Seven Sisters and a Brother. Joyce Frisby Baynes

Wizard of Oz and knew that I was not in Kansas anymore. I was disoriented and apprehensive. It became clear just how fortuitous it was that I applied and was accepted to Swarthmore College, unless you believe in destiny, and of course, I do. Dean Lange’s cold, ruling-class demeanor and her declaration that Swarthmore’s academic rigor was comparable to Harvard’s had scared the bejesus out of me for sure. The pressure to succeed became real to me.

      I bonded with my roommate, Susan, who was from Ohio. We were both science majors and had many of the same introductory science classes. She was going to medical school, and I was going to teach high school chemistry. Susan was the person who would eventually introduce me to my best friend, Bridget, the first black person I spoke to at the College. Bridget was also studying to be a doctor and was taking the prerequisite science and math courses. For a while, the three of us associated mostly with each other as Bridget also lived in the same dorm. First semester of freshman year was intense for everyone as we were all trying to prove that we belonged there, could do the work, and most importantly for me, that I could keep my scholarship.

      College Life Before SASS

      My science classes began at 8 a.m. and afternoon labs were always required. My roommate and I went to dinner and attended several social and musical activities together. I was focused on doing well in class and tried to fit into college life as seamlessly as possible. The early part of the first semester was filled with learning my way around campus and meeting all academic requirements.

      I was seventeen years old and I loved being alive. Magill Walk perfectly captured the majestic campus scene lined with oak trees and steps cascading down to the train station and the tiny commercial strip called the Ville. I have lots of memories of climbing the hill beside Willets Hall to get to campus for science classes. I have always loved the early morning sun, fall season on campus with leaves beginning to fall and blow around everywhere, me carrying the green drawstring bag full of heavy science books, dragging the bag up the hill behind me.

      My green Swarthmore book bag was square camouflage green with a drawstring. It was waterproof and could hold all my textbooks along with several spiral notebooks and other school supplies. I remember thinking that you could always tell the science majors from the social science majors—the science majors all had a hump in our backs. It was sometimes necessary to change shoulders or drag the bag along because it was so heavy. Remembering that green book bag makes me feel that I have always been prepared to carry the load, whatever it might be.

      Susan played the cello, which I had only seen occasionally on TV. I loved music, all kinds of music, and tried to be open to whatever music was around: organ music at Collection, bagpipes, hootenanny, even white rock and roll, but the string quartet concerts were my undoing. Susan loved the string quartet classical music concerts that were given in Bond Hall. At first, I thought these gatherings were okay. The music was melodic, peaceful, and played with passion by the student musicians. I tried to follow along and thought I did fairly well for the first couple of concerts, but then my mind began to wander, and I almost fell asleep during one of the recitals. Science courses and labs took up all my time, and I think that an innate appreciation of classical music was not in the cards for me. Susan soon realized this, and I stopped attending those recitals with her. Occasionally, I could pick up an R&B radio station from Philadelphia on my clock radio, so she soon figured out that I was much more appreciative of this type of music. She even told one of her other acquaintances that she had a roommate who also loved this music genre. This acquaintance eventually came to our room to meet me, but lost her enthusiasm at possibly finding a kindred spirit when she discovered that I was a Negro. Susan thought that this was funny, but also very hypocritical of her acquaintance, whom she never mentioned again. I think that this was also around the time when B’nai B’rith, the oldest Jewish service organization in the world (who had written a letter to welcome me to the campus before I arrived and before our pictures were printed in the Cygnet), also rejected me by not initiating any further contact after they realized that I did not fit the expectations raised by my surname. Fitting into campus life was going to be harder than I expected.

      My response to African and Caribbean music was entirely different. I felt as though I was at home. Through Bridget, I met Jannette who introduced me to music from NYC and the islands that I had never heard before—calypso, soca, and black American artists like Arthur Prysock, Nina Simone, Lou Rawls, and Nancy Wilson. The music of my childhood was southern R&B—James Brown, Carla Thomas, Otis Redding, Motown sounds, blues singers like Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, and, of course, gospel music. When I finally got to hear African music and see African dance, I knew that I had found the original source of the music and rhythm that I loved. One of the first things that I bought with my own money was a record player, followed by albums. I picked up the habit of grazing record stores on a regular basis, a practice I continued throughout medical school, well into my late twenties.

      At the end of my second month at Swarthmore, on my eighteenth birthday, I was still hanging out with my roommate from Ohio, wearing my “preppy” clothes and penny loafers, and trying to find my place at Swarthmore. I came back from my afternoon classes to find a surprise that I have not forgotten after all these years. I even have a picture of it: me in an A-line, sleeveless, green floral dress, a permed, mid-length page boy cut hair with bangs, and a forest green glass vase/jar that was placed on the top of my dresser in the left-hand corner. I was smiling a big, open-tooth smile and blowing out the candles on a cake that had been delivered for my birthday. My mother had arranged to have a birthday cake complete with candles and a birthday card delivered to my dorm room. I was pleasantly surprised and pleased that my special day had not been forgotten. I remember how grown up and loved I felt.

      I came to Swarthmore to study science, preferably chemistry, because my mother taught high school biology and I saw myself as destined to teach high school chemistry. My mother had a good life as she went to work, made money, and had some level of independence in spite of having a husband and four children. I never saw myself as being married or having children—that was for the normal pretty girls. I knew that I would always have to take care of myself and thought that teaching high school would do the trick for me. I loved science, and still do, but I was surprised at the joy and opening of the spirit that I felt in English class.

      The great awakening occurred in second semester of sophomore year: fourth semester of math, calculus, second semester of physics, and second semester of physical chemistry. I barely made it out of those courses alive. These courses would “separate the men from the boys,” the true scientists and mathematicians from the wannabes. It was clear that I was not a real scientist. As I looked around for another path, my friendship with several of the postbaccalaureate students (most of them were HBCU graduates who were spending an academic enrichment year at Swarthmore, usually as a pathway to additional degrees), showed me the way.

      Female physicians were unknown in my world and seemed mythical to me, even if Bridget and Susan had originally expressed interest in this profession, but I thought that if a post BACC could get into medical school and become a doctor, so could I. I changed course and took biology classes, eventually earning majors in both chemistry and biology. The path was smooth and the detour almost imperceptible, but I knew that medical school was the way forward.

      Sharples Dining Hall and the Beginning of Black Consciousness