Strong Inside by Andrew Maraniss

Author:Andrew Maraniss [Maraniss, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2016-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

While Wallace and others experienced difficulties on campus strong enough to cause them to question their decisions to attend Vanderbilt, there remained pockets of support among some white professors and administrators.

One such ally was Reverend Bev Asbury, the university chaplain, who invited Wallace and several other black students to his office to talk about their day-to-day experiences. The discussion was so chilling that Asbury asked the students whether they’d like to come to his home to talk further.

“I just asked, ‘What has your first year at Vanderbilt been like?’ and their answers were just stunning,” Asbury recalled. He heard stories of signs placed on dormitory doors reading Nigger go home. Confederate flags and swastikas, too. Walter Murray told the story of his profane welcome to English class. Bedford Waters told Asbury that black students “were torn because you wanted to be a part of the campus, and you also wanted to bond with the other African American students, and yet there was a perception that if a group of us were together, there was going to be a race riot or something.”

As Asbury sat and listened to these stories, he was struck by the courage it took for these “normal kids” simply to exist at Vanderbilt. Helping them was why he had come to the university in the first place, and he knew one man who needed to hear their stories.

“All these reports went on, and I listened and listened,” Asbury recalled. “And then I said, ‘Would you like the opportunity to tell the chancellor all of this?’ And they said, ‘Yes, we would; nobody has heard our story.’ And so I picked up the phone and called Chancellor Heard that night.”

With a week to prepare for the meeting with Heard, the students thought carefully about what they would say and who should serve as the leader of the delegation. Even most of the older students sensed there was just one option. The question was whether the freshman, Perry Wallace, would accept.

He did.

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