Council of Independent Black Institutions

Historical Context

CIBI's history is linked to the community control schools movement that emerged in the United States in the 1960s. Demands for community control represented an ideological departure from the integrationist strategies employed during the period leading up to and following the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision in favor of desegregation. School desegregation efforts provided Africandescended people with information about the school decision-making process. The basic realization that the same authorities who managed public school segregation also managed public school desegregation led activists in cities such as New York City; Chicago; Los Angeles; Boston; East Palo Alto, California; and Washington, D.C. to initiate organized efforts to gain power over the public schools in their communities. The community control of public schools movement further sharpened understandings of the politics of education and the dynamics of power. Beginning in the mid-1960s and continuing though the mid-1970s, during the height of the black power movement, independent black schools were organized in cities across the United States.

The Founding of CIBI

Five black power conferences were held between 1966 and 1970. The concept black power defined the spirit of the developing independent black school movement. In 1967, following the Second National Conference on Black Power held in Newark, New Jersey, Jitu Weusi (formerly known as Leslie Campbell), one of CIBI's founders, argued that African Americans had to determine their own destiny in education. In 1970, the California Association for Afro-American Education and Nairobi College in East Palo Alto jointly sponsored a conference to set up criteria for the evaluation of independent black schools and to facilitate communications between such schools. It may be that the first formal reference to these schools as Independent Black Institutions (IBIs) occurred during this conference. IBIs were seen as self-reliant organizations. This conference also produced some of the fundamental concepts that characterized an IBI. The participants' leanings toward cultural nationalism are clearly underscored by the attention given to the role of culture in power relationship. The Nguzo Saba (Seven Principles), developed [Page 201]by Maulana Karenga in 1965, headed the list of defining characteristics identified for a proposed nationwide system of IBIs.

Shortly after the California meeting, the first Congress of African People was convened in Atlanta, Georgia, in the first week of September in 1970. This meeting was actually the fifth black power conference. The Education and Black Students Workshop chaired by Preston Wilcox was one of 11 workshops convened at the congress. The charge given this working session was to develop plans for establishing a parallel school system incorporating all legally, physically, and psychologically independent schools at every educational level into a national pan-African school system. Within this workshop there were 10 working sessions; one of these was called Independent Black Educational Institutions. Two schools of thought surfaced regarding the most appropriate strategy. One was to continue to pursue community control of public schools serving large populations of children of African descent. These schools, once under the control of the African community, would be converted to IBIs. The second strategy was to either establish new independent institutions or strengthen existing ones. It was the latter strategy that received the most attention. Two reports on the working session were published. The first report was edited by Preston Wilcox and titled Workshop on Education and Black Students, Congress of African People, Summary Report (1970). The second report was edited by Frank J. Satterwhite and titled Planning an Independent Black Educational Institution (1971).

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