Читать книгу Seven Sisters and a Brother - Joyce Frisby Baynes - Страница 16

Experiments

Swarthmore College is a small, private, coed liberal arts institution located about 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia. The idyllic campus of more than 400 acres, shared by approximately 1,000 students during our years there, doubles as a free public arboretum complete with a creek and hiking trails through the private woods. The meticulously maintained rolling grounds and majestic stone buildings create a landscape that was the deciding factor for many of us to attend college there.

In 1864, one year before the end of the Civil War, prominent Quakers founded the College. Its founders included noted women’s rights advocate and abolitionist Lucretia Mott. One of the distinguishing features of the Quaker religion is the emphasis on individual responsibility. In examining ideas and seeking answers, everyone is free to speak until a consensus is reached.

Swarthmore College remains heavily influenced by Quaker values and traditions. Consistent with those beliefs, seeking and testing the truth is the basis for what Swarthmoreans call “academic rigor.” The Quaker quest for truth has historically extended beyond academics to social justice and led the founders to create the College as a “grand experiment” in coeducation, that is, teaching men and women together.

Quakers had a long history of fighting against slavery and participating in the Underground Railroad. When we arrived on campus in the late 1960s, we were surprised to discover that ours were the first classes with more than a handful of black students. Certainly, this socially conscious community with its long history of fighting against slavery and for the rights of blacks would not deny equal opportunity to attend their institution. It shocked us to later find out that the absence of blacks was intentional. Around 1920, concerned members of the community tried to get the College to correct its de facto exclusion of blacks. They found a qualified black student and money to pay for her education, but the president declined to admit her, citing other priorities. Later in the 1920s, the College accidently admitted a black athlete from Philadelphia. When the College discovered the error, it went into crisis mode and found a way to rescind his admission. Finally, in 1943, after years of pressure from students and others in the community, the Board of Managers determined that there was no actual policy to bar blacks and admitted the first black student. Over the next twenty years, through 1963, Swarthmore admitted fewer than thirty black students, an average of little more than one per year.

In 1964, in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, the Rockefeller Foundation and other organizations gave grants to Swarthmore and other colleges, essentially paying them to find and accommodate black students. Swarthmore would not have to tap into its rich endowment for a second experiment with black admissions. It never occurred to the College that it might benefit from this endeavor even more than the blacks that they somewhat reluctantly sought to help.

Our group of seven sisters and a brother did not go to Swarthmore to change the College. Our aim was simply to get a good education and enjoy college life, but it didn’t take long for us to discover inconsistencies in the Swarthmore story. Elite colleges pride themselves on their rich heritage and time-honored traditions, and Swarthmore was no exception, priding itself on the number of Rhodes Scholars and Nobel Laureates it had produced. In the 1960s, there were other traditions, such as mandatory attendance at a weekly meeting called “Collection,” similar to an assembly in high school. Upon graduation, tradition permitted senior women to pick a rose from the Dean Bond Rose Garden. Swarthmore’s de facto policy to deny admission to black students was also a tradition and part of its heritage, but one that was wrong and contrary to the College’s espoused values.

With the catalyst of external funding, larger numbers of blacks began to arrive on campus. Our group came to Swarthmore with varying degrees of academic, social, and emotional preparation. We were all stellar students in high school. Our secondary schools were rural, urban, public, and private from Northern and Southern states and the Caribbean. Most were integrated, some only recently, and whites vastly outnumbered blacks. In the afternoons, we all went home to our families and black neighborhoods where we laughed, played, worked, and led “normal” lives. Most of us did not mix socially with white students—no sleepovers in each other’s homes, no movie dates, no camp roommates. We had occasional telephone talks about homework assignments or missing classroom notes. Even Harold, who had close social ties with white friends, retreated to the security of his black neighborhood at the end of each day. All of this made immersion in the white traditions of Swarthmore a challenge for most of us, yet the administration had not anticipated a need for resources to ease our transition into the College. In contrast, the College gave some thought to easing the transition for white students into this grand experiment in racial coeducation. Many of us discovered that our roommates had been solicited and had agreed to accept a black roommate. None of the blacks received a questionnaire asking for our consent to have a white roommate.

When the class of 1970 arrived with only half the number of black freshmen as compared to the previous year, many black students became concerned. We met with college officials who told us how difficult it was to find qualified black students and faculty. For us, it was difficult to comprehend how they could not find qualified blacks with many urban population centers such as Philadelphia, New York, Washington, DC, and Boston within a day’s drive. Our view was that with the right resolve, the College could find them.

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Ohio. It was founded in 1833 and has regularly admitted blacks since 1835, although it segregated its students from 1882-1910.8

Oberlin continued to be an important institution for African Americans for the next century. By 1900, one-third of all black professionals in the US had undergraduate degrees from Oberlin.9

Oberlin also participated in the Underground Railroad, the Abolitionist Movement, and equal rights for women, but that college went a step further in putting its beliefs into action. If Swarthmore had an actual history of educating blacks, it would not have needed to go looking for them. Instead, qualified blacks would have been attracted to the College.

Aloof Faculty

Swarthmore had no black faculty when we arrived. Under the Northern system of racism, Jim Crow laws were not necessary. Like so many Northern employers, colleges and universities could easily justify why a particular white candidate was better than a black one. Whether fully intentional or not, the only blacks on campus, other than students, were service workers. Sometime after we arrived, a black librarian appeared. Two years later, the first black professor was hired—temporarily—to replace someone on leave.

We arrived at college without much experience in engaging faculty or seeking mentors, and not many professors reached out to us. A perception among black high school students was that only low-achieving students met with teachers at lunchtime or after school to get assistance with their work. Even if they had questions on the content presented in class, high achievers would simply study harder at home on their own until they “got it.”

Few of us remember having more than short conversations with our professors while at Swarthmore. We have forgotten most of those faculty members. We rarely took advantage of faculty office hours. Fortunately, we often studied together, discussed reading assignments, and helped each other with mathematics problems and science concepts. Two of us did make significant and rewarding connections with professors who are remembered for specific and rare moments of exceptional teaching. They were the ones who inspired us to examine scholarship more critically and affirmed us, valuing our perspectives and insights.

At times, it seemed that the majority of professors were not comfortable speaking with black students. Their lives in this idyllic community of Swarthmore separated them from any meaningful interaction with blacks, other than servants. The gap between us was widened further by the changes in our superficial appearance. During the 1966–67 school year, as we let our hair grow naturally and sometimes wore African-style clothing, we began to resemble the students who were sometimes seen shouting in protest on TV. As the presumed adults in the situation, it was incumbent upon those who were assigned as our faculty advisors to look beyond the surface and connect with us. If bonding with faculty had occurred for all of us, we could have grown intellectually, learned about other perspectives and world views, and possibly gained allies who would work with us on the pressing issues for black students at Swarthmore College. When we return to the College today or meet alumni in other situations, we frequently hear that the most rewarding aspect of their Swarthmore education was the ability to connect with and be mentored by faculty. Their memories of the Swarthmore experience differ greatly from ours.

Negro History Week

In February of 1967, Swarthmore College celebrated Negro History Week for the first and only time under that name. This was the first visible sign that black students were organizing as a group. It was early in the development of a formal group that the official pronouncements were about “Negro” students, not “Blacks.” Organizations of black college students had been developing for some time prior to this, and an inter-college meeting of black students at Colombia University just a few months before had urged the formation of such groups by blacks on predominantly white campuses. This was part of the new Black Power movement, but participants had not yet fully identified themselves as black. By the next year, we rebranded our celebration as Black History Week as the term “Negro” gradually disappeared from the campus lexicon.

The agenda for Negro History Week began strategically with a folk concert in an intimate setting. In the late 1960s, folk music was popular, and the genre included black and white artists. What better way to create a conversation than with a black folk singer who could sing about current events from a black perspective? As had been the tradition at Swarthmore, all events were free and open to the public. This event took place only hours after the Student Council had formally approved SASS as an official student organization. The next event, and perhaps the highlight of the week, was a soul food dinner in the College dining hall. The College had only one dining hall, so every student and many faculty were exposed to this event, co-sponsored by the dining hall administration. If the main goal of SASS was to create an awareness of and foster dialogue about a different culture than was most prevalent on the campus, the dinner certainly accomplished that.

As Sam Shepherd explained in a letter to the school newspaper, it was not without a great deal of discussion that the organization came into being. A significant number of blacks saw no need to create an organization of this type. They had not come to a progressive, “integrated” college to separate themselves from the majority. Even among those who saw some justification for a black organization, disagreement on its goals generated intense discussions.

The Black Experience

As we learned and grew, the number of “Negroes” on campus gradually diminished as black spirits began to soar. Dean of Admissions Fred Hargadon commented that the rise of black consciousness was a deterrent to some Negro students who were looking for an integrated campus environment.

A militant “black student” group which dominates the Negro subculture on a campus may be a deterrent to attracting some Negro students to enroll here. Many Negro students are interested in finding an “integrated” situation at college.10

We argued that some black students might be deterred by the fact that Dean Hargadon referred to them as “Negro.” The dean had increasingly become the symbol of resistance to our advocacy for black awareness on campus.

We came to Swarthmore in all shapes, sizes, and colors and with many diverse perspectives on how we identified with the African American community or did not. Some grew up in predominantly white communities, some in predominantly black communities and some in foreign countries. Some brought a knowledge of black culture with them, others had minimal knowledge of it. Some were quite comfortable with and embraced the cornucopia of white cultural options available to them and some felt awkward and out of place in navigating those options.

In the ’60s, the discussion about blackness went far beyond skin color. As we began to define ourselves as black rather than Negro or colored, heated debates often ensued on what defined our blackness. Those who were comfortable with the status quo were categorized as “Uncle Toms.” At the other end of the spectrum were those who embraced the struggle and chose to actively participate in dismantling racial oppression. The majority of blacks fell somewhere in the middle, believing that any changes should be slow and orderly. Blacks at Swarthmore paralleled this continuum of the larger society, and we engaged in discussions on who was black enough.

One of the most frequent topics of debate was about the “black table” in Sharples Dining Hall. We used to say that if more than two blacks gathered together in discussion it would attract attention and conspiracy rumors would abound. You can imagine the level of discomfort that we caused when groups of black students started eating together at the long tables in Sharples. There was no conspiracy to plot an uprising, just a desire for community. With so much change going on within us and around us, we had much to discuss. Discussions about the black evolution (or revolution) took place throughout the campus and even included non-black students, but it was always easier and more productive to have these discussions with people who, although diverse, shared the common experience of growing up black in America.

As we settled into college life, the lack of black upperclassmen confirmed that we were pioneers. Although the College was one of the best endowed in the country, it shocked us to discover that it took an external grant to bring about an improvement in black admissions. The College had not lived up to its espoused core values in the matter of racial integration. SASS was not founded specifically to address the College’s shortcomings, but when black students came together in this organization, it was inevitable that the persistent inconsistencies in the College’s policies would be brought to light.

Some in our group had chosen Swarthmore explicitly because of its Quaker affiliation. Others were attracted to the overall image of the College as a place that was not just an education factory. When we arrived on campus in the late sixties, white students were already actively engaged in protesting the Vietnam War on and off campus. Several in our group supported the anti-war movement and even participated in protests. Over its history, Swarthmore had developed a reputation as an activist college. Activism was not restricted to students, as some professors were also activists in the anti-war movement.

In contrast to its Quaker values, the College aligned with the American mainstream in supporting a de facto caste system. One of the first grievances that the Seven Sisters addressed with the administration was the treatment of the College’s black service workers which helped us develop a special relationship with them. We cannot speak for all black students who were at Swarthmore during those years, but our small group had a closer relationship with the black service workers than with the white faculty. They could not advise us academically, but they did listen and give us emotional support. One of the first SASS confrontations with the College was the publication of a list of demands and a press release titled Why We Can’t Wait. In this document, we exposed the College’s history of segregation and its liberal hypocrisy.

…because its students tutor Chester Kids, lily white Swarthmore automatically assumes it’s [involved in] the racial scene and doing the best it can. White liberal Swarthmore has been content to push for racial justice and Black self-determination in Chester, or Philadelphia, or Media, rather than in its own backyard. Black Power is good in Chester, but bad on campus.11

Admissions

In September 1968, Dean Hargadon published a report on the status of recruitment and admission of “Negro” students. The report discussed the successes and shortcomings of the effort to enroll black students primarily funded by a $275,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The report contained personal demographics of students who had been admitted along with easily identifiable details. When the College placed the report in the library for public review, we learned that Swarthmore viewed our admission to the College as an experiment. The redacted information in Table 1 showed the family income and number of employed parents for each student. Since names were not listed, the College felt that this table was okay.

Page 32 of the Admissions Report, showing data that has been redacted.

The report detailed the breakdown of SAT scores as well as the grades achieved by men and women in each class. The class of 1970 had only three black men, so if you were one of those three, you could figure out the grades of the other two. Although no students were named, the report, analysis, and tables presented a detailed look at the education, family structure, and family income of this small population. The study detailed students’ academic results and grades, the number of students required to withdraw, and other academic data. Rather than focusing on admissions, Dean Hargadon seemed interested in denying our basic right to privacy.

We felt disrespected not only by having our personal information made available in the library for anyone to see, but also by finding that we had been test subjects in an experiment and treated differently from the other students on campus. This action by the College, and Hargadon’s refusal to change course when challenged about it, galvanized many of those black students who had been ambivalent about the goals of SASS.

Professor Legesse

One of the indirect results of the creation of SASS was the appointment of the College’s first black faculty member. Asmarom Legesse was one of the twenty-two new faculty members hired for the fall semester of 1967 who were announced in the campus newspaper on May 5, 1967. The “Negro Ethiopian,” as he was misidentified by the Phoenix, was initially hired as a temporary faculty member. 12 Some of us took Professor Legesse’s anthropology courses, which were an opportunity to explore concepts like culture, civilization, and social change from a non-European perspective and to incorporate them to our own activist rhetoric. But his presence beyond the classroom was even more important to us. As an African and the only black faculty member, he was very noticeable. Like so many of his Eritrean countrymen, he had a warm demeanor and spoke softly, but with intensity. A cigarette often clung to his dark lips, never falling or dropping its ash. He seemed worldly, yet accessible. He and his Afro-American wife welcomed us into their home, and he participated in our efforts to create a black studies concentration. For white students, it was common to be welcomed into the homes of faculty, but this was a rare opportunity for us.

Black Studies

At Swarthmore, students could pursue a full major in Russian language and culture, but the College did not offer a single course in the history, language, or culture of any nonwhite people. In 1965, the Sociology & Anthropology Department did not exist, providing no mechanism to study non-European societies. It was possible to complete a baccalaureate degree and graduate believing that the only history worth studying about people of African descent was the legacy of colonialism and slavery, and even that was taught with a Eurocentric bias. We believed that applying the usual Swarthmore academic rigor to black studies would be helpful to all.

Kujichagulia (pronounced koo-jee-cha-goo-LEE-ah) is the Swahili word for self-determination. It means “to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.” It is one of the Seven Principles embraced by the Black Nationalist Movement emerging as we were coming of age in college. Kujichagulia taught us that we didn’t have to wait for permission from mainstream society to validate our history, culture, and contributions. If we were not satisfied with the educational experience at Swarthmore, it was up to us to correct it.

Before we began setting up a curriculum, we got basic training on black studies by attending meetings and lectures in nearby black communities. SASS regularly invited speakers and performers to campus to enlighten the student body. Many of us spent enough time in Philadelphia to become familiar with the local leaders of the Black Nationalist Movement: people like Walter Palmer, Playthell Benjamin, Father Paul Washington, and John Churchville. On the heels of a major riot on Columbia Avenue in 1964, community organizers were visibly active and vocal. When Walter Palmer and others came to campus, they treated us like a part of their community and worked with us to become educated on Black Nationalism. We, in turn, respected them for their knowledge and did not require that they have a PhD in order to share what they had learned.

Our next steps toward rectifying the omission of black studies was to begin enrolling in single courses at nearby colleges and petitioning Swarthmore to count the transfer credits toward our baccalaureate degrees. A copy of the syllabus in the Swarthmore library documents a course that several of us took titled “African Civilization.” It was offered in spring 1967 by Haverford College and historically black Lincoln University and was taught jointly by professors from those institutions, Harvey Glickman and Richard Stevens, who were both white. In other semesters, we took classes in Philadelphia at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania. We were thirsty for knowledge about African religions, African politics, and African American literature.

As a testament to our determination, a few of us piled into the College van for a weekly round trip of over two and a half hours to attend a course in Negro Literature at Lincoln University. Historically black Lincoln is located in rural Oxford, Pennsylvania, and we had to go through Ku Klux Klan-friendly territory to get there. On one occasion, we ran out of gas in the center of Oxford. It must have been late at night, because the only gas station we could find was closed. Out of desperation, someone came up with the idea of trying to siphon any gas that might be left in the hoses. There we were, a group of black college students, attempting to drain gas from a private business in the center of Oxford. There had been cross burnings in the area, and we wondered how we would fare if the police came along. Somehow, we got enough gas to reach our destination and did not get burned on a cross, lynched, or even arrested. That course was taught by an elderly African American professor, J. Saunders Redding. He was distinguished-looking with his receding mixed-gray hair and tiny goatee. Harold has a photograph of us having lunch with Dr. Redding in Sharples Dining Hall, so, obviously, we had established a much better rapport with him than we did with Swarthmore professors. He, too, appreciated the extra effort we had to expend as students in an unsupportive environment and accepted our invitation to visit us at Swarthmore.

Our Swarthmore experience was very different from what we imagined after reading about the impressive history of the College and being captivated by the picturesque setting. The prestigious college had been similarly unprepared for us. Perhaps if they had been funding this social experiment with their own money, they would have done some research and invested more thought into how to accommodate students like us.