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Spelman Spotlight
November 17, 1982
Page 2
Editorial
Unity In The AUC
By Karen Burroughs
As Associate Editor of the
Spelman Spotlight for this 1982 -
83 school year, I would like to
welcome you all back to school.
As this 1982 - 83 school year
gets underway, I feel that we, as
Black Americans, should be
acutely conscious of the need for
unity among our people. Es
pecially now with unemploy
ment, budget cuts and other
blights upon our race, we need
to come together, that is the only
way we can hope to get ahead.
The question of unity in the
Atlanta University Center es
pecially needs to be addressed.
The ill feelings and animosity
among the schools which com
prise the AUC is not only un
necessary but it is detrimental.
From the time freshman enter
the walls of the various AUC
schools, myths and predjudices
against the other schools in the
center seem to be subtly drilled
into their minds. Ideas such as
the stuck - up Spelman Woman
image are carried in the minds of
the students of other schools
throughout their college
careers. It is because of these
predjudices that the schools in
the Atlanta University Center
cannot come closer and work
together.
In order for us to become a
more unified center, we will all
have to first dispel any and all
predjudices that may exist in our
minds regarding the other AUC
schools. Secondly, I think that
the SGA's of all of the AUC
schools should get together to
plan more organizations and
activities which will include all
the schools in the Center, rather
than just Spelman and
Morehouse. We need to be able
to benefit from sharing ex
tracurricular activities, instead of
just sharing a learning ex
perience.
Finally, I feel that we should
make a point to meet students
who attend the other AUC
schools. Just because there is a
wall around Spelman doesn’t
mean that we can’t venture
outside it. We must remember
that even though we attend
different schools of learning, we
are all part of the AUC and above
all, we are all black brothers and
sisters.
Two Freshmen Speak Out!
by Veronica Peggy Green
Entering into a new school
year, we must take time to
welcome a rising Freshman class.
This class, like many others, has
its own distinct individual per
sonality. As the class of 1986 is
welcomed into Spelman
College, the opinions and at
titudes of the class members
must be noted. This survey
attempts to gain insight as well as
feedback from the 1986
Freshman Class of Spelman
College. WELCOME LADIES
Tara Littlejohn from San
Diego, California had this to say.
“I think the stereotype of the
Spelman woman is off key.
Everyone thinks that we are
snobs, and we are not. That is
part of the reason why we do not
get along with the other schools.
However, I do not like or dislike
anyone .from Clark or Morris
Brown, although, I have not had
the opportunity to talk with
someone from those schools. In
most cases, it (Spelman) is worth
the money but somethings need
to beworked on. One example is
organization on the ad
ministrative level.”
Janis Madden of Baltimore,
Maryland uttered. ‘‘I like the
A.U.C. because it represents
Black people striving for their
goals. The center produces
qualified professionals. One of
the main things it promotes is a
good spiritual life, and a well
rounded individual. I dislike the
rivalry between the schools. In
fun, it is O.K. but some people
take it too far.”
Crisis On Black Campuses
by Manning Marable
All educational institutions
mirror the racial and class
dynamics of the larger society.
Black higher education was
designed neither to promote the
intellectual development of
black youth, nor to advance the
material prospects for black
working class and poor people.
Education for blacks, as first
advanced by the white majority,
was to maintain the structures of
inequality within both the
political economy and the
culture and society as a whole.
From their beginning after the
Civil War and Reconstruction
periods, predominately Black
colleges were directly the
products of racial segregation.
Black scholars like H.E.B. DuBois,
who graduated from Harvard
with honors in 1895, were not
hired to permanent posts in
white universities simply on the
basis of race.
The historiclaly black college is
largely the direct product of
racial segragation. Ninety one of
the 107 black colleges were
established before 1910.
Generally underfinanced and
inadequately staffed, black
higher education was permitted
to exist only in skeletal form
during the long night of White
Supremacy. As late as 1946, only
four black colleges, Howard
University, Fisk University,
Taladega College and North
Carolina State, were accredited
by the Association of American
Universities. In the school year
1945 - 46, black undergraduate
enrollment was 43, 878 in the
black colleges. Less than eigh
teen hundred attended black
professional schools; only 116
were then training to become
lawyers. Even after the passage of
expanded educational legisla
tion, the number of Afro -
Americans who were financially
able to attend universities was
pitifully small. By 1950, 41,000
“minority” men and 42,000
“minority” women (Blacks,
Asians, etc.) between ages 18-24
attended colleges, about 4.5
percent of their total age group
ing. That same year, by way of
contrast, 1,025,000 white males
between 18-24 years old attend
ed college, 15 percent of the
total white age group. The
function of the black college
was, at least from the view of
white society, to train the Negro
to accept a “separage and une
qual” psoition within American
life.
Despite these institutional
barriers to quality education, the
black schools did a remarkable
job in preparing black youth for
productive careers in the natural
and social sciences, in the trades
and humanities. A brief review of
one black college, Fisk Universi
ty, provides an illustration. Fisk
was the home for a major
number of black intellectuals
during the era of segregation:
DuBois, historian John Hope
Franklin: sociologist E. Franklin
Frazier: artists/novelists James
Weldon Johnson, Arna
Bontemps, Sterling Brown, Nikki
Giovanni, John Oliver Killens,
and Frank Yerby. A number of
Fisk alumni joined the ranks of
the black elite in the twentieth
centruy as decisive leaders in
public policy, representing a
variety of political tendencies:
U.S. Representative William L.
Dawson; Marion Berry, mayor of
Washington, D.C.; Wade H.
McCree, U.S. Solicitor General
during the Carter Administra
tion; LJ.S. district judge Con
stance Baker Motley; Civil Rights
activist John Lewis; Texas State
Representative Wilhelmina
Delco; Federal judge James
Kimbrough. Other Fisk
graduates moved into the private
sector to establish an economic
program for black development
along capitalist lines, such as A.
Maceo Walker, president of
Universal Life Insurance Com
pany. One out of every six balck
physicians, lawyers and dentists
in the United States today are
Fisk graduates. A similar profile
could be obtained from Atlanta
University, Morehouse College
of Atlanta, Spelman College of
Atlanta, Tougaloo College of
Mississippi, Tuskegee Instituteof
Alabama, Howard University of
Washington, D.C., and other
black institutions of higher lear
ning. My point here is not that
these schools ever developed a
clear pedagagy for black libera
tion, nor that they were
organically linked to the daily
struggles of the black masses.
The conservatism of many black
college administrators, as
represented by Tuskegee’s
Booker T. Washington, is almost
legent among black people.
These schools operated under
the rigid constraints of race/class
tyranny, and often suffered
under benign - to - malignant
administrations imposed by
■white trustees and state
governments. But despite these
and other contradictions, the
black univerities have on the
balance been much more open
to progressive and liberal faculty
- particularly during the period
of the Cold War of the 1940s and
1950s. They created the intellec
tual and social space necessary
for the developmetn of militant
political reformers, dedicated
public school teachedrs,
physicians, and other skilled
professionals within the black
community. Without such in-
situttions, the nightmare of Jim
Crow might still exist, and the
material conditions of the black
ghetto and working class would
unquestionably be worse.
The Civil Rights and Black
Power Movements, combined
with a political shift of the U.S
government under the Johnson
Administration toward im
plementation of some affir
mative action guidelines within
white civil society, accellerated
this educational process. By 1970,
192,00 black men and 225,000
black women between ages 18 -
24 attended college. The overall
percentage of black youth
enrolled in college, 15.5 percent,
contrasted with white atten
dance figures of 34 percent for
males and 21 percent for
females. Five years later, 294,000
black men and 372,000 black
women between ages 18 - 24
were in college, respectively 20
and 21 percent of their age
groups. The most recent
available statistics, for the years
1976 and 1977, reveal a slight
decline in black college enroll
ment - a testament to the
political assaults against balck
educational opportunity of the
1970s. The total numbers of black
college youth slipped from 749,-
000 to 721,000, and ther percen
tage of black men who were
college students within the 18 -
24 age group declined from 22.0
to 20.2 percent. Despite the
desegregation of white univer
sities, traditionally black in
stitutions continue to serve a
majority of black seeking college
or professional training. 25 per
cent of all blacks in higher
education attend the 35 state -
supported black colleges. 62
percent of all black M.D.’s and 73
percent of all black Ph.D.’s are
products of black institutions.
The Crisis on Black Campuses.
Part Two Of A Two Part Series.
Dr. Manning Marable/“From
The Grassroots”/November,
1982.
Lay-out Editor
Lynne Shipley
Photography Editors
Jo-Anne Griffith
Stacy Williams
Whitney Young
Reporters
Veronica Green
Lisa Hobbs
Angela Jackson
Sharon Jones
Sharon Sellars
Spotlight Advisor
Judy Gebre-Hiwet
Art Editor
Debra Johnson
The Spelman Spotlight is a bi-monthly publicat ion produced
by and for the students of Spelman College. The Spotlight
office is located in the Manley College Center, lower
concourse, of Spelman College. Mail should be addressed to
Box 50, Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia 30314. Telephone
numbers are 525-1743.
Editor-in-Chief
R. Denise Reynolds
Associate Editor
Karen M. Burroughs
Office Manager
Carla Thomas
News Editor
Veronica Greene
Feature Editors
Stephanie Greene
Lisa P. Turner
Business Manager
Michelle Bundridge