Suggested Research Topics - The Black Action Movement: An Assessment of its Goals, Strategies, and Effect on University Policies and Procedures

Between February and April of 1970, the University of Michigan campus was wracked by confrontation over demands by the Black Action Movement for increased minority enrollment. occurring in the midst of a period of campus protests -- e.g., opposition to the war in Vietnam, opposition to military and defense recruitment, demands for child-care, and demands for a student bookstore -- the BAM strike was considered by many to have been the most bitter of the confrontations. The tactics used by the strikers included destruction of physical property and a strike against classes carried out by both mental and physical coercion of students and faculty. When, in April 1970, the regents responded to the demands of the protesters, it was hailed as a victory by BAM.

Seventeen years later, in 1987, the United Coalition Against Racism (UCAR) and other Black groups, presented very similar grievances to those which had led to the BAM strike. What was the regental action that had ended the first confrontation in 1970? Had the university acted in bad faith in the intervening years? What actions had the administration taken to implement its agreement with BAM? Had social and educational conditions changed making implementation of increased minority enrollment more difficult? What were the lasting effects of the BAM strike on student/faculty attitudes? on administrative policies within individual schools or colleges? on Black self-perception? on the central issue of the strike, minority enrollment?

As is true of many protest movements, the movement itself created and preserved little in the way of documentation. We are left with newspaper accounts, ephemeral materials (leaflets, posters, etc.), the records of central administration and the administration of schools and colleges, and oral histories conducted after the events had ended. The sources found in the Bentley Library could be augmented by research in newspaper morgues and by conducting additional oral histories.

Examples of Primary Source Collections and Other Resources:

To expand this topic to include a broader look at minority affairs at the university, other sources are relevant:


In an effort to encourage creative thinking about possible research topics for students unfamiliar with archives and their inevitable complexities, archivists and student employees of the Bentley Historical Library have authored "suggested research topics ." The purpose of these is not to define a topic but rather to stimulate thinking about a topic where the holdings of the Bentley Library are particularly strong.