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{Eire iHercer Cluster
MERCER UNIVERSITY, MACON, GEORGIA
October 28, I960 VOLUME 41, NUMBER 4
RALPH BASS, JR.
EDITOR
RITHIA McGLAUN
MANAGING EDITOR
Charlie Ethridge
Nancy M inter
John Weatherly
Ward Lowrance
JANE LOVETT
BUSINESS MGR.
Sport* Editor
.. Associate Editor
Executive Editor
Staff Photographer
Editorial nUff: Carolyn Arnold. Itudgir Bruner. Fare Bueh, Mary Jane Carter, Judy
Clementa, Ellen Dillard. Bill Knillab, Francee Forbea. Amy Garrieon, Tim GUI, Jerry
Godwin. Pope Hamrick. Leelie Heineke, Lynn Holmee Lynn Howard. Karen Kennedy.
I,oy Knight. John Krueger, Betay Living!ton. Elaine McLeod. Ron Newberry. Pa* Nor
ton. J. M. tluinonra. Jimmy Karhela. Yvonne Reevaa. Granger Rieka. Joe Sakall. Bill
Scarbrough. Marte Shaw. Dick Shiver. Patricia Smith. 8ybll Still. Rebecca Terry. Faye
Trawick. Cookie Wataon. Margretta Wella, Judy Williamaon. Bonnie Bentley. Juanita Lee.
Buaineaa ataff: Dan Bradley. Sandy Bridgea, Linda Lowe, John Parka, Larry Parr.
Fredonia Pattereon, Carole Rhodenhlaer, Jean Smith, Lynda Shaw, Holly Woodruff
Sporta ataff: Jerry Johnson, J ere Key, Hugh Lawaon, Linda Smith
The Cluster is published weekly during the regular academic year
by the students of Mercer University. The opinion expressed within
does not necessarily reflect the policy or opinion of the faculty, the ad
ministration or the trustees.
Letters to the editor are published if signed. Signer's name can be
withheld for legitimate reasons.
O Say Can You See
Where is the American flag on campus? Since the
beginning of this academic year the American flag
has not been flown from the flagpole in front of Roberts
Hall.
Whose responsibility is it to keep the flag flying?
No one seems to know. Perhaps Alpha Phi Omega,
national service fraternity, could assume this respon
sibility, delegating it as a duty to one of its pledge
brothers. Or if that organization does not care to as
sume this service, perhaps the student government
could.
Perhaps there is no flag on campus. If so, the student
senate could launch a drive to purchase one if no or-
ganizaton wishes to donate one of the 50-starred
banners to the school.
A few students saw the college flag displayed during
the Law Day exercises Friday. While the American flag
is being flown, why not fly the Mercer flag with it?
Musical Opportunity
Available In Hifi Room
The hi-fi room, 312 of the student center, is now open for the fall
quarter.
The hours are short, only two and a half hours per day, Monday to
Thursday. Their shortness reflects the fact that the Mercer student body
does not take full advantage of the facilities offered by this room.
There is a wide selection of recordings in the two record cabinets.
You will find opera, the complete Carmen, for example; good jazz; com
plete plays such as The Death of a Salesman; Broadway musicals, and
poetry readings.
Now the student-faculty appropriations committee is considering
adding new records to the present collection.
It seems amazing that students will spend several dollars on tickets
to attend out-of-town musical performances and yet will not even spend
a few moments a week listening to excellent recordings without any
direct cost.
APO Congratulated
Alpha Phi Omega is again in the vanguard of a new service project
with its movie program to be lanched next week.
Evidently the members have seen the numerous students hanging
around the dormitories on Saturday nights, restless, bored, desiring
something to do.
Evidently APO has observed the costs of a good movie in the local
theaters.
They have begun a project to provide students with local entertain
ment on Saturday nights at reasonable rates. They plan to sponsor re
cently released movies at a low cost to Mercer students.
The film committee provides for the student body’s cultural benefit
APO does not plan to duplicate the work of the film club, but purports
instead to feature movies of a strictly entertaining nature.
The national service fraternity ia now selling student season tickets
to the Saturday night performances. The more tickets are sold, the
better the quality of movies shown. .
The Cluster congratulates APO and others responsible for this idea.
“Each honest calling, each walk of life has its own elite, its own
aristocracy baaed on excellence of performance. There will always be the
false snobbery which tries to place one vocation above another. You will
become a member of the aristocracy in the American sense only if you
•win the appelation.” James Bryant Conant .
JOHN WEATHERLY
Kneel-In Togetherness
Since “Sunday is the most segregated day of
the week’’ intergrationists have been quick to
encourage kneel-ins as welcomed efforts to help
the church be what it is in essence.. Here is a
method, they say, for creating community and
communication between the races.
So far, however, the kneel-ins, as carried out,
have beer very superficial attempts “to create
the beloved community.” The Atlanta kneel-ins,
for instance, were hastily organized and poorly
carried out last summer simply to “arouse the
dozing conscience of the South’’ and to “keep the
movement alive” during the summer months.
How has the kneei-in failed? We might take
the visitation to Druid Hills Baptist Church as a
case in point.
Three Negro students, led by Lonnie King,
arrived late at 11:26 just as the ushers were fin
ishing the collection on the Sunday of August 7.
The ushers offered them seating in the basement
since the main sanctuary was already filled. “We
want to worship with the main congregation,"
said King eyeing an empty pew. This statement
was uttered again and again by other late arriv
ing students, most of whom marched, sometimes
sullenly, up to balcony seats or down to a base
ment room with a TV set. King refused to sit
anywhere but with the main congregation, even
when the ushers offered to seat them in the
balcony—already filled to near capacity by white
worshipers. The three students stood outside
during the service and passed out leaflets after
ward. The leaflet read:
“Only in open fellowship and love can the
real presence of God, the Lord and Father of us
all be shared. As believers in the Fatherhood of
God and the brotherhood of man, we humbly
seek to worship with yon in fulfillment of |S
Christ's commandment that his children may ■
be one in Him, even as He is one ia God.” ^
Why did King “humbly” decline to be seatei v
anywhere other than with the main congreg* Jg
tionT Well, they wanted “to join in the fellow,
ship,” as well as to worship, qnd unless they wen |(
seated in that empty pew in the main sanctuary
they weren’t really accepted. Only, that empt) |r
pew was reserved for the deacons of the church lr
The participants were so interested in fellow- )(
ship that when the first visitation by these
students to SL Mark Methodist and Ponce dc
Leon Baptist caused the members of these
churches to be friendly, taking it npon them-
selves to seat them in the main sanctuary as
they made ready to go to the balcony, strangely w
enough- these churches were not sgain sab- ,
jected to further visits. jj
The movement can do much to discipline it- ■
self in this new tactic. Otily a handful of churchet •
have turned them away. They owe something U
those churches who do not. They can make an ef j(
fort to become an integral part of the particular
church visited by joining the older youth fellow,
ship and applying for membership.
Until the movement chooses to take more con
structive action, the churches themselves might
offer more than a smile and a glad hand to visit-
ing Negroes. The Negro, being fully human, is s
sinner too. His motives are quite questionable ^
Dr. J. D. Grey, pastor of the First Baptist Church
in New Orleans, offers us a possible response ^
After the “kneel-iners” were seated he then pro- |
ceeded to make thier sinful nature crystal clear
He ended his sermon by calling them to be thi
church, to “get in,” and “pitch in*’ serving th« ,
Lord with their whole heart.
NANCY MINTER
One or Divided
“We are not yet a nation of one people and one
language,” a renowned Georgian named Ralph
McGill said Sunday.
I frowned at him, read the next paragraph and
then pondered off on a tangent of my own. A
mental light switched on as I thought of the ex
traordinary conglomeration of people who call
themselves American, but who hardly have the
similar characteristics belonging to most enti
ties of the same name.
The throw-backs to Puritaniam in Pennsyl
vania—the Amish—in their severe dress and
severe inhibitions characterise one extreme
of Americans st-he don’t comply to the na
tional stereotype. Across the country in San
Francisco live another extreme of American
culture—those Chinese who, living apart,
cling persistently to their Oriental dress,
customs, language and mode of living.
The Mississippi River Delta area shelters
third diverse segment of American society—the
Creoles. On every Indian reservation, in every
"Little Italy,” in every Pinetown and in every
North Beach there live hordes of people who far
from fit the "typical American’’ image.
But do the varying appearances, customs and
modes of life of her citizens really disqualify
the United States from proclaiming herself a na
tion of “one people”? In the minds of Ameri
cans “one people” is an all-inclusive, indivisible
abstract—a term describing a society bound by
more idealistic qualities than color, dress or ,|j,
speech. Rather a term describing freedom, equal!
ty, opportunity and the like.
By these attributes the United States is em
phatically “one people”.
RALPH BASS, JR.
Why
3 id
$: hi
D
It was Indian summer, yet my blue tissue-paper
suit clung rather closely to me. The white, loose
sand had put a thin film of dust on the high
polish of black shoes. The starched collar rubbed
my neck—it was a little tight; I was uncom
fortable.
Suddenly a feeling of tiredness enveloped me.
I heart the minister’s voice, “And if I go to pre
pare a place ..."
Memories of nineteen years flashed upon the
screen of my mind. I recalled my first impression
of George. We had met at the children's swim
ming pool where our nurses had carried us. He
was a thin, shy, mischievous sort of boy. He
splashed water in my face and then I ducked him.
We met often in those years proceeding the
first grade, playing hide-and-seek in the roofless
barn, making mud-pies with hawthorns berries,
fashioning pop guns out of elderberry tranks,
often walking the rails of the train track.
And then we got out first school spanking to
gether. Miss Jackson had left the roes*, George
-'• HI
started talking, 1 joined in and then we
punished - because it wasn’t the first time, Mlsi
Jackson had said. We made a medieval castle
ftom paper mache in the sixth grade, were on
the student council together in the eighth, worked
on the annual in the ninth and then were sub
merged with all the activities of high school.
We often double-dated, he with the captain of
the girls’ basketball team, I with various ac
yu
quaintances. And then came graduation and the nh
ill
In
fall of 1968. Our paths parted. He chose another
school; I came here,
George did well. He worked on their annual,
was elected editor last year. He did fairly wall w
academically, too and played on the varsity tenaisfd
team, was a Sigma Chi.
AMI then came the accident
Now we had come to the last service. “Why”
pounded through my mind like the thunder's roar.
A youth, his life unfinished; has died. Whyt 1 lo,
don't know. I didn’t know that day; 1 don’t now. Jth
and I fear I never shall.
' -Cj
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