The 'intellectual spirit' of black cultural nationalism also animated struggles for black studies on predominately white and historically black college campuses alike (Cruse, 1969, p. 6-10). The Afro-American studies programme proposal submitted to the Yale University administration in December 1968 conveys the influence of cultural nationalism on the formation of black studies. The document emphasized:  
1. The diversity of peoples of African ancestry and their living conditions in the perspective of time.
2. The diversity as well as the unity of the African-American cultural experience, and the similarities and differences among the cultures of people of African origin in the Americas and Africa.
3. The various modes of artistic expression in the literature, art, and music characteristic of black cultures.
4. The philosophies and values of these cultures, with major emphasis on continuity and change among the geographic areas.
5. The interrelationships among these factors (Robinson et al., 1969, p. 227).  
Black studies were envisioned as a space in which to confront the cultural apparatus of the United States and to counterbalance the historical effects of white cultural particularism that denied the validity of competing values, standards, and epistemologies.  
According to Harold Cruse, who played an essential role in orienting black studies towards cultural nationalism, it was only through a sustained investigation of black history and culture that black students, black intellectuals, and black people generally could understand their position in American society, and could work towards democratic and equitable inclusion (Cruse, 1969, pp. 9-12). Manning Marable, another prominent figure in the formation of the discipline, concurred that the function of black studies scholarship was not to merely celebrate heritage and racial self-esteem in the abstract, but rather to utilize history and culture as tools for the eradication of oppression and the fundamental transformation of society (Gates and Marable, 1983, p. 189). Black