In 1970, as a young, new ABD (all but dissertation) English professor at San Francisco State, I was asked by the department’s then chair and vice chair to teach a course in Black literature. It was the year following the nationally spotlighted—and often characterized in the press as “militant”—Black student-led strike at the school. Not being Black, I was nervous about how a class of mainly Black students would receive me. In the present day, it would be unlikely for someone white and Jewish to be teaching a course on Black writers to Black students, but even then, mor e than a half century ago, it was radioactive—especially so soon after the strike, which had included a range of non-negotiable student demands, a major one being that only Black faculty teach Black studies courses.
The problem for the English department, as for every major department throughout the university, was that there were no Black faculty members.
My soon-to-be-completed dissertation was on Jean Toomer, the not yet widely known Harlem Renaissance author of Cane, a rich, lyrical multigenre work on Black life. When I was hired by SF State, I was not only well schooled in the work of Toomer and other Harlem Renaissance writers, I had also written about earlier and later figures in Black American literature. Yet I had assumed I would be teaching these writers in more expansive canonical courses of American literature. I could not dispel the fear I felt as I stepped into the classroom for the first time to teach a Black literature survey course.
My concerns were heightened, as I walked toward the lectern, not only by a sea of nearly all Black faces, but by one, a large, imposing Black man with a hostile stare, seated in the front row, his arms folded tautly across his chest.
I nervously introduced myself, gave routine information on my office hours and course requirements and then proceeded to speak of my scholarly work. I briefed the class on my research on Cane, which included a short sketch of Toomer’s personal struggles with his mixed racial identity, all the while wondering if other students might also be glaring at me.
Believing the best defense to be a good explanation anchored in honesty, I launched into telling the class that I had no claim to any personal understanding of what was then called the Black experience or what it meant to be Black. I acknowledged that I was an outsider, which, I noted, could also be an important critical perspective. I added that I was a scholar and that I believed—no, I knew—I had much to offer students interested in studying Black writers.