Fraternity by Diane Brady

Author:Diane Brady [Brady, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-52962-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-02T16:00:00+00:00

A demonstration at Clark University in fall 1969.

Left to right: Clarence Thomas, Gil Hardy, Ted Wells

(center, in sunglasses), Stan Grayson (second from right).

Holy Cross still had a long way to go if it wanted to become a welcoming place for black students.

Swords didn’t like the give-and-take atmosphere that Brooks had encouraged. He felt that the rules and authority of the college were being challenged on a daily basis. He marveled at the audacity of students demanding special concessions in order to feel comfortable. Swords had lived through a war that had affected the lives of a large number of his peers; the world had been changing fast then, too, and he knew that nothing ever moved fast enough for young men. He didn’t mind the sense of urgency among the BSU members or among many of the other students on campus. What he disliked was the growing sense of entitlement.

Brooks reminded Swords that most of the black students had never dreamed of attending Holy Cross, because the college had little to entice them. Brooks had convinced these men to come, and the least the college owed them was a few concessions to help them adapt. But Swords was worried about the impact the growing list of perks for a small minority might have on other students or the alumni. A few professors had come to ask Swords whether he thought the black students could handle the workload; they were concerned about letting in more recruits when some of those who had enrolled in 1968 didn’t appear to have had the adequate academic training, discipline, ability, or interest to succeed in their studies. Brooks had responded that many of the black recruits were among the top in their class, and that a significant number of white freshmen also struggled and dropped out. The transition to college was rarely easy for anyone. Singling out the difficulties of only black students was fruitless, he argued, and unfair.

The tensions around race had shifted somewhat over the previous year. The anger that had followed King’s death had led to some meaningful efforts to address inequalities, at least at the college level. But more black students also meant more demands for teachers who looked like them and courses that reflected their experience. And greater numbers meant less pressure to conform. Before the previous term ended, one senior administrator had written to Brooks and Swords to say that he, for one, was convinced that the college would experience significant problems with the black students within the next year or so. Meanwhile, one sociology professor gave a speech to faculty in which he tried to explain the “totally alien” backgrounds of black students in relation to Holy Cross. “They come from ghetto surroundings; they have gone to ghetto schools, and they have breeded for themselves a ghetto mentality.” But some also shared Brooks’s view that the onus was more on the faculty than the students to adapt to the times. “The fact is that most of us do

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.