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July, 1976 - New National BLACK MONITOR
MONTI MONITOR'S
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Garrett A. Morgan
1877-1963
Inventor
Born in Paris Kentucky in 1877.
He was the youngest of three
children. Did well in school and
was always looking for pieces of
“things” from which to make
something “new”, including
some of his mother’s best
“things.”
After graduation from high
school he moved to Cleveland,
Ohio with his older brother,
Frank. With the help of his
brother and some friends, he was
soon able to devote all of his time
to inventing.
His first invention was an im
provement on the sewing machine
which he sold for $l5O. He is best
known and remembered for the
invention of the gas mask and the
automatic turn signal.
On July 24, 1916, his brother and
two other volunteers, all wearing
Morgan’s invention, the “gas
inhalator”, were the only men
able to descend into the gas and
smoke filled tunnel shaft beneath
Lake Erie and successfully rescue
the men who had been trapped.
Orders for the Morgan inhalator
poured into Cleveland from fire
companies across the country, but
when it became known that
Morgan was black, many of these
same orders were cancelled. How
ever, this was a valuable invention
and during World War I, the
Morgan inhalator was trans
formed into a gas mask and used
by combat troops.
Around 1923, Morgan invented
the first automatic traffic signal.
It has stop-and-go arms which
were systematically raised and
lowered. He sold the rights to this
invention to General Electric for
$40,000.
Page 10
EDUCATIONAL FUTURE
Continued from page 5
of these institutions may not survive
to offer black students this option.
There is good reason to believe that
the next three to five years will see
some drastic changes in the number
of traditionally black institutions that
survive.
It would appear that those in
dividuals involved in research and
planning must certainly help answer
the question of what will be the post
secondary educational fate of black
Americans. If the black college is
being threatened with the possibility
of dissolution, and financial resources
are no longer available on the
predominantly white campus to sup
port larger numbers of black students,
how can we be sure that black
Americans will have an opportunity
to get an education? What kind of
planning needs to take place at the
State level? Is there sufficient
historical, political, social and
economic justification to warrant State
support of black colleges and univer
sities? Are there sufficient data
available to justify federal financing of
higher educational enterprises for poor
black youngsters? Should black
scholars lead the movement to gather
data on the above questions?
What is being suggested here is that
the educational future of black
Americans looks very uncertain. It
should not, nor cannot be left to
chance. The contribution that Blacks
have made, and can continue to make
ought to preclude any likelihood that
large numbers will be excluded from
the educational arena. The education
of the people who make up more than
12% of the population is a serious
problem. It should be of concern to
all who are interested in the well-being
of the nation. The question is not
whether black students should attend
the State University of New York at
Albany, or Barber-Scotia College.
The question is whether the op
portunity to attend a college or univer
sity will be available to black students.
Conclusion
My suggestion for an immediate
solution is a massive financial com
mitment to higher educational op
portunities for black Americans. This
commitment would be at a higher level
that the current Title 111 Basic and
Advanced Programs. What lam
proposing is the same kind of com
mitment to black people that the
federal government made following
the Civil War.
A Federal Bureau of Black
Educational Affairs should be
established in Washington. Officials
Have you given to Operation PUSH, OIC, SCLC, NAACP or the local Urban League this month?
would be located in each state to over
see the program. The bureau would
supervise the educational op
portunities for blacks at the secondary
and post secondary levels. Bureau
aids would have civil and criminal
jurisdiction over minor cases that
might develop. In addition to making
certain that federal funds were
properly disbursed, the bureau would
cooperate closely with state agencies,
educational organizations, businesses,
philanthropic and religious
organizations, and international con
cerns, to help insure the effectiveness
and viability of the programs. A
research and data collection com
ponent would be a vital part of the
bureau. Studies could be conducted
to provide constant feedback to the
federal government concerning new
thrusts that might need to be un
dertaken.
This coordinated effort could
replace the miltiplicity of ineffective
programs that now exist, which treat
higher education of black citizens as
a game, something that must be
requested and re-newed on a periodic
basis. Our educational future cannot
be left to chance. It is something that
must be planned and developed in a
way that will allow the contribution
of black Americans to go down in
history as having moved from the
sweat of the backs of black slaves, to
the sweat of the brow of black scholars
and intellectuals.
FOOTNOTES to Part II
1. Hugh W. Lane. “Where Do Black
Students Go To College And Why?”
Journal Os The National Association
Os College Admissions Counselors
16: September 1971.
2. E. W. Gordon and D. A. Wilderson.
Compensatory Education For The
Disadvantaged. New York: College
Entrance Examination Board, 1966.
3. Siegmar Muehl and Lois Muehl.
“A College Level Compensatory
Program For Educationally Disad
vantaged Black Students: Interim Fin
dings and Reflections." The Journal
Os Negro Education XLI: Winter 1972.
4. Herman Hudson. “The Black
Stud ies Program: Strategy and Struc
ture.” The Journal Os Negro Education
XLI: 294; Fall 1972.
5. Herman Hudson, op.cit., p. 297
6. Vivian Henderson. “Blacks and
Change In Higher Education.”
Daedalus 103; 72-79; Fall 1974.
Lady President
Continued from page 4
damanged whenever any one of its children is
not educated to the fullest extent of his
capacity.” Whether the person is Black, White,
Brown, or Red. “He is to be educated not
because he is to make shoes, nails, and pins,
but because he is a MAN”—because she is a
WOMAN.
-Is there need for a college in Concord where
the heritage and culture of the student (of all
races and creeds) becomes a part of the
curriculum, revered, respected, and precious to
all? You and I know that the roots of each
person's very being are in his heritage, and the
human plant cannot grow tall and strong and
secure like the mighty oak without these roots.
He can become only a THING to be buffeted
about by every wind of fad and creed and
fanaticism that blows—a THING without a
sense of direction, or purpose, or pride. Yet,
it will be a place where personal, racial, ethnic
identification will not deny the same privilege
and need for fulfillment to others.
-Could there be room for a college in which
the philosophy of the institution considers
academic growth as just one component of the
total development of a person? One writer has
so aptly said, “A man of intellect is lost unless
he unites to it energy of character. When we
have the lantern of Diogenes, we must have
his staff.”
...A college with the characteristics here
described would belong to this community--to
all whose needs match its offerings, persons of
varyin gage levels and occupations. Porous
would be its walls in order that there would
be accessible passage from the inside and from
the outside. This institution can be what,
together, we envision.
1 ask you to help me to provide the leadership
to do the job in these days of darkness, of doubt,
and of crisis which stretch beyond the horizon
of today's happy and beautiful vision, and
Barber-Scotia will justify its glorious past and
the loyalty of those who look to it for an option
in providing understanding and honest purpose.
Thus, we will serve our great tradition greatly.
Finally, may an all-wise father grant that the
search for the kind of place this college is and
can become will surface as an option in our time.
Then listen (you students and staff of today
and tomorrow, those of you who search) and
you will hear resounding down the corridors of
109 years of history the echoes of the exuberant
exclamation of Luke Dorland, I have found the
place, and may the reality of your experience
here move you to pick up the chant as you
proclaim. Yes. 1 too, have found the place!
Black College
Continued from page 4
rather than recall. This is what Barber-Scotia
College means by a developmental approach to
education.
Central to the student’s process of becoming,
is the faculty. The faculty member, as he must
function in the new learning style at Barber-
Scotia. is not simply an expert in a discipline
but a person. He shares much more than his
knowledge: he shares himself. The faculty -
almost a miniature United Nations are called
teacher-counselors because of the dual role they
play as “back-up” help in the student’s personal
and professional development.
The campus is beautiful. It comprises thirty
six acres. The twenty-four buildings are a
pleasing blend of architectural patterns from
traditional structures with arched windows and
cupola-topped roofs to contemporary buildings
with built-in furnishings and flat-top roofs. The
Health and Physical Education Building (with*
an Olympic-size swimming pool and dance
studio), the air-conditioned dormitories for men
and women, and The College Union have been
erected since 1968. The former dining hall was
renovated in 1973 and is now the Library-
Learning Resources Center.