ORCID

https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0750-6389

Creation Date

5-6-2026

Degree

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

Major(s)

Anthropology

Document Type

Immediate Campus-Only Restricted Access

Abstract

Voorhees College, situated in Denmark, South Carolina, is a small Historically Black College that experienced a wave of student unrest in the late 1960s and early 1970s corresponding with nationwide campus movements. In 1967, the Black Action Coordinating Committee (BACC) formed to promote similar demands, including improvements to food served on campus, the addition of a Black studies program, and multiple quality of life demands. The prospect of political independent Black student terrified the majority white Board who feared that revolution was imminent at Voorhees. In response to BACC protests and demands, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Voorhees College, J. Kenneth Morris and his allies in the Board and College administration began a multi-year long investigation into the organization. This included lists of individuals, handwriting samples, addresses, reading materials, and courtroom documents, correspondence, and meeting minutes between 1967 to 1973. In this paper, I use Morris's collection of notes as both a historical and ethnographic resource to reconstruct a timeline of student unrest at Voorhees and examine racial discourse of Voorhees authorities that infantilized and adultified the students at Voorhees. I argue that racial infantilization and adultificiation, while seemingly contradictory, were pervasive among the Board and administration, and were used in tandem to maintain control over Voorhees and its role in reproducing an apolitical Black professional class.

Date Defended

5-1-2026

Funding Source

ORED Undergraduate Research Program

Thesis Director

Dr. Sydney Pullen

Second Committee Member

Dr. Brian Williams

Third Committee Member

Dr. David Hoffman

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Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.54718/GWDR9152