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Founders Day Issue When Is The Best Time To: Have Fun At Spelman College By Pamela Denise Moore Founder’s Day is the best time to get involved and have fun at Spelman College. If you’re looking for fun, excitement, laughter, and ac tion, you will surely find it at the Founder’s Day Rally. And this year’s Rally was one of the best. The campus was visited by such prestigious celebrities as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Star Wars figures, Mrs. Sophia B. Packard, and Mrs. Harriet Giles. Actually these persons were characters in skits performed by Spelman students at the rally on April 11, 1978. The rally was organized on a format similar to the Academy Awards program. The Morehouse Jazz Lab performed under the direction of Rod Smith during intervals of the program. Each class competed during the rally to present the best song and skit. The freshman class presented the winning skit, “The Trial of the Wayward Spelman Woman or Anybody Can Do a Moo Step”. In the play Ms. Joan Nonconformist, a character played by Wanda Turner, was brought to court for not living up to the ideals of the Spelman woman. She was charged with wearing curlers to dinner, stomping the steps of a local fraternity, and with dating a Morris Brown man. Up until the end the play was highly comical, featuring the hilarious antics of the prosecutor, a step routine by Moo Psi Phi, a visit by the spirit of Ms. Sophia B. Pac kard, and a jury that did outrageous things. However, when Ms. Joan Nonconformist entered the witness stand, the play suddenly became serious. Ms. Nonconformist told the crowd that she refused to live up to the image set by Ms. Snob (one of the witnesses), an image that was seen through a cracked mirror. She said that it was wrong for others to blame her for something a power structure had done to their minds. She said that a Spelman woman was am bitious, intelligent and as piring. And she also said that it was a shame that economic and social hangups allowed Spelmanites to lose sight of the fact that she was their sister. Ms. Joan Nonconformist ended her speech by saying that she was not a circle, but a Continued on page 3 SPELMA N THE VOICE OF BLACK WOMANHOOD SPO TLIGHT Yol.31,No.8 Atlanta, Georgia April, 1978 Distinguished Guests At Founders Day Exercises by Robyn D. Mahone Some Spelmanites com plained about donning their academic attire before the fact, but more realized the significance of the annual Founders Day Exercises and found their participation well worth their while as did the underclassmen who attended. The exercises began with a processional of seniors in caps and gowns, underclassmen in white dresses and faculty and administrators in their academic regalia to Sisters Chapel. There were lumps in throats and a few tears shed when 101 year old Ms. Annie Alexander, who was a Spelman student, came to the podium and expressed her happiness at be ing present at the exercises and alive to see the growth Spelman College has made through the years. She said, “I am very pleased to be here today. It’s something that I never thought of that would ever happen to me.” Ms. Alexander praised the founders of the college, Ms. Sophia Packard and Ms. Harriet Giles, as dedicated Christian women who were also dedicated to true womanhood. “I learned to love these women who were so eager and so helpful for the Negro women who needed help. It is someth ing that the Negro women will remember for as long as there’s one living,” said Ms. Alexander. She continued, “and Spelman, I just want you to go on and on to higher heights.” Mrs. Alexander, who didn’t graduate from Spelman because of family hardships (see Vol. 5 of the Spotlight), was four years old when Spelman was founded as a seminary and can probably stand up with the most en thusiastic of alumnae. She was given a Centennial Citation by Dr. Donald M. Stewaat, president of the college, from Spelman. The citation read, “For your embodiment of Spelman’s pioneer past and your dedication to the hope and aspirations of Spelman generations yet to come, we love and salute you.” Another of Spelman’s dis tinguished guests was Dr. Anita Allen, chief of the division of the Advanced Institutional Development branch of Health Education and Welfare. Dr. Allen gave the message to the seniors. “What a glorious privilege it is for me to be your guest at Spelman College,” she said, “what a privilege it is for me to be a part of this high day. As I look around this campus I am pleased that the bureau which I am part of has given funds to this college.” Dr. Allen spoke of the role of black women in a changing society in the past, present and future. She recalled how black women worked and schemed, out of necessity, to get their children an education, “all the time building with nothing the black nation of today.” “But more than that,” Dr. Allen said, “in the background there is that mother, grandmother or great grandmother who fought to see that this great opportunity came along. I don’t know about you, but I’m standing on the shoulders of those before me who built the stairway, and it is our responsibility to pave the way for those behind us.” Dr. Allen suggested a kind of program to be followed by the seniors with such advice as 1) be politically involved 2) help to better educational op portunities 3) increase and reaffirm race pride that is ours throughout the nation, and 4) demand no less than the best for those in and out of the family. In regards to getting out into the world of work, Dr. Allen ad vised, “if you prepare yourself you will make yourself so necessary that someone will have to give you a job. Be up and about that promising program now and in the years to come.” Dr. Allen was also presented with a Spelman College plate and a Certificate of Merit from the college. Dr. Donald M. Stewart, President, Spelman College, Dr. Jane Browning, Assistant to the President; Ms. Annie Alexander (middle), one of Spelman’s special guests.