This well-researched volume explores how the Black freedom struggle and the anti-Vietnam War movement dovetailed with faculty and student activism in the South to undermine the traditional role of higher education and bring about social change. It uses the battles between students, faculty, presidents, trustees, elected officials, and funding agencies to explain how Black and White southern campuses transformed themselves into reputable academic centers. No matter the type of institution, these battles represented cracks in the edifice of the Old South and precipitated wide-ranging changes in southern higher education and society as well. This thought-provoking history offers scholars and others interested in institutional autonomy and the value of civil society a deep understanding of the central role that institutions of higher education can play in social and political change and the vital importance of independent institutions during times of national crisis. This book: helps institutional leaders to understand the benefits and challenges of dissolving the walls around the ivory or ebony tower; offers a complex analysis of the evolution of higher education in the South; demonstrates how changes in higher education precipitated wide-ranging changes in southern society; and examines contemporary arguments about the breadth and limits of first amendment rights and academic freedom on college and university campuses.