by Jeremy Hunt
Daily Lobo
Alumnus Sam Johnson said the late '60s and '70s were the most exciting times to be a student at UNM.
"It was an era of protest," he said. "You had the Vietnam War. You had the Brigham Young University situation. You had the Kent State killings."
Johnson will be a guest lecturer at noon today in Charles Becknell's class, foundations of Africana studies, in Dane Smith Hall Room 227.
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He was the first African-American president of UNM's student body in 1969.
In 1976, he became the second African-American to graduate from UNM's law school.
Johnson, one of the founding students of African-American Studies, is an education consultant for Prairie View A&M, a historically African-American college in Texas.
He said African-American Studies would not exist without the help of Hispanic and American Indian students.
"We all faced the same institutional racism, but we had different cultural needs," he said. "If the three of us hadn't stuck together, we would have one ethno-studies program."
In 1968 and 1969, minority students put together a proposal called "Break the Chains" to establish ethnic academic departments, he said.
"The administration wanted to have an ethno-studies program and put us in the same division," he said. "We said no. We were able to persuade the administration it was important to have black studies, Native American studies and Chicano studies."
African-American Student Services and African-American Studies were the same department when founded in 1969.
They split in the early '90s,
he said.
The department gave African-American students a place to go when they were excluded from student activities, he said.
"When we were feeling we were left out of the white organizations on campus, we created our own home," he said.
But it wasn't just UNM students, he said.
African-American students would come from across the state to be a part of the University's group, Johnson said.
The students who established the program at UNM went to other colleges, such as New Mexico State University, and helped set programs up there, he said.
"There was a very positive movement for black students in the state of New Mexico," he said.
Johnson said he's proud of the progress the University has made.
He said the biggest change is how African-American student athletes are treated.
When Johnson was a student, they came to play sports, and no one cared if they graduated, he said.
Now, the student athletes are encouraged to succeed academically,
he said.
Johnson said students don't realize how difficult it was to establish the programs at UNM.
"It's not their fault," he said. "The present students have not been taught the importance of the Civil Rights movement."
He said the hard work paid off, because almost 40 years later, there is still a need for African-American Studies and student services.
"When you come to a predominately white campus, it's a culture shock for many black students," he said. "They need to see someone they can identify with."
