‘65-’75 BLACK ALUMNI COLLABORATIVE

Founding Members:

Felix V. Baxter ‘71
Barry A. Cozier ‘71
Enos I. Cozier ‘72
Donald Davis ‘72
Willard D. Grant ‘72
Christopher Lake ‘73
Dwight W. Loines ‘71
Nilaja A. B. Mwata Nubian ‘74
Denise V. Valentine ‘72

(The collaborative represents the interests of members of the African Diaspora, including the Caribbean, Central and South America, attending Stony Brook during the ’65-’75 time period.)

The '65-'75 Stony Brook Black Alumni Collaborative is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to gather, document, disseminate and archive the experiences of Black and Latino students attending Stony Brook University during the seminal fall ’65 – spring ’75 time period.

There has been enormous institutional and reputational growth at Stony Brook University since its inception in the early 1960s. A less recognized, but equally significant, facet of that institutional development and growth was the contributions and activities of the Black and Latino students, faculty and other supportive groups.

The impetus for the formation of the Collaborative is to create and to preserve a comprehensive record of the unprecedented social, political and curricula change at Stony Brook University during that period and to explicate how those contributions have contributed to the current academic and social environment of the university.

The 1960s was a period of great change for African Americans in the nation marked by protests, freedom marches and social upheaval. While Stony Brook was a relatively new campus, primarily recruiting from the greater New York area, students of color were significantly underrepresented. Those circumstances were altered in the late 60s with the first significant enrollment of students of color. This body of students became instrumental in advocating for increased representation of students of color, institutionalizing programmatic and academic programs of importance to their history, including the demand for a Black Studies Program, which ultimately became the accredited Department of Africana Studies.

The '65-'75 Stony Brook Black Alumni Collaborative recognizes the imperative to garner as robust an input as possible from the students, faculty and community members who participated in or otherwise supported these early developmental efforts.

(March 30, 2023 at the Zuccaire Gallery, Staller Center for the Arts, during the Art Exhibit "Revisiting 5 =1," depicting the following five (5) members of our group: Barry A. Cozier '71, Willard D. Grant '72, Nilaja Mwata Nubian '74, Christopher Lake '73, and Dwight W. Loines '71.)

(Stony Brook Specula Yearbook (1968-69) [Special Collections and University Archives], depicting Black Students United presenting SB President John S. Toll with their demands on February 17, 1969.)