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.
The Takeover
Day Two
Raising Our Profile
It was hard to sleep that first night. The reality of actually being inside the admissions office was sobering. We had rehearsed what we would say and how we would say it to the office staff when we took over. That part was executed pretty much as we had envisioned it.
Harold had created a schedule for guard duty. The rear door and a window in the office had to be guarded at all times. Everyone had to take a turn, and each person would be on duty for two hours at a time. Jannette did not look forward to being the first to guard the rear door. Far away from the rest of the group, it felt dangerous back there because of the possibility of a surprise invasion by the administration, most likely in the middle of the night when people would be asleep, scattered around the carpet. Black students in a non-violent protest in the South had been attacked and killed less than a year before. We couldn’t rule out that some rogue elements in this community might attempt vigilante actions.
Everyone tried to wait until the designated times to use the restroom, which required the guard to unchain the back doors and ensure that no outsider was near the stairs to the lavatories on the lower floor where there was little traffic. We had tipped off the custodial staff the day before that something was about to happen and, once they realized we were staying, they had surreptitiously re-stocked the restrooms with extra toilet tissue, paper towels, and powdered soap each day for as long as we would be there.
The black janitorial staff may have put their jobs at risk by alerting us to security procedures so that we could use the toilets regularly and safely during off hours. The relationships that we had built with them and other black service employees paid unexpected benefits. We had always treated them with respect. After all, they were the only black adults around.
Once daylight came, and we made it through the first night of the Takeover without anyone charging the premises and trying to remove us, we exhaled.
Keeping an eye on the one accessible window was the much more interesting guard assignment. With a ledge about a foot-and-a-half wide and four feet above ground, whoever was on guard could actually sit on the windowsill and observe campus goings and comings when the sun was up. If someone approached, the guard would lift the window. If any admissions office occupiers needed something from their dorm rooms, they could slip in and out, climbing through that window, so we wouldn’t have to unlock the doors unnecessarily.
By the morning of day two, a Friday, we got a clearer idea of just how far the news of our action had spread. We had seen members of the local press show up on campus later in the afternoon of the day we took over the admissions office. But, heading into the weekend, the national and regional papers already had us in headlines.
After only twenty-four hours inside, the window guards began making frequent announcements that supporters were approaching and signaling that they wanted to communicate with us.
We didn’t realize until later how word about our protest spread like wildfire. SASS founding Chairman Sam Shepherd had graduated, and the founding Co-Chair Clinton Etheridge had assumed the mantle. He and Co-Chair Don Mizell spoke to a group of reporters and community organizers who appeared on campus on the first afternoon we entered the building. Four days later, the Washington Post would claim, incorrectly, that black militant outsiders were directing us and other students at “known liberal colleges” in what “had all the earmarks of a revolutionary conspiracy.”13
They had no idea that the so-called militant outsiders who laid the foundation for the action were really a small group of young women, dubbed the Seven Sisters, and a Brother who understood how to build a family to get a difficult task accomplished. Not a conspiracy to destroy.
Not in Kansas Anymore— Myra’s Story
Myra e. Rose
Flood Gates of Memory
After my father died in 2008, I was going through his things and found a letter that I had written to our family. Although the year was 1969, the letter is incorrectly dated January 31, 1968 and starts out:
January 31, 1968
Dear Everybody,
I finished my last exam yesterday so now I finally have time to write to you. I know you were all concerned over my actions and their possible consequences in the past month, so I am writing this letter to try to explain.
When I first entered Swarthmore College, I did not know what to expect. True, I had gone to a white high school before coming here but somehow I expected it to be different. For about two months my roommate and I went everywhere together, the whole bit strictly “integrated.” I saw other black people on the campus but did not associate with them. Although [she] and I did have a few things in common I never really felt comfortable and felt very lonely. Then I met Bridget, Aundrea, Janette and other black girls who were freshmen. Being with them was just like being at home and things began to look up. Also, during this semester SASS (Swarthmore Afro-American Students Society) was formed. I believe I wrote you all about that. Since that time (Fall 1966) SASS has been trying to effect changes on campus for black students. Nothing really radical like a black dorm or things like that, just simple things like course(s) in Afro-American history, literature, philosophy, etc., that would