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BENNETT COLLEGE
The Ties That Bind
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by Elizabeth Sawyer
M any students in the AUC assume that Morehouse Col
lege and Spelman College are brother and sister. In true
familial fashion, the schools do, quite literally, everything
together. It is often difficult to ascertain where one school starts
and the other ends because these two illustrious institutions come
together for so many things, from class to Homecoming. And it is
the latter event that brings to light the true notion of the imagined
relationship between Spelman and Morehouse.
Every year, Morehouse’s true sister school, Bennett College for
Women, sends their Homecoming court to represent the often
forgotten and occasionally resented brotherhood and sisterhood
between the schools. Bennett College is located in Greensboro, NC,
about six hours away from Morehouse and the rest of the AUC,
whereas Spelman is right next door. Based on propinquity alone, the
relationship seems, in a word, nonsensical.
Add that to Morehouse’s and Spleman’s traditional fraternal re
lationship characterized by the brother-sister exchange, joint events
and the virtual sharing of grounds since 1883, and the relationship
between Bennett and Morehouse seems even more ludicrous.
Bennett also has a socially assumed brother school in the form
of North Carolina A&T. A&T, a co-ed institution, is an expansive
college on a sprawling campus that occupies the property just across
the street from Bennett. Just as Spelman looks to Morehouse for
coeducational and familial purposes, Bennett looks to NC A&T.
This additional bond further complicates Morehouse and Bennett’s
ambiguously defined relationship.
The relationship, however, is entirely legitimate. The Morehouse
and Bennett family ties were born out of a close friendship between
Morehouse’s former President, Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, and Bennett’s
former President, Dr. David Dallas Jones.
At its founding in 1873, Bennett was a coeducational normal
school established to educate the formerly enslaved. Jones, who
became president of Bennett in 1926, oversaw Bennett’s transition
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from coeducational to all women in the same year that he took
office. Jones tapped his close relationship with Mays and from that
year forth, Bennett College for Women became Morehouse College’s fc'aga
official sister school.
Both Morehouse and Bennett are well aware of their historical
connection and make strides to retain close family ties. As stated
previously, Bennett sends representatives to what has become
known as the SpelHouse Homecoming. Bennett’s courts can be seen
strutting around the track with Miss Maroon and White and her
court each year. Morehouse has also recently established an annual
trip to Bennett College to foster the close relationship that Drs.
Jones and Mays hoped for.
The relationship between Morehouse and her true sister school
is often a source of indignation or, at the very least, confusion for
Spelman students. The truth of the matter is that despite Bennett’s
official status as Morehouse’s sister school, Spelman occupies a spe
cial place in the hearts of Morehouse students as well.
This does not denote that one school is of a higher caliber than
the other or that Morehouse should renounce its relationship to
Bennett and formally declare Spelman as its sister school because, in
a way, Spelman already is. Instead of only having one sister, More
house has two.
This relationship should not be seen as a source of indignation
or confusion, however. It should be looked at as an opportunity.
Morehouse should not be forced to choose and Spelman and Ben
nett should not feel the need to harbor resentment. These three
institutions have the chance to not only act as family within the
greater HBCU community but to form an even closer, tight-knit
bond among themselves.
Instead of seeing Bennett as competition, Spelman should be
proud to have such an illustrious institution as Bennett College as
a sister and Morehouse should be glowing with pride because of its
official and adopted family ties.
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