Invisible Hawkeyes: African Americans at the University of Iowa during the Long Civil Rights Era

by Lena M. Hill (Editor), Michael D. Hill (Editor)

Between the 1930s and 1960s, the University of Iowa sought to assert its modernity, cosmopolitanism, and progressivism through an increased emphasis on the fine and performing arts and athletics. This enhancement coincided with a period when an increasing number of African American students arrived at the university, from both within and outside of the state, seeking to take advantage of its relatively liberal racial relations and rising artistic prestige. The presence of accomplished African American students performing in musical concerts, participating in visual art exhibitions, acting on stage, publishing literature, and competing on sports fields forced white students, instructors, and administrators to confront their undeniable intellect and talent. Unlike the work completed in traditional academic units, these students’ contributions to the university community were highly visible and burst beyond the walls of their individual units and primary spheres of experience to reach a much larger audience on campus and in the city and nation beyond the university’s boundaries.
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By examining the quieter collisions between Iowa’s polite midwestern progressivism and African American students’ determined ambition, Invisible Hawkeyes focuses attention on both local stories and their national implications. By looking at the University of Iowa and a smaller midwestern college town like Iowa City, this collection reveals how fraught moments of interracial collaboration, meritocratic advancement, and institutional insensitivity deepen our understanding of America’s painful conversion into a diverse republic committed to racial equality.

SUBJECTS COVERED
Edison Holmes Anderson, George Overall Caldwell, Elizabeth Catlett, Fanny Ellison, Oscar Anderson Fuller, Michael Harper, James Alan McPherson, Herbert Franklin Mells, Herbert Nipson, Thomas Pawley, William Oscar Smith, Mitchell Southall, Margaret Walker
 
CONTRIBUTORS
Dora Martin Berry, Richard M. Breaux, Kathleen A. Edwards, Lois Eichaker, Brian Hallstoos, Lena M. Hill, Michael D. Hill, Dianna Penny, Donald W. Tucker, Ted Wheeler 

Genres: Nonfiction

232 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2016

Reviews

[Marvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pleasant surprise. The five substantive essays in this volume represent solid scholarship that is also quite accessible (Michael Hill’s essay and conclusion are less accessible than the others). There are quite a few moments of “Wow, I didn’t know that!” All of the essays walk a fine line as they recognize the opportunities the University of Iowa offered (somewhat ahead of its time) for black students in music, art, theater, writing, and athletics, while holding it and the surrounding community accountable for the ways they failed those same students. The interspersed personal testimonials from people recalling their experiences as African American students seem like a good idea in theory, but don’t add much in practice; some cross the line into a triumphalism that the more scholarly essays so carefully avoid. The regular references reading the experiences of African Americans at the University of Iowa in the light of Ralph Ellison’s brilliant novel The Invisible Man (which I just finally read a couple of years ago) were surprisingly fruitful. Given, though that one of the themes I took from that book was the narrator’s frustration with the constant expectation that he was a representative of his race, I wonder if some of the experiences related in this book might not be better analyzed as instances of individual human experience rather than as experiences that represent racial experiences.

[gnarlyhiker · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Invisible Hawkeyes” is a subtle, yet hauntingly powerful read. It is informative and an excellent insight into the period before, during and after the Civil Rights Movement as we know it. “IH” opens a new perspective and dialogue on race and integration. Solid. Highly recommend.