Race Relations at Ithaca College -- Learning in Black and White

The following article, from the Ithaca College newspaper, provides historical context for race relations at Hanover College.

"White Superiority Discussed by African Exchange Student," Ithaca College Ithacan, 24 Oct. 1963, p. 1.

"I have found that white people assume consciously or unconsciously, a position of superiority; and I have often had the feeling of being treated as something rare," said Quenton Malianga, an I.C. African Student, before a group of United Christian Fellowship members last Sunday.

Mr. Malianga, a Sophomore in the Biology Department, went on to say that before he came to the United States, he thought of our country as a very friendly one, and one in which everyone drove a Cadillac. Upon his arrival in the states he found this was not true, and that people weren't as friendly as he anticipated.

Mr. Malianga cited one incident in a barber shop when he couldn't get service because the proprietor thought he was an American Negro; when the barber discovered Quenton was an African student, he received better treatment. "I can't understand this inconsistency," he stated.

"White and Negro foreign students experience different treatment because of the color of their skin," he continued, "since color seems to play an important part in American society."

He concluded that he has found that "Negro families get to know a person first, and then ask question, but white people ask questions first, and then get to know you."

The next program in this series on "Segregation in Ithaca" will be presented on Sunday, October 27, at 5 p.m.

This article is one that students in His234 "Studies in American Cultural History" selected to illustrate race relations at predominantly white colleges and universities in the Midwest. It is a transcription of the text as it appears in the digital version of the Ithacan. For more on Ithaca College, see "History of Ithaca College."