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Page 2 The Panther December, 1946 CLARK COLLEGE PANTHER A Journal of Negro College Life Published from October to June iWWVWWWUVWt VOICE OF THE STUDENTS VWMAAAMVWWWU WAMWWWlMIMWM MOUTHPIECE OF THE COLLEGE lUVWAMUWUUUWUm i A promoter of school spirit by encouraging projects and efforts among student groups and individual students. A medium through which an opportunity is provided for students to obtain experience in newsgathering, reporting, book-reviewing, edi torial, and creative writing. An instrument for fostering friendly and constructive criticism of campiis activities. H. McCAREY KENDALL ’48 Editor-in-Chief GUYLON SMALL ’48 Associate Editor ROLAND HAYNES ’49 News Editor Maurice Downs ’47 and E. Simpson ’50 -u.. Society June Blanchard ’49 and Lona Brown 50, Emery Wimbish '48 Literary Agatha Daniel ’49 and E. L. Parker ’48 —Feature Walter Jarnigan ’49 and H. D. Gates ’49 - Art Cecil A. Blye; Helen Nelson ’50 and D. E. Collington. - —Sports Carriedelle Kynds ’48 and George Waters ’50 —Exchange Edward W. Symth and H. Royal ’50 Business Managers Charles Price ’50 Advertising Manager Walter Crawford ’47 - Circulation Manager D. Wahington ’48, E. Haynes ’50 Photographers Barbara Lowery ’49 - —..Staff Secretary Brady Jones 50, Xanthene Sayles ’50, Elizabeth Brown ’50, Alfonso Levy ’50, Ruth Woodward ’50 - ■*Reporters Bertha Tarver ’48, Bessie Brown '47, Katheryn Jones ’47, .Thelma Alman ’49, Louise Harris ’48 Typists C. C. Posey and J. F. Summersette - Faculty Advisors CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS “The time draws near the birth of Christ.” Thanksgiving has passed and the Yuletide Season is here— a holiday season and a holy season lest we forget. Already we are singing our favorite age-old Christmas Carols, sending and receiv ing greetings, doing a bit of Christmas shopping for ourselves and for our friends. Perhaps many of us are already dreaming of the heavenly laden dining room tables and the beautifully deco rated trees bearing gifts from friends and relatives. Indeed who is there, young or old, who has not felt this Christmas spirit ? For such is the connotative meaning of Christmas. Universally, Christmas tmeans essentially the same tl^j^p- an annual Church festival in memory of the birth of Chri^JP * 1 *' Saviour; an annual rroilday season marked Py greetings, gifts, hospitality, and a legal holiday. Yet to every human heart it has its own specific individual meaning. For many it amplifies that still small voice which reveals the presence of a power sublime in spite of the fact that we are forced to see that life is poised on slender moments and all eternity on time. Christmas 1946 means that we have access to a number of facilities and necessities that were impossible a year ago. Some how despite material gains, the peace and good will of which we sing are still not with us in a larger sense. We are still confronted with the national and international inclemency. Under the shock of the past few years, civilization, fresh from the rim of disaster, is convulsive; orderly activity and the calm and peace that the Christmas Season symbolizes are a difficulty in these hyper-ex citable times. While we recognize the difficulty, we can by no means give up in despair. It is our duty to push back the dismal clouds of lust, greed, poverty, and ignorance by offering ourselves to a cause that is good, wholesome, ennobling as the Christ Child did. It is a challenge which will brighten your Christmas and make you feel the real Christmas spirit. It will make Christmas mean ingful for you and for your friends in a larger and deeper sense. H. Kendall. CAMPUS RELIGION If religion is failing to realize its high destiny in American Culture, and if, in the words of C.M.E. Joad, the British critic, “there has grown to maturity a generation which is to all intents and purposes without religious beliefs,” the campuses of our coun try share largely in this predicament. The church-related college must be religion’s first line of defense against an everpresent and growing secularism. This is true not only because historically and traditionally the separation of Church and State has rendered state controlled institutions of learning sterile in vast areas of significant character development, but it is true because at no other point in human experience, save youth, can the dignity and holiness of mankind be more critically taught or humbly learned. What.does this mean in terms of our campus? First, Clark is a church-related Christian college. To us, therefore, as faculty and students is flung the two-fold challenge of proving worthy of a dual heritage, one in the Christian faith and the other in the democratic ideal. These two great goals, however, need qualifying and specifi cation. Such qualifying can be done adequately within the frame work of our college motto: “Culture for Service.” First, we who are to foster your program of religious life on the campus believe in culture. We believe in that type of cul ture which will lead you to a deeper realization of the nature of the established “goods” in life. We believe in that type of culture which will enlarge, sensitize and enrich your every capacity to attain those “goods” as a student and citizen of “one world.” Finally, we believe in service, for it alone is the proper end of cul ture. The question, therefore, we leave with you is whether or not in acquiring such culture and in preparing for such service to ourselves, our fellowman, and our God, we dare interpret, learn or live in the light of an ideal less than the Christian way for man and society. Rev. G, S. Shockley. It’s Good Enough For Me! Since we Clarkites are endowed with a rich heritage and endless op portunities of which we so often boast, we must gradually absorb that dynamic controlling force of the Col lege commonly known as “that good old C.C. Spirit.” It was this same force, this same feeling that domi nated and stimulated the lives of those far-visioned humanitarians who com posed Freedmen’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church that founded Clark University in 1869. Seventy-seven years have passed since that time. Today, we find this spirit ebbing, distorted in purpose, lacking in spontaneity of expression, and recognized by many as a superfi cial dream, dreamed by false dream ers. For example, a noticeable lack of spirit was everywhere apparent at the Fort Benning Game. The very atmosphere was funereal and the gates might have been more appropri ately draped in pure black rather than in the black and red brilliancy found there. Must our spirit be as the spirit of the congregation of Reverend W. B. Alexander who, going to a small Okla homa town to be pastor of his first church, was met with the flat state ment that he was wasting his time? Reverend Alexander faced a sad sit uation, a dead church, a situation comparable to ours. Finally in des peration he placed a notice in the lo cal paper that, since the church was dead, the funeral would be held the next Sunday afternoon. The church was crowded by the curious members who were rewarded by the sight of a huge coffin covered with flowers. Aft er reading the obituary, Reverend Alexander invited the people to pay their last respects. As the long queue passed by, each looked into the coffin and glanced guiltily away. In the bottom of the coffin lay a mirror, sol emnly reflecting the last remains of the church in the startled face of each member of the congregation. Must we continue to be members of Reverend Alexander’s congregation or shall we live again ihe ideals that led our ancestors to , *-;/-.»! w i;o8e motto .or Service”? It is imperative that we become missionaries endeavoring to recapture our dead spirit and opening a way to a rebirth of the spirit of the founders. This spirit must be displayed not only on the athletic field, but in all phases of the college life—in class room activities, in dormitory inter ests, and in our general community life. Too long have we shouted, “Give me that good old C.C. Spirit”, without realizing that it is more than a chant when the team is winning or when everything goes well. It is rather a symbol of all that our college stands for. Is it good enough for you??? R. HAYNES, ’49 Thoughts of a Man on 10th Street A few nights ago a friend of mine called me and in the course of the conversation she told me the conver sation she had had during the day with a man who is in the center of one of the racial conflicts which have been flaring up around the city due to the housing shortage and due to the tendency of some whites to re sent the moving of Negroes into neighborhoods where they live. The following is a result of this conver sation and represents, what I be lieve, some of his thoughts to be as he keeps all night vigil to protect himself and his family. Is this my fate, O America, to work by day and walk alone by night to guard my own? Was it for this that I waded tnrough the grimy mud at Argonne, that I plowed through gory snow at the “Bulge,” or that I swam the icy Rhine? I gloried in the mud; the gory snow exalted my soul when I saw the dirty lieinies hurtling backward to the scum they left; the icy waters could not pull me down because I was helping to save the Exchange Column The Exchange Staff wishes to express its appreciation to the many colleges and universities for exchanging their publications. Exchange Editor—George Waters The following is an excerpt from the Watchtower in the Tuskegee’s Campus Digest— Today, as never before, youth throughout the country are beginning to realize the importance of further ing their education. The returning veterans are playing a major role in a large number of colleges and uni versities. The high school graduate realizes that he, too, must pass an other milestone in his achievement for the goal, which all of us strive to gain in education. It is quite evident that more state schools and private institutions are needed as a solution to^ their prob lem. The construction of these insti tutions should take place now and not the appropriation of funds for later use. Just as temporary housing units are being established, the various states should take a leading role in seeing that temporary institutions be established and faculty persons be appointed to relieve the crowded classroom conditions. This would cer tainly prevent the instructors from becoming so impatient, thereby, giv ing to the student the instruction which he wishes to receive. Educators have found it to be true that unless students are given the proper guidance and the proper fa cilities to work, all of their aims for success will be lost. It is the duty of the educators to see that institutions are established, that high school grad uates will enter college as soon as they finish high school, and that they are given the proper facilities for •nMHI^nless this is done, the Peace and Democracy for which we fought will have been in vain, and the American youth will turn to the evil doings of this world. Exchange Editor, George Waters On The Bookshelves Books are keys to wisdom’s treas ure; Books are gates to lands of pleas ure; Books are paths that, upward lead; i Books are friends. Come, let us read. There’s such a wealth of new in teresting material this month that I’m sure no matter what your reading tastes are, you’ll find something, you like. If you’ve read anything by John Marquand, you’ll want to read So Little Time, a book of- brilliant sa tire and sparkling humor with a deep seriousness behind them. It is a pro vocative picture of America—the America of booms, depressions, of gaieties and glooms, Of isolationist and interventionists. Then there’s the book 12 Million Black Voices by Richard Wright with photo-direction by Edwin Roskam. To the stark accompaniment of a pro cession of fine, honest photographs, Richard Wright has written with more eloquence than bitterness, the lament of the great black migration out of Africa to the South, out of the cabins in the cotton fields, to the hovels of the North. It is not only a lament; it is an accusation too—a cry of warning and resentment of faith in terms of the old indestructi ble hope for decent freedom in a free America. If you are intrigued with tales of voo-doo, weird romance and Mardi Gras, read George Cables’s In Old New Orleans and Gumbo-Ya : Ya. These are strange stories about a strange city, almost foreign in its cus toms. Let’s end this sojourn on a tighter note—read Too Much College by Ste phen Leacock—really an omnibus of essays on college life. While reading it, don’t be surprised if you recognize a number of people you know and situations that have occurred on our own Clark College Campus. It’s re freshing and really funny. world from racial supremacy. I Was getting the job done so that I could come home to democracy. Is this, America, the democracy you have saved for me? Fear of the mob bullets whizzing through my house at night—my pale-faced chil dren haunting me? Tell me, is this democracy? I slept two years with bullets whining in my ear until I scarce heard their music any more nor dreaded their import. But, God, I nearly died the night they fired five bullets in my house. I died again be fore I could discover if all were well with those I love. So now ,1 cannot sleep, but walk the floor with gun in hand and wait for them to come. Why don’t they come and get it over with? Or is it a sign of race su premacy to torture one with hell? For eighteen nights I have scarcely closed my eyes. How long can 1 stand it? How much can human heart endure? Did I do wrong to buy this house? I wanted a home. God knows I dreamed of one over there. All my money went into this. Spot cash I paid for it. Must I be driven out like a dog. The realtor so sweet ly talked and told me they were moving out. Was 1 the dupe for tak ing him at his word? They are gone, and just a cursed few remain. But ah! that few are the very devil! Even the children don white shirts and parade before my door chanting, “The Ku Klux are coming, the Ku Klux are coming.” Is not this the brand of Cain and Hitler? What must I do? Oh, God, what can I do? I fought! I fought to have the right to have a home! Now that I have my home, I’ll fight to keep it, let come what may. And if I die, I die, I die a manl Rosa C. Long Book Review THE BALLAD AND THE SOURCE Rosamond Lehmann This remarkable novel by Rosa mond Lehmann, who is as well known in this country as in her native'Eng land, is her fifth work of fiction. The preceding four began with Dusty An swer in 1927 followed by A Note in Music, Invitation to the Waltz, The Weather in the Streets. The Ballad and the Source which is the first to appear in eight years haa been her alded in England as her “best and most permanent book.” The title is at once a puzzling, yet a musically apt one. Indeed the reader must pe ruse the entire novel and dwell on it for a while before realizing its subtle significance and without being able quite to explaii it. The child like tune of innocence, since we, are hearing the memories of the child, Rebecca, is counterpointed with the dark music of madness the ; raging spirit of Mrs. Jardine thwarted in her merciless desires. Yet, its very simplicity is confusing—a part of the narrator’s skill—for Rebecca who at the time she was told these things couldn’t always know what they meant, nor are we certain in any more than a vague way what they meant until the novel is completed. Although much of the reader’s in terest is swept onward by suspense, a brief preview of the plot will by no" means deprive the reader of his full share. On the contrary one will be greatly benefited even by a re-read ing of some of its parts. Rebecca and Jess, two well-bred English sis ters are invited to come up the hill to pick primroses and then have tea with old Mrs. Jardine at the Priory—one of those beautiful English country houses. The children with their French governess go to pick the prim roses—a traditional salute to inno cence in England. Then they have tea. We learn that Mrs. Jardine, who is a witch, a demon, the dominating spirit of horror, had been a friend of their grandmother. The children (Continued on Page Pour)