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