Spotlight: Charlayne Hunter-Gault
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver-Velez
This week marks the anniversary of the desegregation of the University of Georgia, in 1961.
I can close my eyes and remember the news coverage of that time, and especially the face of the young coed Charlayne Hunter, who along with Hamilton Holmes braved racist crowds to walk through the arch, enter the campus and stick it out, to graduate and go on to become one of the first black female faces of television news/journalism.
"Two, four, six, eight...we don't want to integrate" was the chant that day. Wonder where those chanters are today? How many grew up and changed the way they were taught to look at the world? How many still look at things through the lens of hate and have raised their children to do the same?
They would be about my age today.
Once through the doors, and admitted to campus, things were not easy. For those of you who have ever gone to college, try imagine your experience being like Charlayne's:
If their first experience on the campus had been intimidating, the truly difficult period for the two new students was about to begin. Hamp was living off-campus with a black family, but Charlayne would be living in a dorm. She was assigned a large room with a kitchenette--isolated from her fellow students. That first night she could hear the crowds outside chanting. The next day, she attended her first classes at Georgia. There were no disruptions in her classes, but the campus swarmed with reporters and student protests. That night, the crowds grew outside of her room. The mood had turned ugly, fueled in part by the basketball team's defeat by Georgia Tech. Suddenly there was first one, then another loud crash, as a brick and a coke bottle were thrown through her window, shattering glass everywhere. Some of the girls in the dorm began to scream at Charlayne and another student who had befriended her. Soon the university officials decided to send Charlayne to Atlanta for safety and a little after midnight, the state patrol arrived. They stopped to pick up Hamp and the convoy headed to Atlanta. The university had suspended Charlayne and Hamp.
It took two trips to court to get the two students readmitted. The following Monday, they were back on campus, accompanied by plainclothes police. The campus had quieted down--student leaders had called for restraint, the university had announced that rioters would be expelled, and the FBI and a grand jury were conducting investigations. Many faculty had signed petitions calling for Hamp and Charlayne to return, despite concerns about their own job security. However, Charlayne's ordeal was not over. For the next week, the girls in her dorm took turns pounding on the floor above her ceiling at night so she could not sleep. Later, some of the students complained of discrimination because Charlayne had a nicer room! But gradually the crowds on campus grew smaller, and some students showed signs of friendliness. During this period, the state of Georgia reluctantly began to move toward court-ordered desegregation of its public schools.
Hamp and Charlayne returned home to Atlanta every weekend. Charlayne's weekends were full--she was in demand as a speaker and often traveled up and down the east coast. The NAACP had provided the financial support and the lawyers for the court battle, and sometimes she was asked to speak at local meetings. Unlike Hamp, Charlayne enjoyed the public speaking, later describing it as a "lifeline" during a period when she was often alone by necessity rather than by choice. Although there was now no question that Charlayne would be able to stay at Georgia, problems still remained. Charlayne wanted to be able to eat in the school cafeteria. The stress she was living under was causing some stomach problems. She hoped she would feel better if she ate better. It took another court order to declare all university facilities desegregated. The university had a physical education requirement, but Charlayne had been excused from modern dance because some of the other students didn't want her in the class. Because she didn't want to take phys ed, she tried to use the prejudice of the white students to her advantage. She listed swimming and bowling as her first two choices. She knew some of the students would object to being in the pool with her, and the university used the town bowling facilities, which were not desegregated. She did get excused from phys ed that quarter, although afterwards she took archery and tennis! Later when she brought a car on campus, she would sometimes return to find a flat tire. Once someone scratched an obscenity on the side, requiring a paint job. But Charlayne survived the first year.
The University of Georgia now has, on its website, pages celebrating that time in history.
Last year- for the 50th anniversary ABC news did a special on Charlayne's return.
It was hopeful-listening to some of the young people on the campus speaking about how they view things today, so that is a good thing. Many of them clearly don't have the same views about race and ethnicity of their predecessors.
One might be tempted to assume that history is simply the past, and that we have moved on, turned the page...things are so much better now. Better, is relative.
Recently we were elated to see Melissa Harris-Perry gain a spot on MSNBC.
Why elated? Simply because it is still too rare. Hunter-Gault was hired by the MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1978, and became their national correspondent in 1983.
We are now in 2012. We can still count women of color with a major national presence on the news on one hand.
Charlayne tells her story in her book, In My Place.
Millions of people know Charlayne Hunter-Gault as the award-winning correspondent for the McNeil-Lehrer NewsHour. But Hunter-Gault was making history long before she was reporting it. In 1961 Charlayne Hunter, then 19, became the first Black woman to desegregate the University of Georgia; when she walked onto the Athens campus, past a jeering mob of white students, she was taking one of the first steps in a massive realignment of American society.
In My Place is at once Hunter-Gault's account of her role in the Civil Rights movement and the story of the childhood that prepared her for it. That childhood was in many ways ordinary, if we remember that the ordinary lives of African-American children in the South of the 1940s and '50s included daily encounters with institutionalized racism. What Hunter-Gault achieves in this extraordinary memoir is to convey the omnipresent, daily textures of racism, and the strength and vitality of the Black culture that defied and transcended racism's seemingly unalterable codes.
In My Place is a book about sit-ins, marches, court battles, and riots, but it is primarily a book about values—about the daily sustenance provided by Black churches, Black teachers, and Black families. And it is also the story a girl who dreamed of being a reporter like the comic-strip character Brenda Starr at a time when realizing such a dream was beyond the reach of most Black children. One of the things that Hunter-Gault tells us about the generation that spearheaded desegregation is that "we were simply doing what we were born and raised to do". By showing how her upbringing prepared her for her long walk across America's racial divide, and by making that achievement seem natural and almost inevitable, Hunter-Gault demonstrates that history is always human, however permanent and strong the barriers to the realization of a common humanity may appear to be.
It is a very worthwhile read.
But lest we simply delude ourselves that the ugliness of the past is over, and that time has marched on to victory...I'd like to add this caution. Trouble at the University of Georgia is still brewing.
The battlefield has now shifted to the rights of undocumented students to get an education.
Read the story of Freedom University.
Students from the Georgia Undocumented Youth Alliance meet and gather to demonstrate under the very same arch that Charlayne had to pass through to win her fight to get the education she dreamed of.
So the struggle continues.
I celebrate Ms Hunter-Gault as a warrior woman, and a role model and celebrate all of our young warriors today who are pushing the envelope for change and freedom.
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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In a case that is being closely watched by the legal and education spheres, four historically black colleges in Maryland are suing that state on the basis that continued underfunding of their institutions perpetuates segregation. Plaintiffs ask state to pay for improvements at historically black universities. The Baltimore Sun: HBCUs Sue Maryland for Perpetuating Segregation
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Alumni and students from Maryland's four historically black universities took their long-held view that the state perpetuates racial segregation to court Tuesday, arguing that their institutions are underfunded.
The federal lawsuit calls on the state to pay for improvements at the four schools -- Morgan State, Coppin State, Bowie State and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore -- that would make them more competitive with traditionally white peers. It also calls for the dismantling of programs at traditionally white schools that "unnecessarily" duplicate programs at the historically black universities.
The case has drawn national attention from legal scholars and advocates for historically black institutions, who are intrigued by its implications for federal enforcement of laws aimed at ensuring equality in higher education. For Maryland, it revives decades-old questions of whether the state has done enough to support and protect its historically black institutions.
"Maryland has not eradicated the vestiges of segregation," Michael D. Jones, a Washington attorney who represents the plaintiffs, a coalition of students and alumni from the state's historically black universities, said during opening statements Tuesday.
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As we’ve gotten around to casting votes to select a Republican presidential nominee, the antiblack rhetoric has taken center stage. Charles Blow for The New York Times: The G.O.P.’s ‘Black People’ Platform
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On Sunday, Rick “The Rooster” Santorum, campaigning in Iowa, said what sounded like “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.” At first, he offered a nondenial that suggested that the comment might have been out of context. Now he’s saying that he didn’t say “black people” at all but that he “started to say a word” and then “sort of mumbled it and changed my thought.”
(Pause as I look askance and hum an incredulous, “Uh huh.”)
Newton Leroy Gingrich has been calling President Obama “the best food stamp president” for months, but after plummeting in the polls and finishing fourth in Iowa, he must have decided that this approach was too subtle. So, on Thursday in New Hampshire, he sharpened the shiv and dug it in deeper, saying, “I’m prepared, if the N.A.A.C.P. invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” On Friday, Gingrich defended himself, as usual, by insisting that exactly what he said wasn’t exactly what he said. He was advocating for African-Americans, not disparaging them.
“Uh huh.”
The comments from Santorum and Gingrich came after a renewed exploration of Ron Paul’s controversial newsletters, one of which said in June 1992 about the Los Angeles riots: “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began.”
Paul has, of course, insisted that he didn’t write or review the newsletters, although they were written under his name, he made money from them and he used to brag about them.
“Uh huh.”
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Black Man Confronts Gingrich On Food Stamps Comments. Think Progress: ‘Stop Using Blacks As A Punching Bag’
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At a town hall event meant to appeal to Latino voters at a Mexican restaurant in Manchester, an African-American man confronted Gingrich about recent comments he made that have drawn the ire of the NACCP and other civil rights leader. Gingrich controversially said last week, “I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.”
At the event today, Yvan Lamothe, a 59-year-old former New Hampshire state employee and small business owner, drew strong applause from the crowd when he told Gingrich that he has never taken welfare or food stamps and was offended by Gingrich’s suggestion that most African Americans do. Gingrich responded with something like the classic “some of my best friends are black” defense, noting that he has worked with people like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell in the past:
LAMOTHE: My question to you is, do think blacks represent an American problem. And if you don’t think that, when you start using blacks in general as a stepping stone or a punching bag–
GINGRICH: I didn’t say that. I just want to say that frankly this makes me very irritated. The Democratic National Committee took totally out of context half of the sentence, OK? I mean clearly somebody who’s served with Colin Powell, who has served with Condoleezza Rice, I have a fairly good sense of the fact that African Americans have many contributions to America.
ThinkProgress spoke with Lamothe after the event, who was not satisfied with Gingrich’s response. “He didn’t say some black people, he just said black people. I was incensed by that,” he said. “He didn’t really really address it, he said he didn’t say it, but he’s clearly on tape saying it,” Lamothe added. “He should stop using blacks as a punching bag.” Lamothe concluded: “It was erroneous, it was wrong, and it was not fair.”
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A wealthy black couple, who has amassed one of the country's largest private collections of African-American art, is donating more than a 100 works to the Georgia Museum of Art.
The Grio: Wealthy black couple donates large private collection of African-American art
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The donation, which includes prints, sculptures and paintings of well-known and obscure artists, is estimated to be worth at least 1.5 million dollars. It includes pieces from internationally acclaimed African-American artists such as Henry Ossawa Tanner, Romare Bearden, David C. Driskell, as well as contemporary artworks from Atlanta-based artist Radcliffe Bailey.
"The cultural significance of these works to the students at the University of Georgia and to the citizens of the state is immeasurable," says Paul Manoguerra, chief curator and curator of American art, Georgia Museum of Art.
Art lovers Brenda and Larry Thompson will also fund a new curatorial position at the Georgia museum. Although, the couple now resides in Greenwich, Connecticut, they lived in Georgia for 30 years and view the state as their second home.
They say the wanted to give something back to the state where Mr Thompson's law career excelled and where he and his wife, a retired Atlanta Public Schools clinical school psychologist, raised two sons. Thompson is a former U.S. deputy attorney general based in Atlanta and retired general counsel and secretary for PepsiCo.
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Jamaica's ambassador is determined to build a tribute despite some setbacks. The Root: Challenges Ahead for UN Slavery Memorial
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One day, a memorial to the millions of slaves wrenched from their homes in Africa and transported to the Americas will stand on the plaza at the United Nations in New York. That is the goal of an ambitious ambassador to the United Nations from Jamaica.
However, the project does face some challenges. The design competition that was scheduled to end in December has now been extended to Jan. 23, and the United States, which co-sponsored a resolution proposing the memorial in 2007 (pdf), has yet to commit any funding to the project, which will cost millions to build.
None of that is discouraging Ambassador Raymond Wolfe, Jamaica's representative to the U.N. "We think it is ripe and fitting the international community should acknowledge this tragedy, the worst perhaps in humankind, which today would be described as a genocide and a crime against humanity," he said. With slavery still existing today, Wolfe said the memorial would also stand as a "sharp reminder that contemporary forms of slavery shall not be tolerated by the U.N."
There are already monuments to slavery, both in the United States and abroad, but Wolfe says a memorial in front of the visitors' entrance at the U.N. would bring a level of unparalleled visibility. With the newly opened Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the Smithsonian set to open a National Museum of African American History and Culture, it seems the timing could not be better.
It is estimated that over five centuries, more than 18 million people were forcibly removed from Africa to the Americas, Caribbean and Europe. One of the reasons Jamaica's ambassador is so passionate about the memorial is his own history with slavery. It is estimated that as many as 700,000 slaves may have been brought to the island, and Wolfe can trace his family's roots to Africa. In fact, the Caribbean and South America received many more slaves than the United States, but it is the "Kunta Kinte of Roots" experience that many African Americans associate with the dark and ugly history of slavery.
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Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam
Black Kos Poetry Editor
Ten years after. Ten years of killing, maiming and hate. Ten years of wars that never needed be fought. Some of us may look fondly on that Reagan-esque City on the Hill, some of us may see the gleaming light of Liberty; shining bright, strong and free.
Others see not a gleaming City on the Hill, but a dingy skyline built on the blood and bones of a conquered people, built with the blood and bones of an enslaved race, it's buildings covered with the blood and bones of its young, ground up in the meat grinder of war and conquest.
Ten years after and the scars will never go away.
Capital One
All day I have been thinking about the color of his cauterized skin,
the burned young man lying flat on his back on the rehab slab in Wiesbaden,
and think, finally, that it is the color of rhubarb, that drab maroon and green,
but seared on, blasted into a mottled, speckled, crystallized sheen.
Rhubarb, meaning a fight or disagreement, the ump getting into it with a player,
their faces turning red, sputtering, blustering, kicking dirt on each other,
until finally someone gets vulgar, says something about the other one’s mother.
Rhubarb, from the ancient word for the Volga River, its watery line of demarcation,
and the barbarians who lived beyond it, the real ones, Vandals, Visigoths, Huns,
not the ones we see now as buffoons in commercials, battle-axing, caterwauling
the civilized world for the right credit card, for Capital One, asking us what’s in
our wallets. CNN says the rehab here is good, so the film crew has come in.
They thank him for his service. They tell him he’s a credit to his country, to all of us,
all our brave young women and men. They ask if he has any hobbies, if he can tell us
what he’d most want to do that he used to enjoy doing. He says he’d like to walk again.
I hate everyone, all of us who have sent him into flames. I hate the film crew, hate CNN, the rehab facility, every tube that goes in and out of him, every monitor that beeps, even the morphine feed that drips and seeps. They ask him if it is frustrating and he weeps.
-- John Hodgen
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Welcome to the Front Porch.
Grab a seat, and a bite to eat. Sit down and rap with us for a while.
Front Porch music by Max Roach (January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007)
Front Porch peanut butter cookies honoring Dr. George Washington Carver (b.1864), whose exact birth date is not known, but is celebrated today.