When Ivory Towers Were Black - by Sharon Egretta Sutton (Paperback)

When Ivory Towers Were Black is a groundbreaking book that tells the story of how a cohort of ethnic minority students earned degrees from Columbia University's School of Architecture during a transformative era in U.S.

educational, architectural, and urban history.

The book follows two university units that steered the school toward an emancipatory approach to education, and assesses the triumphs and subsequent unraveling of an experiment to achieve racial justice in the school and nearby Harlem community. Through the oral histories of 24 alumni who received the gift of an Ivy League education during this era of transformation but found the doors of their careers all but closed due to Nixon-era urban disinvestment policies, When Ivory Towers Were Black demonstrates how the experiment's triumphs lived on in the lives of the ethnic minority graduates and as best practices in university/community relationships and in the fields of architecture and urban planning. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in racial and economic equality, as it provides an array of crushing injustices that generate movements similar to those of the 1960s and '70s.

Its first-person portrayal of how a transformative process was reversed can help extend the period of experimentation and reopen the door of opportunity to ethnic minority students. Don't miss out on this powerful and informative book that has already received rave reviews from Publishers Weekly, LA Times, Journal of African American History, and more! Order your copy of When Ivory Towers Were Black today and be a part of the conversation on racial and economic equality in higher education.