knew not about.
Saliby: We're talking in the week after the university's first freestanding Multicultural Center opened which was a major goal for Black student organizations going back decades. Can you put this accomplishment into context for us?
Dagbovie: It's quite interesting because you're exactly right. Black students at Michigan State had been clamoring, let's say, for a freestanding Black Cultural Center for some time.
One of the most clear examples of this was in the early 1970s during Clifton Wharton's presidency, where he actually laid out the plans with Black students in Black Student Alliance and the BLFI movement, and were going to create this cultural center that never came to fruition, of course, and that was in 1970.
So, we're talking some time ago, and since then, periodically, this has been amongst the demands, particularly of Black students in different organizations. So, this is definitely a landmark accomplishment. The building is located in a very important part of campus near the International Center. It's very beautifully done. They were very conscious about the different architects who they hired to do it. So it's a great accomplishment, and it will be there, you know, in perpetuity.
It's really a collective biography. It's a whole host of different biographies of different interesting people, before, during and after their times at Michigan State University.
Saliby: Is there maybe a story or a piece of history, I think a lot of this maybe you learned as you were digging into all these archives, but is there kind of one bit of history or a fact that that really wowed you when you found it and put it in this book?
Dagbovie: Yeah, but you know, there are so many different stories. Basically, this book that I've written which is longer than I anticipated that it would be, is a collection of stories. It's really a collective biography. It's a whole host of different biographies of different interesting people, before, during and after their times at Michigan State University.
And I guess, generally speaking, one of the biggest takeaways for me was about the role of Black student activism on campus. Most people are clearly aware of how Black students protested and instituted great change at Michigan State and elsewhere following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., right, and the creation of a new movement called the Black Power era. Everyone's pretty much aware of that, but there were movements prior to that.
In the 1930s, you had some Black student athletes who protested against the university because they weren't allowed to do their student teaching in East Lansing or Lansing. In the early 1940s, you had a Black student who was protesting being segregated in the dormitories. In the 1950s and 1960s, you had the campus NAACP who was fighting for open housing. So what I'm saying is that I learned that there was a lot of precursors to this whole movement during the Civil Rights Movement that was extremely surprising to me.
And that's why I spend a lot of time in my book on the pre-Brown v. Board of Education Black experience at Michigan State University, as opposed to focusing on the Civil Rights Movement, which is the tendency of historians who write about Black experiences on predominantly white college campuses.
I spend a lot of time in my book on the pre-Brown v. Board of Education Black experience at Michigan State University, as opposed to focusing on the Civil Rights Movement, which is the tendency of historians who write about Black experiences on predominantly white college campuses.
Saliby: To end, how did writing this book cause you to reflect on your own experience as an MSU student and an MSU faculty member?
Dagbovie: Yeah, I would argue that part of this book is, in a strange way, autobiographical, and when historians, true sleuths decide to spend so much time on a book, it's got to be part autobiographical. It has to be part enjoyable. One has to see oneself in it.
And so, I talk about my experience coming of age at Michigan State University during the late 1980s, early 1990s as a student, undergraduate, graduate, and then as a faculty member after a brief stint at Wayne State University teaching. And the book really helps contextualize every step that I take on campus.
I live a stone throw's away from campus. The campus is part of my backyard, and I'm often thinking about that history, and not only about the Black experience, but just about the history of our wonderful university that goes back to 1855 and even earlier, and we have those buildings on campus, particularly in the sacred space of campus, that remind us of that. So, this book really helped me better understand the present without being trapped in a "presentist" lens, if you will.
Saliby: Pero Dagbovie is an MSU professor, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School. He wrote "Forever in the Path: The Black Experience at Michigan State University," which is out now.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
