Review
Sutton tells a story that has yet to be told: a time, an era, a passion, a hope, a tale recounted with the skill and energy of a mystery novel. She tells of young people who believed that the injustices they found on their college campuses also believed that they could be righted, that racism could be battled and defeated. When Ivory Towers Were Black encourages us to reflect on the dreams, hopes, battles and defeats as a way of measuring how far we have come―and how far there is yet to go.---Diane Ghirardo, University of Southern California
...an unusual hybrid of memoir, institutional history and broadside against the entrenched whiteness of the architecture profession in this country. ― LA Times
The most inspiring of [this book’s] positions is an unwavering faith in the power of affirmative action as a means of changing the design professions and, consequently, the spaces they shape . . . A profession that reflects the diversity of the world it shapes requires something more ineffable: an open acknowledgement of persistent oppression combined with 'an amazing, almost breathless sense of possibility' (201). It is that breathless sense that distinguishes When Ivory Towers Were Black. It is clear that it enabled Sutton’s participation in this experiment, her success that followed, and her retelling of that story in the book, which can hopefully pass some of that optimism to its readers. ― The Journal of Architectural Education
Sutton’s analysis critically examines the intersection of race, higher education, and urban development in a way that surely shows how the profession of architecture is equipped to and can aid in social justice initiatives around the country. ― The Journal of African American History
[Sutton] examines the development and unraveling of an experimental education initiative at Columbia University’s School of Architecture that arose out of the school’s 1968 student rebellions, aimed at recruiting of minority students and transforming the school’s curriculum into “humanistic, justice-oriented” education. . . The recollections of the alumni that infuse and inform the text. . . give the book value as an oral history." ― Publishers Weekly
Review
The most inspiring of [this book’s] positions is an unwavering faith in the power of affirmative action as a means of changing the design professions and, consequently, the spaces they shape . . . A profession that reflects the diversity of the world it shapes requires something more ineffable: an open acknowledgement of persistent oppression combined with 'an amazing, almost breathless sense of possibility' (201). It is that breathless sense that distinguishes When Ivory Towers Were Black. It is clear that it enabled Sutton’s participation in this experiment, her success that followed, and her retelling of that story in the book, which can hopefully pass some of that optimism to its readers. ― The Journal of Architectural Education
Sutton tells a story that has yet to be told: a time, an era, a passion, a hope, a tale recounted with the skill and energy of a mystery novel. She tells of young people who believed that the injustices they found on their college campuses also believed that they could be righted, that racism could be battled and defeated. When Ivory Towers Were Black encourages us to reflect on the dreams, hopes, battles and defeats as a way of measuring how far we have come―and how far there is yet to go.---―Diane Ghirardo, University of Southern California
Sutton’s analysis critically examines the intersection of race, higher education, and urban development in a way that surely shows how the profession of architecture is equipped to and can aid in social justice initiatives around the country. ― The Journal of African American History
...an unusual hybrid of memoir, institutional history and broadside against the entrenched whiteness of the architecture profession in this country. ― LA Times
[Sutton] examines the development and unraveling of an experimental education initiative at Columbia University’s School of Architecture that arose out of the school’s 1968 student rebellions, aimed at recruiting of minority students and transforming the school’s curriculum into “humanistic, justice-oriented” education. . . The recollections of the alumni that infuse and inform the text. . . give the book value as an oral history." ― ―Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Sharon Egretta Sutton is a distinguished visiting professor at Parsons School of Design and professor emerita at the University of Washington. She is the author of When Ivory Towers Were Black (Fordham), The Paradox of Urban Space (co-edited with Susan P. Kemp), and Weaving a Tapestry of Resistance. Sutton is the twelfth African American woman in the United States to be licensed to practice architecture, a recipient of the Medal of Honor from the New York and Seattle chapters of the American Institute of Architects, and an inductee into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.
