/iframe></noscript> <aside class="notice"></aside> <header class="template"> <div class="header"> <a href="https://www.hanover.edu" class="logo" alt="Hanover College logo" title="Hanover College logo"></a> <a href="https://www.hanover.edu" class="www" title="Go to Hanover College website">hanover.edu</a> </div> <hr> <div id="site_name"><a class="site_name" href=".">History Department</a></div> <div id="header_nav" tabindex="1"><nav><a href="/" class="">Home</a><a href="/project.php" class="">Hanover Historical Texts Project</a><a href="/hhrintro.php" class="">Hanover Historical Review</a></nav></div> </header> <main class="template"> <section class="page"> <div class="page_body"> <div id="page_title" title="Triangle Articles, 1944-1976 -- Learning in Black and White at Hanover College">Triangle Articles, 1944-1976 -- Learning in Black and White at Hanover College</div> <div id="page_content" class="page_content"><div id="bnw" class="triangle"><br> <p style="align: center;"><a style="border-bottom-width: 0px;" title="Learning in Black & White" href="https://history.hanover.edu/texts/bnw/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="images/bnw-logo.png" alt="Logo: Learning in Black & White" width="250"></a></p> <p id="top" style="text-align: center;"><strong>The following articles, published in Hanover College's student newspaper between 1954 and 1976, </strong><strong>reflect attitudes on campus at that time.</strong></p> <br><hr> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1944-0512address"><strong>1944</strong> (May 12)</a> - a southerner discusses the "Negro-White race situation"</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1945-0427race"><strong>1945</strong> (Apr. 27)</a> - the Student Christian Association holds a panel discussion on race</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1954-0829lafeber"><strong>1954</strong> (Aug. 29)</a> - Walter Lafeber discusses communism and alludes to common attitudes about race</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1954-0829integration"><strong>1955</strong> (Nov. 18)</a> - committees prepare for admitting African-American students</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1955-1216assemblies">1955 (Dec. 16)</a> - announcement of a presentation on "racial problems"</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1961-0113spencer"><strong>1961</strong> (Jan. 13)</a> - Warren Spencer wins a national grant from Pi Gamma Mu</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1962-0309AME"><strong>1962</strong> (Mar. 9)</a> - student volunteers assist a local AME church</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1962-1019mixing">1962 (Oct. 19)</a> - J. Milton Yinger speaks on racial mixing and ethnic pride (as in Hawaii)</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1963-0118colby"><strong>1963</strong> (Jan. 18)</a> - Colby College pushes for integrated fraternities and sororities</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1963-0201concerned">1963 (Feb. 1)</a> - a "Concerned Parent" asserts that social rights and civil rights are different</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1963-0320caste">1963 (Mar. 20)</a> - Val Nash compares caste systems in India and the United States</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1963-1004group">1963 (Oct. 4)</a> - students and faculty organize a committee to investigate discrimination</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1963-1019organizes">1963 (Oct. 19)</a> - students propose forming a "Committee on Civil Rights"</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1963-1101establishes">1963 (Nov. 1)</a> - the Student Senate establishes a Civil Rights Committee</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1963-1108similar">1963 (Nov. 8)</a> - Judy Moffett investigates homogeneity in the student body</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1963-1115closet">1963 (Nov. 15)</a> - Dave Railsback evaluates the "civil rights issue" in national politics</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1963-1122conservative">1963 (Nov. 22)</a> - the Civil Rights Committee announces that it wishes to avoid the "negative connotations" of civil right protest</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1963-1206faculty">1963 (Dec. 6)</a> - Judy Moffett investigates homogeneity in the faculty</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1964-0124supports"><strong>1964</strong> (Jan. 24)</a> - student organizations support the Presbyterian Church's "Emergency Fund for Freedom" to support racial equality</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1964-0130royer">1964 (Jan. 31)</a> - a civil rights consultant describes Hanover as "operating within a social vacuum" on the topic of civil rights</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1964-0403greek">1964 (Apr. 3)</a> - David Larson predicts future conflict because the fraternities and sororities do not accept African-American members</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1965-0402marcher"><strong>1965</strong> (Apr. 2)</a> - report on Hanover students' participating in the Selma to Montgomery march</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1965-0402helms">1965 (Apr. 2)</a> - Judy Helms reports on the "complexities" of race relations in the South</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1965-0409resents">1965 (Apr. 5)</a> - a Southerner "resents" the article by Judy Helms</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1965-1016think">1965 (Oct. 16)</a> - <em>Triangle</em> editors ask that assemblies "stimulate interest, teach us something, and make us think"</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1967-1201newnegro"><strong>1967</strong> (Dec. 1)</a> - Aaron Wood III describes the "bitter emotions" that lead African-American students to form "Afro-Black groups"</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1968-0412king"><strong>1968</strong> (Apr. 12)</a> - Martin Luther King, Jr's assassination shocks the campus: "now we must worry"</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1968-0412king2">1968 (Apr. 12)</a> -Theology Professor John B. Matthews asks "what it would cost" to be "brutally honest" about racism at Hanover</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1968-0412letter">1968 (Apr. 12)</a> - letter to the editor asks white Americans to examine themselves and accept blame for racist behavior</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1968-0514plan">1968 (May 14)</a> - Sarah Howard calls for respect for non-middle-class students and ending discrimination in Greek organizations</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1968-1115greeks">1968 (Nov. 15)</a> - Public discussion of discrimination in Greek organizations led to "very emotional and personal accusations"</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1968-1122action">1968 (Nov. 22)</a> - Susan McGaw argues that change comes from rational problem solving, not name-calling</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1968-1122whites">1968 (Nov. 22)</a> - Beckie Thompson argues that righting discrimination requires spending "vast amounts of public and private money"</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1968-1216unappealing">1968 (Dec. 16)</a> - Julie Field writes "were I... an intelligent black high-school senior, I would find the Hanover campus unappealing"</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1969-0407campus"><strong>1969</strong> (Apr. 7)</a> - <em>Triangle </em>editors recorded an open conversation about the College among 14 African-American students (part 1)</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1969-0508talk">1969 (May 8)</a> - <em>Triangle </em>editors recorded an open conversation about the College among 14 African-American students (part 2)</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1969-0508nig">1969 (May 8)</a> - A supplement to the May 8, 1969, <em>Triangle</em> reproduces Jerry Farber's 1967 counterculture essay "Student as Nigger"</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1969-0522bardonner">1969 (May 22)</a> - Ken Bardonner comments on "Student as Nigger"</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1969-0522queen">1969 (May 22)</a> - Sarah Howard is elected May Queen</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1969-0926project">1969 (Sept. 26)</a> - Project Commitment, "a totally new program aimed at breaking down racial and age barriers," organized</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1969-1010sig">1969 (Oct. 10)</a> - Hanover's Chi Chapter of Sigma Chi rejects race as a criterion for membership</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1970-0313faculty"><strong>1970</strong> (Mar. 13)</a> - Hanover's faculty vote to "support the abolition of racial, religious, or ethnic discrimination on the Hanover College campus"</p> <p style="padding-left: 35px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1970-0918apathy">1970 (Sept. 18)</a> - Eric Johnson describes his transition to college life</p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#1976-0123wells"><strong>1976</strong></a> (Jan. 23) - Pamela Wells calls attention to issues leading black women to leave Hanover</p> <hr><br><br><hr id="1944-0512address"> <h3>"Race Situation is Topic of Address," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 12 May 1944, p. 4.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"As One Southerner Sees the Negro-White Race Situation" was the topic discussed by the Reverend A. B. Rhodes at the Hanover College Chapel, Wednesday morning, May 10.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>He said that the Negro should attempt to place himself in the place of the white psychologically and then see if he himself would practice the Golden Rule.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Reared in the south, Mr. Rhodes said that he should be prejudiced but that his relationships with the Negroes have been happy ones. He bases this attitude on the guiding principles valid for all human relationships: the Law of Love, and the Golden Rule; the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God; and the fact that there is only one race -- the human race.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Racism is based on prejudice, not facts, and there is no race purity. There is a major difference within the race as well as between the race groups. Mr. Rhodes suggested that we realize that we had nothing to do with our color -- that this was placed in the hands of our ancestors and God.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">He said that the Negro should attempt to place himself in the place of the white psychologically and then see if he himself would practice the Golden Rule.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">There are two major race questions today as Mr. Rhodes pointed out. They are the question of discrimination of class equality and the question connected with the peace after the war.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The methods so far used to deal with the problem have proved unsatisfactory: Negroes have associated with and passed for whites.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Some of the wealthier Negroes have merely been complacent.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Some have blamed it all on the whites, and some have suffered with servility, clowning, or resignation.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">According to the speaker, we are not to move too fast in our efforts two be rid of this problem, but should let the church take the lead. Right now our duties are pioneering and education. The principles of Jesus must stand.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1945-0427race"> <h3>"Race Relations Are Discussed by SCA," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 27 Apr. 1945, p. 4.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Approximately forty members attended the all-membership meeting of the Student Christian Association on Tuesday, April 17, in the Donner Hall dining room. Lucy Gilbert took charge of the program, which she turned over to the race relations panel, conducted by Dr. Swartz.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>The panel discussed understanding the Negro..., separate areas of equal opportunity, and natural grouping in society.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The panel included Mr. Fred Action, at present working on a municipal housing project for Negroes, Mr. Black, Secretary of the Urban League, Rev. L. W. Bottoms -- all from Louisville, and Mr. Howard L. Wallace, former school teacher in the South, from Hanover.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The panel discussed understanding the Negro, false rumors about riots, the problems during the war, the educational and industrial postwar problems, separate areas of equal opportunity, and natural grouping in society. The panel concluded that human relationship is the real problem. Mr. Bottoms said, "A good life is not money or power but a spirit of freedom that will eliminate conflict."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">At present there are two groups working to get action; they are the pressure group. The Fair Employment Policy is an example of the pressure idea. There is room for both groups methods.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">After the discussion, which lasted an hour, students talked informally with the panel speakers.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1954-0829lafeber"> <h3>Walt Lafeber, "What the English Think of Communism," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 29 Aug. 1954, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">An American tourist or student who is traveling in a foreign country is often left almost senseless after some startling revelation about a thing which this misplaced American perhaps never thought of before.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>The old Negro asked me what I would do if I was judged by a Negro Almighty God before I could enter the Gates of Heaven.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The closest I came to this state of consciousness (or unconsciousness, you might call it), was one summer evening when a young and brilliant English student named Steve Williamson came into my room, and we began talking about American politics. The course of the conversation turned to Communism and Steve let loose with a verbal blast at the United States. He said, "I believe that if the United States ever goes through a depression as serious as that depression of 1929, the United States will then go Communistic."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">I seriously thought I hadn't heard right. This was even more startling than the time the old Negro asked me what I would do if I was judged by a Negro Almighty God before I could enter the Gates of Heaven. I was speechless that time too, needless to say. Steve and I got into quite an argument. Steve based his argument on the fact that we in America have no real left-wing political party to absorb the many radicals who would, no doubt, arise out of such economic chaos. I told him of the Democratic Party which, while not socialistic by a long way, fulfilled many of the ideas and aspirations of some of the more leftist members of the American community. Steve got the point.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">But it is interesting that such a thought could ever enter the head of an English boy who possessed one of the finest minds in the political field I encountered all summer. It is also interesting to note that the British are not worried about Communism. Much can be said of this.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Britain has had several bad "red scares." The first was over the leakage of atomic bomb secrets, the second over a communist government taking control in British Guiana. In the latter case, the English moved in with force and put the colony under military rule for a time. Many British are still criticizing this move. They do not believe that rule by force destroys Communist infiltration or ideals.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">One English man defined the British Communists as "A group of fools who have been led astray." The English had fought the Russian menace with tradition, ideas, and education in past years and evidently have now won. They have not had to revert to outlawing political ideas. Perhaps this is impossible in America, but we must admit that Britain has made it work. The English Communist can say anything he likes in Britain, but he hasn't gotten very far and probably won't.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">A prominent member of the British Labour Party, R. H. M. Crossman told us in an informal group, that statistics show that approximately 25% of the British Communist Party leave the Party ranks every year. They leave on their own will, "seeing the light" as it were. The British do not believe in giving these "Pinks" anything to fight for or argue about. They just leave them alone and they cause little or no trouble.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">I mentioned before that the English do not believe that Communism can be destroyed by force. We could jokingly say that small Great Britain doesn't have the force to do the job anyway, so they don't have a lot of choice. But to many people their attitude makes some sense. We could bomb Russia off the map, but there will still be Communists who are so indoctrinated that they could start the Party and the ideal all over again. But kill the idea, educate the people to know better, get the head out of the sand and face the facts on Communism (many of which aren't so bad as at face value), and Marxism dies a natural death.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This is the English point of view. It's interesting to think about.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><img src="images/1954-0829lafeber.jpg" alt="" width="463" height="491"></p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1954-0829integration"> <h3>"Group Discusses Sub-Committee Work on Negro Integration," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 18 Nov. 1955.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Sub-committees were discussed at a meeting Thursday of the Hanover Integration Committee of the Student Council.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>[Students will] investigate . . . the opportunities for jobs for Negro students in the community [and] the possibility of their patronizing various establishments.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The Integration Committee, under the co-chairmanship of Dick Machek and Betty Taggart, was re-organized last semester to make preparations for the admission of the Negro students to the College next year.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">With this in mind, sub-committees were appointed to investigate the opportunities for jobs for Negro students in the community, the possibility of their patronizing various establishments, and to discover the attitude of the community and campus in general toward the admission of the students.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Sub-committees and their chairmen are: Jobs at college and in town, Don Deller, Don Kastner; Restaurants, Marion McCoy, Janiel Edmonds, Ann Ferris; Theatre, Dan Kile; Hotels, Motels, Faculty Homes and Meals, Mary Lee Crofts, Don Dhonau.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Service clubs and women's groups, Gary Babcocke, Mary Ellen Poe; Public Relations, Pam Patterson, Marilyn Herzog; Scholarships, Harry Keith, Luella Robbins; Churches, Dick Machek, Larry Liddle.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Swimming pools, parks, Tom Katsanis; Haircuts, miniature golf, Ed Ghering, Dale Adams.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Faculty members of the committee are Dr. John Jansen, Dr. Robert Bowers, and Dean Lee Copple.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1955-1216assemblies"> <h3>"Racial Problems Will Be Discussed," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 16 Dec. 1955, p. 4.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>(Editor's note: The following are short "previews" of personalities coming to assemblies in the near future.)</em></p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>A panel of American mixed races and religions will come to the campus from the University of Cincinnati.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">On Thursday, January 5, a panel of American mixed races and religions will come to the campus from the University of Cincinnati. They will give a discussion on the problems of a mixed racial group on the campus.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">One of the members of the panel is Dave Zaverink, whose sister, June, is a sophomore here.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Students and faculty will get a glimpse at the Arctic on Friday, January 6, when Prof. R. E. Frost comes from Purdue to give a short talk on that area. Professor Frost has made numerous trips to the Artic and has done research there. Also, he is an expert on air strip engineering and road building.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">On Monday, January 9, the annual Swartz Lecture will be delivered to the campus. Coming from Clinton, New York, President Robert W. McEwan of Hamilton College will speak at an extended assembly period. This will be a return trip for McEwen as he is a former teacher of religion here at Hanover.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Another member of the Hanover family will return the next day as chapel speaker, Reverend William Huber, son-in-law of the Parkers, will come from the St. Andrew Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>. The editor's note is original to the print version.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1961-0113spencer"> <h3>"Spencer Awarded Pi Gamma Mu Scholarship," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 13 Jan. 1961.</h3> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>Warren Spencer. . . [won a scholarship from] Pi Gamma Mu, National Social Science Honor Society.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Warner Spencer, a senior, has been awarded a $500.00 scholarship by the Board of Trustees of Pi Gamma Mu, National Social Science Honor Society.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Spencer, who is president of the Hanover Chapter of Pi Gamma Mu, will use the award for graduate study in social science. The national grant is a memorial to Charles W. Bushnell.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">He is captain of the track team, member of the Board of Student Affairs, and on the Dean's List of honor students.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><img src="images/1961-0113spencer.jpg" alt="" width="228" height="432"></p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1962-0309AME"> <h3>"Hanover Volunteers Work to Promote AME Church," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 9 Mar. 1962.</h3> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>After getting to know the families, the students of different race and varying denominations were readily accepted.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"A new spark of life has been felt in a church in Hanover after one big step," said Art Gorman, who with seven other students have been working with the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Hanover since mid-last semester.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">How did this come about and how effect has it been?</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The suggestion arose at a Campus Fellowship meeting "Greek Responsibility to the Hanover community."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Within a week the group was functioning. They first spent two days visiting homes of parents with children. After getting to know the families, the students of different race and varying denominations were readily accepted.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">During the first week attendance climbed seven fold and has remained at that level since. Before Thanksgiving the fraternal organizations were asked to contribute equipment -- chalk, blackboard, toys -- and the response was "tremendous," said Art.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">During Christmas the children presented a drama of the nativity for the parents. Robb Baker returned to Hanover from vacation to help.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Recently the Church had a chili supper to raise funds for a stove for the Sunday school in appreciation. Students and parents raised twice the amount needed. Art pointed out that this was the first church activity for quite a while. He said parents are more aware of their part in the church.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The greatest need at present is for volunteers to drive the children from Sunday school to their homes. Those with automobiles who are available at 11:00 a.m. Sunday may see Art for more information.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Teaching Sunday school are Robb Baker, Shirley Bryant, Jackie Clements, Judy Cook, Katie Ostrander, Edie Tallent and Peggy White.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"Shirley, who is a Negro, has been very instrumental in the liaison between the college and the church," said Art.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1962-1019mixing"> <h3>"Racial Mixing, Ethnic Pride Both Have A Place," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 19 Oct. 1962.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Dr. J. Milton Yinger, in his address to Hanover students last Monday, opened with an example typifying mans' desire to be "out," but still "in." Men want to be "nonconformists together in adventurous safety."</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>With our own Hawaii as the prototype, . . . alert students must staunchly promote integration within our own pluralistic society.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Assimilated integration and diverse pluralism do not exist in a totalitarian state, but do in our democratic state. Dr. Yinger especially applied this theme of integration and pluralism to racial relations in the United States today.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Integration, he defined as a mixing equally of the races -- lowering of the barriers which have existed. Pluralism, on the other hand, is pride in one's particular ethnic group, as well as identification with it. Dr. Yinger believed that both of these have a place in our society.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">As an example, he used our fiftieth state, Hawaii, which he recently visited. Its mixture of races -- Caucasian, Japanese, Hawaiian, and many others -- does not live in perfect harmony, but has made great steps toward harmony. Neither the island native nor the American Indian can yet live completely as he wishes, a sense of separation and tone of resentment still hovers. Though the white overlords "are gone," categorical barriers "on group membership" are still existent in some cases. <br><br><strong>Sororities Discriminatory</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Mixed marriages, however, shuffle identities and nurture integration and pluralism. Fortunately, universities are a potpourri of all races. Racial sororities are a single example of existing discrimination. Unity in diversity is exigent.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Pluralism becomes a bad thing only in the following examples. Distinction is undemocratic discrimination when it is related to other discriminate distinctions. Many groups are designed to exclude certain persons, rather than to include them.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Countless Americans think the inferior Negroes should be content with their own schools, churches and theatres. Society cannot allow them to be separately content. It should steep them in its social, political, and cultural objectives.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">They must struggle for justice while dreaming the American dream. They are not docile, but a part of the mobile society. They have no distinctive culture; slavery crushed their heritage and pride. Reconstructing their heritage would give them a place in society and dignity. <br><br><strong>Muslim Movement Cited</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">As we fail, movements such as the Black Muslims encroach. Offering refuge for those frustrated and disillusioned with the Christian church and its colleges; these organizations fight the Negroes' battles.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Not a "Sunday religion," it is an illiterate function of youthful, semi-skilled males that repudiate Christianity.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Though the integration step is painful and slow, as is evidenced in Hawaii, deliberate speed to absorb the full range of the community must be made. Negroes cannot pull themselves up by their own boot straps as a requisite for integration.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">With our own Hawaii as the prototype, exceptional parents, concerned businessmen, and alert students must staunchly promote integration within our own pluralistic society.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1963-0118colby"> <h3>"Greeks Rapped for Racial Discrimination," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em>18 Jan. 1963, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">WATERVILLE, ME. -- (L.P.)</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The Board of Trustees of Colby College has given fraternities and sororities at the institution until Commencement 1965 "to satisfy the board they have the right to select their members without regard to race, religion or national origin."</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>The Board of Trustees of Colby College . . . went on record as being "strongly opposed" to discrimination within fraternities and sororities.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The trustee vote strengthens a stand taken on November 4, 1961, when the board went on record as being "strongly opposed" to discrimination within fraternities and sororities. On that occasion Chairman Reginald H. Sturtevant and Colby President Robert E. L. Strider were instructed to write letters, with a copy of the motion, to the presidents of the alumni organizations and to the national and international organizations of Colby's ten fraternities and four sororities.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In order of their founding, the Colby fraternities are: Delta Kappa Epsilon, Zeta Psi, Delta Upsilon, Phi Delta Theta, Alpha Tau Omega, Lambda Chi, Alpha, Kappa Delta Rho, Tau Delta Phi, Pi Lambda Phi, and Alpha Delta Phi. Sororities include: Sigma Kappa (founded at Colby), Chi Omega, Delta Delta Delta and Alpha Delta Pi.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a></p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1963-0201concerned"> <h3>Concerned Parent, "Rights Explained" (letter to the editor), Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 1 Feb. 1963.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">To the Editors of Triangle:</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">As a member of the Hanover family, past and present, I am a little more than mildly disturbed by stories of "Greeks being rapped for racial discrimination."</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>"Concerned Parent": More than mildly disturbed by stories of "Greeks being rapped for racial discrimination."</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Since some of my family are members of a Greek organization, and some are not, I feel that I can speak freely and with a degree of authority.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">THE TRIANGLE reported that in Waterville, Me., at Colby College, the board of trustees has given fraternities and sororities until Commencement 1965 "to satisfy the board they have the right to select their members without regard to race, religion or national origin." I wonder if the trustees of Colby know that social fraternities should not be denied the right to determine their standards of membership granted to them by two vital amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America. The right to "peaceable assembly" and the privacy of the "houses" and "papers" of all citizens?</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In our great zeal to protect the constitutional privileges and immunities of certain citizens, colleges and trustees must be careful not to infringe upon or impair equally sacred rights of others. It is a long established rule that no individual has an inherent right to membership in any particular organization.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In choosing of one's friends and associates it is a social right WHICH CANNOT BE CONFUSED WITH CIVIL RIGHTS. It is a fundamental American right to choose members in accordance to the standards and qualifications applicable to each college fraternity, free from interference or restrictions by non-members.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">I submit the suggestion that we all read again the Bill of Rights. Any trespass on the rights of others for "peaceable assembly" is infringing on the rights of us all whether we are Greeks or non-Greeks. Let us hope that Hanover College and its board of trustees will stand firm for Constitutional freedom. <br><br>CONCERNED PARENT <br>Indianapolis</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>Editor's Note: While this letter bore only the signature "Concerned Parent," we decided that we would print it because of the feeling that perhaps we have not made it clear enough in the past that ALL letters, whether mailed or handed to the editor must bear the legitimate signature of the writer. Names will be withheld upon request of the writer, but the original must bear the writer's signature when submitted.</em></p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>. The editor's note is original to the print version.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1963-0320caste"> <h3>Val Nash, "Indian, American Caste Systems Show Similarity," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 20 Mar. 1963, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Probably most Americans think the caste system in India is unfair cruel, inhuman, and directly opposite to our equalitarian society. It seems hard to understand why India has lived under a system like this for so long, doesn't it?</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>Our caste system . . . is as rigid as India's. Our caste are the Negro, American Indian, Asiatic, and white.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">But what about our caste system? We have one which is as rigid as India's. Our caste are the Negro, American Indian, Asiatic, and white.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">As the Negro and white castes are the most rigid, they will be used as a basis of comparison. It seems that it would be easier to understand the caste system and its problems in India if we realized how similar India's caste system is to the caste system in the United States.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In India, as in the United States, the castes are kept apart by restrictions against marriage outside of one's caste. Limitations are placed on educational opportunities, and bans against social contacts with the other castes. In many cases, the higher or better occupations are saved for the higher castes relegating the lower or despised jobs to the lower castes.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Just as we often force Negroes into unskilled or menial jobs.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The Hindu system has multiple castes. At the top are the Brahman, followed by the Kshatriya and Vaisya. These top three castes are thought to be a different type of people from the Sudras, which are the low caste group.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Represents Aptitude</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The "Bagavad-Gita" states that caste divisions are in accordance with each man's character and aptitude. This is somewhat similar to our feeling that the Negroes belong in a lower caste because they are inferior in character, aptitude, and intellect.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Below the Sudras are the outcastes or untouchables, who are thought to pollute the food and water and are not allowed to go near the higher caste neighborhoods.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This can be compared to the separate rest rooms, drinking fountains, and restaurants for Negroes. There are many towns in Indiana where Negroes are allowed to pass through but never spend the night, and many more neighborhoods where Negroes are allowed only as servants.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In most cases. Negroes ore forced to live apart in slum neighborhoods. This is the type of behavior required of untouchables in India.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Caste Differentiation</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">There is differentiation within a caste. Cox, in CASTE, CLASS. AND RACE, states that "castes of any size always have their superior and privileged families.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Individuals within the caste may differ in wealth, in occupation, efficiency, in physical attainments, in choice of vocations among those to which the caste is limited, and in political position." But, individuals cannot move from one caste to another.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Some of the more strict barriers of the caste system have been relaxed, however the Indian caste system is much older and more highly established than our caste system.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The problems caused by the desegregation process in our society are even more difficult in India, thus giving rise to a great deal of conflict and controversy.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1963-1004group"> <h3>"Civil Rights Group Plans Organization," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 4 Oct. 1963, p. 1.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">An organizational meeting for a Hanover committee on civil rights met Thursday evening, September 26, in Classic 102. Thirty students and twelve faculty members attended the meeting, which was called and conducted by Hanover students Judy Moffett and Robb Baker.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>A volunteer subcommittee . . . to investigate situations in the college and local communities where discrimination is known or suspected to exist.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Dr. A. A. McCrary and Dr. Edward Huenemann have agreed to serve as advisors for the planned organization, which is to deal with problems of racial and religious discrimination at Hanover College and in surrounding communities.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">A volunteer subcommittee of seven was formed to investigate situations in the college and local communities where discrimination is known or suspected to exist.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This subcommittee will then prepare a plan for formal organization of a student-faculty thusiasm should come from their own actual participation in the freshman class functions.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Group to deal with these problems and will list proposals for action to be undertaken.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">These two recommendations will be brought before an assembly of all those students and faculty members interested. This second general meeting is scheduled for next Thursday evening, October 10, at 7:00 in Classic 102. The plan of organization and the action proposals will be voted on at that time.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Those serving on the subcommittee are Moffett, Baker, Arlene Andrews. Cal Brand, Shirley Bryant. Janet Cavins, and Dick Gingery.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1963-1019organizes"> <h3>"Civil Rights Committee Outlines Major Purposes," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 19 Oct. 1963, p. 1.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">On Wednesday evening, October 16, a motion was put before the Student Senate by Janet Cavins, representing the volunteer group tentatively called "The Hanover Committee on Civil Rights," that such a committee be formed under the auspices of the Student Senate.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>To ignore . . . subtle problems now is as mistaken as pretending that Hanover will never have anything more than 'subtle problems.'"</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The motion was the result of investigation by a subcommittee of the volunteer group which reported the findings to the Committee on Civil Rights at the second meeting on Thursday evening, October 10, at 8:00 p. m. in Classic 102. Members of the subcommittee are Arlene Andrews, freshman; Cal Brand, senior; Shirley Bryant, junior; Janet Cavins, senior; Dick Gingery, sophomore; and Judy Moffett, senior.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">After carefully considering the purpose of such a committee, and in consequence of as thorough an investigation of our specific community situation as the limited time allowed, it was the recommendation of the sub-committee that any student civil rights organization work through channels already existing as part of the student government. The sub-committee felt that such an organization could function more effectively in this community if supported by the authority and element of permanence which a volunteer group would necessarily lack. A committee under the Student Senate would also benefit from the communications channels available to the Senate, and would avert the possibility of clashing or working at cross-purposes with the Senate.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">For these reasons the sub-committee recommended to the group that an appeal be made to the Student Senate and to the faculty for the formation of civil rights groups on both those levels. It was suggested that a faculty committee could aid communication between a student civil rights committee and the civil rights committee which has been organized by the trustees of the college, and could effectively deal with problems in the general community of which it is a permanent part.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The proposed aims of a Committee on Civil Rights are as follows:</p> <p style="margin-left: 80px;">1. The increase campus awareness of the nation-wide problem of civil Rights in its many implications.</p> <p style="margin-left: 80px;">2. To acknowledge that some manifestations of this problem exist on Hanover's campus and in our immediate community.</p> <p style="margin-left: 80px;">3. To examine this fact in the light Hanover College's established position as a Christian, democratic institution.</p> <p style="margin-left: 80px;">4. To seek means that could effectively alleviate any problems of this nature that involve or concern the college community, utilizing established or new channels, keeping foremost our concern for any individuals involved or implicated in a given situation.</p> <p style="margin-left: 80px;">5. In the broadest sense, to foster a climate on campus that would ultimately eliminate the need for such a committee.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The recommendation further suggests that committee members be appointed by the Student Senate President, and that meetings be open to any interested students. It concludes with this statement:</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"The social revolution of the spring and summer, as everyone is now realizing is not a climax that will soon ebb, but is a beginning that will have many future implications. To ignore what may seem to some to be subtle problems now is as mistaken as pretending that Hanover will never have anything more than 'subtle problems.'"</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1963-1101establishes"> <h3>Robie Vestal, "Student Senate Establishes New Committee On Civil Rights Issue," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 1 Nov. 1963, p. 1.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Last night the Student Senate passed a motion to establish a Civil Rights Committee. Members from each living unit will serve on the Committee which will operate under the auspices of Student Senate.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>A Civil Rights Committee could operate most effectively as an official part of Student Senate.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Part of the responsibility of the committee will be to investigate any practice of discrimination on the Hanover campus and make possible suggestions to relieve the situation.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Interest for such a committee came at the start of the semester when a group of students sought to determine the needs for a Civil Rights Organization. After several meetings this ad hoc group concluded that a Civil Rights Committee could operate most effectively as an official part of Student Senate.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Two weeks ago they presented their plan to the Student Senate. Last week the Student Senate voted to defeat their motion because misunderstanding surrounded the possible aims of the Committee. Because of this confusion, the Executive Committee proposed the motion defeated and a new motion of a more specific nature prepared.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Last night the new motion was passed. This made the Civil Rights Committee a part of Student Senate and means that any action the committee proposes must be approved by a Senate majority. The committee members will be selected soon.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1963-1108similar"> <h3>Judy Moffett, "Why Are We So Similar?," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 8 Nov. 1963, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">ON A COLLEGE CAMPUS where several Negroes, one Jew, and a handful of Catholics are enrolled -- in a student body numbering close to 1,000 -- an uncomfortable awareness that everybody's face is a kind of variation on the same theme is inescapable.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>No qualifications of race, color, or creed whatsoever exist in the admissions policy.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Such homogeneity is an obvious deterrent to the broadening process which a college experience at best can be. Most of us, at one time or another, must have wondered why Hanover students, socially, culturally, economically and ideationally appear so like one another.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>No Discrimination in Admission</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In a recent interview, Mr. Frank Blanning, Director of Admission, was asked to describe Hanover's admissions policy in general and in regard to minority groups specifically. Blanning stated that no qualifications of race, color, or creed whatsoever exist in the admissions policy. Toward its actualization the admissions office gives equal consideration to all applicants, whether or not they diverge from the norm.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">There is a preponderance of Presbyterians (40%) among the student body, but that is to be expected of a Presbyterian college since it has access to the recruiting channels of the church. Presbyterians are given no preference over any other group in the actual consideration of applications for admission. The same holds true for Indiana residents. Blanning commented that Hanover has always felt a commitment of sorts to the state, since the school was founded for the purpose of educating people in the Indiana wilderness, but that the great number of native Indiana students is due to the nature and size of the institution, not to any preferment in the admissions office.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"We want the student who can best take advantage of the educational opportunities we offer here," Blanning said. "We wouldn't reject a superior Indiana student in order to admit a mediocre student from Connecticut for the sake of a broad geographical distribution of the student body."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">He estimates that about 82% of the students enrolled at Hanover College come from families where considerable financial sacrifice is involved in sending them here. This figure is of course, relevant to the consideration of financial homogeneity among the student body.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Problems Found On Practical Level</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This, then, is Hanover's policy. On the practical level, however, there are specific problems involved in the admission of students in each of the principal groups. A great many Negro high schools, for example, have what it called "terminal programs" which prepare high school boys and girls to be wage-earners, not college students, after they graduate.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Blanning quoted James Meredith's statement that there are too few Negroes qualified for college work to go around among the colleges anxious to enroll them. No school can afford to accept an unqualified student and demand that he produce satisfactory work; it would simply be unfair both to the student and to the applicant he displaced.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This situation is, however, improving; and moreover Hanover is related to the National Negro Scholarship Program, the purpose of which is to see that qualified high school graduates financially unable to attend college are provided with scholarship money.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Sparse Jewish, Catholic Composition</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">There is no Jewish community in the Hanover-Madison area, so Jewish students must go to Louisville to attend worship service, an inconvenience not encountered in urban areas. This is an obvious handicap, and accounts largely for the dearth of Jewish students, in addition to the fact of our Presbyterian affiliation, which in some cases may also be a deterrent.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Catholics do not officially object to the compulsory chapels, since they are not considered "worship services;" but many priests advise Catholic students to attend only Catholic universities, and this cuts their potential enrollment sharply.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Admission of foreign students is encouraged. Under President John Horner's administration several new scholarship opportunities for foreign students have come into existence.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The department of admissions functions as "a kind of catalytic agent for the total program." Hanover's admissions procedure is outlined briefly by Blanning:</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;">The student is first considered as an academic competitor as regards his class rank, the courses he has taken, and the type of school from which he graduated.</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;">Partially on the theory that on a small campus a person unable to contribute is likely to be unhappy, a confidential form is sent to the applicant's high school instructors inquiring as to his extra-curricular activities, his personal appearance, his intellectual curiosity and resourcefulness, etc., in an attempt to determine in general what kind of person he is.</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;">Next his testing scores, such as ACT and college board scores, are compared with those of other applicants.</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;">Finally, general recommendations from persons he has asked to write letters for him are taken into consideration.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The admissions personnel travel considerably, principally to high schools where they have been invited to speak and to explain the Hanover Plan. These trips are informatory in nature, however, rather than effort to campaign actively for applicants.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">According to Blanning, then, the uniformity of the student body, insofar as it exists, would appear to be a necessary function of Hanover's size, location, Presbyterian affiliation, liberal arts nature, and other external factors, rather than to any discriminatory selective policy on the part of the admissions office.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1963-1115closet"> <h3>Dave Railsback, "Civil Rights: No Longer a Closet Case," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 15 Nov. 1963, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Hidden like a skeleton in a closet the civil rights issue finally found its "place in the sun" early last April. Since the end of the World War the problem had been given "lip service" by both political parties, and even though the cause of the Negro experienced greater attention than ever before the Negro still found himself being "short changed" on his Constitutional rights.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>This time the Negro had made up his mind that he would call for payment in full for the support he had given the current President.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This time the Negro had made up his mind that he would call for payment in full for the support he had given the current President in going to the polls in 1960. More than two years had gone by since John F. Kennedy had taken office and the only claim his administration could make was that there had been a significant increase in the number of Negro attorneys in the civil rights division of the Justice Department. As far as other positions were concerned a Negro had been appointed head of the Federal Housing Administration, and there were rumors in the nation's capital that when John Horne vacated his post as head of the Small Business Administration there might be a Negro appointed to replace Horne. Such token representation was not new to the Negro, in fact, it had been going on since the turn of the century.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">To begin his crusade he turned down the difficult and chose in its place the impossible in Birmingham, Alabama. Probably the most strictly segregated city in the United States. Birmingham reacted as the Negro knew it would. Eugene "Bull" Conner, the city's police commissioner, gave the Negro the sympathy which he had indeed earned after nearly one hundred years of separate faculties, back seats in busses, poll taxes, and unfair literacy tests.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">At last the skeleton had been brought from the closet and "flung" into the face of an America which could no longer look the other way. Birmingham was first, then Cambridge, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and finally Washington.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Civil rights legislation had been lacking for almost a century and with the ending of the hostilities in the Pacific the nation was finally able to their eyes inward. The first major action taken was the desegregation of the armed services, a step initialed and carried by President Harry S. Truman. This having been successfully completed little if any significance took place until 1954 when the United States Supreme Court struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine in "Brown vs. Board of Education."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">With the Brown decision in its lap "the Eisenhower Administration approached the situation with a great deal of well-warranted caution. The first step of major consequence taken by the administration was an executive order which called for the desegregation of all businesses and places of public accommodation in the city of Washington.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Beyond these two things relatively little was done until 1957. It was in the spring of 1957 that the first major piece of civil rights legislation since the end of the Reconstruction period found its way into the pages of the law books. Later in this same year with the opening of school in the fall the process of desegregation in public schools was begun in earnest in Little Rock, Arkansas.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">After the crisis at Little Rock relatively little was heard of civil rights until 1960. Once again and for the last time Eisenhower brought before the Congress strong civil rights measures which he no doubt hoped would swing many Negro votes into the Republican camp. The primary provision of this and the 1957 act dealt with "voting referees." Both of the Eisenhower proposals called for a system whereby any election involving officers of the federal government might be supervised by "voting referees" upon a directive from a federal court. These "referees" would not only make certain that every qualified individual would have the right to vote, but they were to remain throughout the counting of the ballots to make certain that every ballot was tallied. However, in both 1957 and 1960 the Congress removed the "voting referees" from the respective bills rendering them almost totally ineffective.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">With two laws already on the books many in Congress argue that the Administration already has enough tools with which to carry out its duties.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The common complaint of many members of both the House and Senate is that Mr. Kennedy has very seldom used the statutes which are already in existence. Now that he has come before the Congress with his plan for new legislation many are reluctant to support him. The question, however, due to the growth of racial tensions is receiving ever increasing attention. In fact by the end of the summer the racial issue was to be described by many as the most important issue to come before the Congress in this century.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>The author is a senior political science major. He studied last semester in Washington, D. C., and is now president of the campus Young Republicans.</em></p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1963-1122conservative"> <h3>Dave Lawrence, "CRC List Conservative Civil Rights Program," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 22 Nov. 1963, p. 1.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The first meeting of the recently established arm of Student Senate, The Civil Rights Committee, took place Monday afternoon, November 18, in an atmosphere of conscious responsibility, yielding a worthwhile exchange of ideas. A profound sense of integrity and rationality became evident as the campus representatives discussed the main ideal and goal of the group -- to be rational and educative, not inflammatory or ambiguous.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>The committee [wishes] to avoid the sometimes negative connotation associated with "Civil Rights."</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The first meeting of the recently established arm of Student Senate, The Civil Rights Committee, took place Monday afternoon, November 18, in an atmosphere of conscious responsibility, yielding a worthwhile exchange of ideas. A profound sense of integrity and rationality became evident as the campus representatives discussed the main ideal and goal of the group -- to be rational and educative, not inflammatory or ambiguous.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">It was stated that the Hanover College Civil or Human Rights Committee was founded for the express purpose of complementing Governor Matthew Welsh's State Civil Rights Commission on the local, grass-roots level. As an active Committee of Student Senate, all matters dealing with Civil rights are to be channeled in the Committee's direction. It is the members' self-imposed obligation:</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;"> To inform not to deceive or inflame.</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;"> To investigate not to meddle.</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;"> To analyze not to judge.</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;"> To enlighten and clarify, not to emotionalize or sentimentalize.</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;"> To assist not to hinder.</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;"> To recommend based on fact, not to opinionate based on rumor.</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;"> To execute by consent of Student Senate, not to incite by virtue of independent radicalism</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">At the outset it was the committee's wish to avoid the sometimes negative connotation associated with 'Civil Rights' such as sit-ins, boycotts, protest marches, or freedom rides, etc. Instead through open meetings, in which stimulating discussions will be promoted, and through informative meetings, in which knowledgeable speakers on a state or national level will be present, the Committee will expose the interested student to the complexities of the Human Rights question. In this way another idealistic purpose of the Committee will be served -- that of understanding and mastering human prejudice. The worst crime against oneself is moral perjury, yet isn't this the crime we are committing? The properly informed individual is conspicuous by his awareness and recognition of national or local problems and exemplary for his rational, calculated approach to their solutions!</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1963-1206faculty"> <h3>Judy Moffett, "Faculty Hiring Criteria Limits Real Diversity," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 5 Dec. 1963, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In considering the question of discrimination in faculty hiring, the Presbyterian commitment of the college must always be kept in the foreground.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>The idea is to hire the best possible man for the money available. . . . There is virtually no racial discrimination.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Because Hanover is a church-related school, the administration has a responsibility both to that church and to the students who enroll here with knowledge of the relation.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">President John Horner is, in the last analysis, responsible for the hiring of all faculty and staff members, and is accordingly held accountable for this by the Board of Trustees of the College. When a vacancy occurs in a department, the chairman of that department and the Academic Dean determine, together the qualifications of any person hired to fill the vacancy.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Criteria for Faculty Selection</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Academic degree, experience, area of specialization, age and salary expectancy are discussed. Decisions are made in each case with such considerations as the maintenance of a strong, well-balanced department with regard to rank and particular field of interest, and the avoiding of the mass retirement of all members of a department by insuring a reasonable age distribution. The idea is to hire the best possible man for the money available.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">When this job description is complete, the President, Academic Dean and department personnel, contact placement offices and departments of graduate schools all over the country, selecting schools they have found from experience to be representative of specific strengths to meet the needs of the moment. President Horner describes the search as "aggressive": an active attempt to find the man who is most capable of doing a particular job.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">After unsatisfactory credentials have been eliminated, the Academic Dean, and the head of the department concerned interview and evaluate the most promising candidates for the position. A recommendation is then submitted to President Horner, who in turn presents it to the Board of Trustees. The President is himself responsible for the fixing of rank and salary, largely determined and limited by the budget funds available for hiring.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Racial, Religious Policies Cited</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">There is virtually no racial discrimination in the faculty hiring policy. Religious discrimination exists necessarily, although to a lesser extent than in many church-related colleges. President Horner was, in fact, instrumental in making the employment of non-Presbyterian faculty possible, and under his administration the religious representation has diversified.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">According to President Homer, there is "nothing of a binding nature" in the contract signed by faculty members affirming a religious commitment. But an avowed atheist, even though his brand of atheism were nonaggressive, would probably not be hired. The rationale is logical: this school has a commitment, and unless a faculty member can embrace at least the basic tenets of that commitment he belong neither at Hanover nor at any other church-related institution.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1964-0124supports"> <h3>David Larson, "HC Supports Civil Rights Fund: Race Relation Information Present By Panel And Film," Hanover College <em>Triangle</em>, 24 Jan. 1964.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Several student organizations this past week have joined in an effort to rally college support behind participation in the national Civil Rights movement.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>Several student organizations . . . have joined in an effort to rally college support behind participation in the national Civil Rights movement.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The Civil Rights Committee, the Student Senate, and the TRIANGLE Editorial Board have pledged their support and leadership to the "Emergency Fund for Freedom."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This fund, colected and administered by the Presbyterian Church, aids projects that will accerelate the growth of racial equality in the United States and abroad.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Last May the Presbyterian General Assembly created the United Presbyterian Commission on Religion and Race and appropriated $500,000 for its work over a three year period. This commission is now in operation with a full-time staff.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Soon after its inception the Commission recognized the necessity of raising a much greater amount of money. In response to this need the Presbyterian General Assembly created the Emergency Fund.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Feb. 9 has been designated Race Relations Sunday and on this date a special nation-wide offering will be taken to aid in the Civil Rights program.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Rev. William Clemenson, minister of the Hanover Presbyterian Church, reports that the creation of this commission and the adoption of the special offering marks a significant and unique move by the Presbyterian Church.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The college organizations already backing this fund have asked other campus groups to join in support of the project. This week organizational leaders are to formulate a means of taking a separate collection on campus. This will give all students and faculty the opportunity to share in the project.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The "Emergency Fund for Freedom" is used (1) to help United Presbyterian ministers whose congregations refuse to support them because of their activities in the racial crisis (2) legal aid for persons unjustly arrested and jailed because of participation in peaceful protest and public demonstrations.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Other uses include (3) financial support for voter registration and educational programs (4) scholarship aid for Negro children in culturally deprived areas and for Negro youth entering the United Presbyterian ministry.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Further provisions are (5) aid to victims of racial injustice in Southern Africa and other critical areas (6) funds to meet unforseeable future emergencies in America's racial crisis.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">On advocating a strong and vigorous stand on Civil Rights the United Presbyterian Commission states that it "does not encourage civil disobedience and street demonstrations simply for the sake of creating civil strife."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"There are, nevertheless, test cases, occasions for symbolic acts and situations of extreme urgency in this struggle when the Christian, with a heavy heart and with a willingness to suffer, must obey God rather than man in a non-violent witness against an unmitigated evil."</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1964-0131drive"> <h3>"Drive for Freedom to Begin Here," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 31 Jan. 1964, p. 1.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Hanover students and faculty will have the opportunity to contribute to the "Emergency Fund for Freedom" during the coming week.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>Hanover students and faculty will have the opportunity to contribute to the "Emergency Fund for Freedom."</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Each living unit has two or more representatives who have informational pamphlets and contribution envelopes.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">These representatives will decide the best method to collect contributions in their individual units.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Contributions will be tabulated next Friday and a check will be given to Rev. William Clemenson, minister of the Hanover Presbyterian Church, on Saturday, the day before Race Relations Sunday.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1964-0130royer"> <h3>David Larson, "Rights Sociologist Says Hanover By-Passed," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 31 Jan. 1964, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Dr. Donald M. Royer, research consultant for the Indiana Civil Rights Commission, visited Hanover this Tuesday under the sponsorship of the campus Civil Rights Committee.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>I have the feeling that the Negro revolt is passing by Hanover without being noticed.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">He spoke to several sociology classes in the morning, had a luncheon discussion with members and guests of the Civil Rights Committee, and addressed an afternoon group of about sixty students.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Quit as Prof</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Dr. Royer, a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago, quit his job two years ago as professor of sociology at Earlham College to work as the fulltime consultant for the States Civil Rights Commission. He plans to return to college teaching next year.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Most of Dr. Royer's remarks were focused on the Civil Rights movement on the national and state level, but he also dealt with topics of community and campus importance.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Following Dr. Royer's presentation, this reporter questioned him on general topics pertaining specifically to Hanover College.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>What are your general observations about Civil Rights in relation to Hanover College?</strong><br>"I have the feeling that the Negro revolt is passing by Hanover without being noticed. Hanover operates within a social vacuum and cannot be considered a real testing laboratory for civil rights." "I see a need for a more conscientious student awareness of the nature and dimensions of the Negro problem."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Do you think Hanover can anticipate more Negro students?</strong><br>"According to a study our Commission recently made, Hanover reported having enrolled four American Negroes and one African Negro. This is a very low percentage. However, I think Hanover can not expect more Negroes in the future." "There are too many factors preventing a Negro from wanting to come to Hanover -- the cost, the admission requirements, the lack of a full social life, and the discrimination in the Hanover and Madison area." "For these reasons - and more, Negroes usually prefer large universities where their opportunities are greater."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>What are other colleges and universities in Indiana doing in the field of civil rights?</strong><br>"Indiana University has been by far the most progressive. On their own initiative the IU administration arranged that all public facilities on the IU campus and in Bloomington be open to persons of all races." "The Catholic colleges and universities in the state, especially Notre Dame, have taken significant steps. I have found the Protestant church related colleges the most unreceptive to changes that would further racial equality."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Is the Commission interested in the membership requirements of college sororities and fraternities?</strong><br>"Yes. We included a section on our questionnaires to colleges and universities in which we asked if the school's administration would openly support local chapters who decided to integrate. Twenty colleges, including Hanover, responded in the affirmative."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Has a study been made of the racial situation in the Hanover-Madison area?</strong> <br>"No. The Commission's study included an accommodation analysis of a number of major Indiana cities and towns, but we were not able to include Madison in our study. It would be helpful if we had a collection of reliable information on Hanover and Madison."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>What can interested Hanover students do in the area of Civil Rights?</strong> <br>"Louis Lomax, in THE NEGRO REVOLT, states that one of the most effective things the white liberal can do is make people aware of the Negro's problems and prepare the white person to make an intelligent response."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"By pursuing a mature program of education about the Civil Rights movement and active attempts to remove areas of discrimination on the college and community level the Hanover student can provide a real service."</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1964-0403greek"> <h3>David Larson, "HC Greeks To Face Racial Problems," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 3 Apr. 1964, p. 5.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Last fall a group of Hanover students voiced a desire to identify Hanover College in a meaningful way with the National Civil Rights movement. They aroused enough interest to create a standing Student Senate Committee.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>No fraternity or sorority on the Hanover campus could rush, pledge, and initiate a Negro without . . . putting the college in a difficult position.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This Civil Rights committee, which has functioned the entire year, has interpreted its function as helping the Hanover community better understand the nature and scope of the contemporary Civil Rights movement.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The committee has not felt its purpose is to explore discrimination on campus. Several members of the TRIANGLE Editorial Board have specifically concerned themselves with the Hanover campus. In a series of editorials since last November these writers have attempted to define spheres where discrimination does, and does not, exist on the Hanover campus and have sought to urge student attention to certain areas.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Widespread Research</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">These Board members have talked to large number of faculty and students. They have also contacted community and administrative leaders. (For example, this writer has conferred with President John E. Horner about Civil Rights on four occasions, once for a period of four hours.)</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The basic research question was: Does a Negro have equal opportunity in all phases of the Hanover academic community -- It is reasonably certain that, in the area of administration and faculty, no racial discrimination of any kind is involved, neither in the selection of students and faculty, nor in any other compass.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Within the student body, however, there is one area of racial discrimination and this relates to the membership requirements of fraternities and sororities. In the span of years since the first Negro enrolled at Hanover in the early 1950's, no Negro has attempted to join a Greek letter organization. Any study in this realm, therefore, is operating without tangible evidence.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Disruption Certain</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Yet, after careful researching, it is very convincing that no fraternity or sorority on the Hanover campus could rush, pledge, and initiate a Negro without disrupting their local chapter and without putting the college in a difficult position.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Each chapter has different obstacles that would prevent them from activating a Negro peacefully due to one or a combination of reasons: national policy prohibits Negro members; opposed alumni would withdraw financial support and levy embarrassment on the active chapter; prejudiced individual members in the active chapter would prevent any Negro from joining the organization by use of the blackball.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Responsible Greek members have stated that if their chapters pledged a Negro their house's present status would be in certain danger.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>No Hope for Some</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In at least three houses on campus the prospect for pledging a Negro in the next couple of generations is slight. These particular chapters are rooted in the South and have firm, traditional segregation policies.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">After contacting officers of Greek units, a response of a senior fraternity president seems representative: "We know we are not able to take a Negro because of our national policy and alumni reaction. Even if this were different several actives have said they would blackball any Negro (one blackball would prevent initiation). We have been expecting the college to do something about it for a long time. If they do, I don't see what we could do about it."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In essence, the one area where true discrimination exists on the Hanover campus is in the membership of fraternities and sororities. It is time that students openly recognized this and seriously examined the relevant implications.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Open Realization Needed</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The topic has been discussed periodically by most chapters, but no local is at present attempting a full scale try to alleviate obstacles so that a Negro could be pledged the same as a white. The standard conclusion is "We should wait until a Negro actually goes out for rush and then deal with it."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This, I feel, is an irresponsible evasion that may cause a considerable disruption to one or more of Hanover's chapters and hardship the college at some future point.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Because their local fraternities and sororities declined to address themselves to the racial problem, many college administrations have had to step in. Across the nation, especially in the East, chapters have been requested to localize or disband.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>All Greeks Lose</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The whole Greek movement has been greatly weakened by the racial issue and Greeks are now squarely on the defensive and the situation will progressively graven. This will undoubtedly involve a continuing loss of respect and support for fraternities and sororities.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Hanover is in a similar position to many other colleges. Since Hanover chapters have not attempted to actively reconcile their problems, the faculty and administration have been forced to take measures. At present there are both faculty and trustee committees working on Civil Rights. Last year the trustee committee was formed and has been meeting regularly since.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Probably one of the primary functions of this committee is to insure that all Hanover students have equal opportunity for academic, social, and extracurricular life at Hanover and that all college owned property is accessible to all students regardless of race, color, or creed.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Policy Forthcoming</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">At present this trustee committee is formulating a definite policy guide for the college. President Horner said announcement of this policy is forthcoming. There is every promise that this policy will be comprehensive and that there will be provision for administration action if certain standards are not met. This administrative policy should have a profound effect on the fraternity and sorority structure of Hanover. Dr. Horner has also been in communication with national fraternity and sorority leaders to explain Hanover's position.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Since it is the administration and trustees that ultimately determine college policy, faculty and students can best serve in complimentary ways. The faculty might help by conferring with individual fraternity and sorority leaders. Faculty might be able to help houses better understand particular problems and be aid in consul.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In addition, it is only understandable that those faculty who have a deep commitment on racial equality will feel the obligation to consider withdrawing their attendance and support of fraternity and sorority activities and functions until that time when there is adequate evidence that racial barriers no longer exist.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Students Are Key</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The real progress, if Greek organizations are to survive in their present form, must come from students. Each should openly face the question: what would happen if a majority of our actives wanted to pledge a Negro? Could we do it without trouble? If this approach is intelligently employed, chapters will recognize the dimensions of their own obstacles.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">If the chapter wishes to be able to freely pledge a Negro, the next step is to do everything possible to remove the barriers preventing harmonious action. If it is national policy, national officers can be contacted and changes can be initiated at national conventions. If the national is irreconcilable, chapters can arrange to localize.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">If it is alumni, the chapter can make their position known and try to work out a harmonious understanding. If actives pose a barrier, these individuals can be brought to see that members should be selected on their inherent characteristic and merits, not on the color of their skin.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">If students want to consciously approach the problem, the numberless avenues of action will open up. The handwriting is on the wall. If Greeks choose to look the other way, others more responsible will read it for them. The time for meaningful action by Hanover fraternities and sororities is long overdue.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><img src="images/1964-0403larson.jpg" alt="" width="559" height="436"></p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1965-0402marcher"> <h3>Karen Smith, "'I'd Go Again' Says Marcher" (interview with Phil Lalonde), Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 2 Apr. 1965, p. 1.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"You'll feel beforehand that what you're doing is right, but afterward you know it. If it weren't for class obligations I'd go again tomorrow if I felt there was a need."</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>You'll feel beforehand that what you're doing is right, but afterward you know it.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This was the way junior Phil Lalonde summed up his two-day trip to Montgomery, Alabama last week to participate in the now famous Selma to Montgomery human rights march.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Five Went</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Lalonde and four other students Ken Bierman, Judy Helms, Pat Sepowitz, and Ted Lester left Hanover Wednesday morning at 8:00 in Lester's car with a few sandwiches and a borrowed cooler. By 12:00 the same evening they were in the city of Saint Jude, actually a Negro suburb of Montgomery.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The group arrived in time to hear the end of an open air talent show emceed by singer Harry Belafonte, and featuring folksinger Odetta, comedian Dick Gregory, and song writer Bob Dylon who closed the program with undoubtedly his most famous effort "We Shall Overcome."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Sleeping bags which had been thrown into the car came into use that night as three of the group stretched out in an open park and the other two slept in the car. At 6:00 the next morning the Hanover "delegation" was ready for the four or five mile walk into Montgomery. The entire march, of which this was to be the last leg, had been in progress for three days and had covered some 45 miles.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Crowd of 30,000</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Two and a half hours after the walk was scheduled to begin at 9:30, the crowd of 30.000 began to march, parts of the miles-long line singing as they went. People who had participated since the first day were designated by orange jackets and allowed to be at the front of the line. The Hanover group fell in directly behind them and so were very near the speaking platform when the march halted in front of the capitol building.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Singers Belafonte, Peter Paul and Mary and Joan Baez entertained the crowd before the program began. The main speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King was preceded by no fewer than 25 introductory speeches by such dignitaries as United Nations delegate Ralph Bunche and the directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Congress of Racial Equality.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The entire program lasted until 4:00. After the five-mile walk back to the city of St. Jude, the five students began the trip back to Hanover. Although tornado warnings halted them overnight in Birmingham, they were back on campus by 1:00 Saturday morning.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Could Feel the Tension</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"We didn't encounter violence anywhere," Lalonde stated, "but we could feel the tension we created as outsiders. There was a carload of jeering teen-agers, and those who tried to talk us out of what we were doing. A pair of shocks for Ted's car cost him $34 in an Alabama filling station. We met a man in Birmingham though, who urged us to join the march. We had told him we were on our way to New Orleans, a plan we decided on at the start of the trip."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"We listened to all viewpoints and never disagreed openly. We felt our purpose was to benefit from the experience, not to start arguments. My most rewarding experience came when we were returning from the march to the city of St. Jude. We were always more comfortable in the Negro sections of town anyway. A Negro woman invited us into her corner confectionary store and treated us to cokes and ice cream. Her story as she told it to us was that although she has run her business successfully for many years, she has not been allowed to vote."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"I consider the experience with this Negro lady, a valuable part of my education," he concluded. "This is the reason I would be willing to go again."</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1965-0402helms"> <h3>Judy Helms, "South's Situation is Complex," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 2 Apr. 1965, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Integration sometimes seems like a silly problem in many ways. Why, we ask naively, do people hate other people for the color of their skin? A human being is a human being -- it's not right or reasonable to deprive him of those things we would want for ourselves or our families, just because his face is black.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>This is an American problem, it needs all people to solve it, not just Martin Luther King, or the whites in Alabama.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Of course we know to what extent we harbor the same feelings in our own "Northern" communities -- but for the moment I would like to examine a little bit of the insight as to why it is so hard to convince people that present policies must be changed.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">A white child in the Deep South grows up seeing things that we in the North often don't see. In his area, where whites may make up only slightly more than half of the population, he comes in contact with Negroes and may accept them easily in whatever context he meets them. But a child quickly notices that when it comes to things such as school, or church or death, there is a distinct line where the two races do not meet. The two are different -- and the inference is that the White is superior.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">If a person forms the belief that Negroes are inferior when he is three or four years old -- how easily will he change them when he is thirty?</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Not only have these beliefs been formed -- but the beliefs serve to make the situation true. Negroes have been forced into inferior schools -- which in turn often limits their economic status. They are inferior to most of the whites in these areas. And the whites fear that a mixing of the two will automatically lower themselves.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">We talked to a woman in Birmingham who has a doctorate from Ohio State. She told us how hard she was working on a bi-racial committee -- and she told us how the group did just anything for a colored boy who would come to them when he was hungry or homeless. She stressed the fact that the whites love the Negro -- but how childlike and untrustworthy the Negro inevitably is.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Another man pointed out that what the white was really fighting was intermarriage. He said no one cared if they voted or not -- that was one thing. But the fear was intermarriage.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Despite the opinion that the civil rights movement has been kept alive because of the efforts and encouragement of Northern people coming into the South for that specific purpose, there are whites to whom this is the worst part of the problem. Perhaps this is only because they're fighting the change anyway, or sometimes because they are doing their best to solve the problem. At any rate, incidents such as the two deaths in the last two weeks, only serve to arouse emotion instead of thought in many.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This is an American problem, it needs all people to solve it, not just Martin Luther King, or the whites in Alabama. But it is a problem for which complexities have been increasing for one hundred years. It's going to be a long and a hard job.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">-- Judy Helms</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1965-0409resents"> <h3>"Southerner Resents Civil Rights Story" (letter to the editor), Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 9 Apr. 1965, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Dear Editors:</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">I personally resent the article written by Judy Helms in last week's TRIANGLE. I am a native of southern Florida and I know the Negro problem in the south. If you are going to write about Negro problems in the South spend a year down there and observe the real facts; you seemed to have missed it in your article after talking with only two people of which you're sure only one lived in the south.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>When the Negro in the South decides to use his toilet instead of urinating off the back porch then and only then will he be accepted.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">I'll admit that Negro problems aren't specifically the same all over the South, but in general the issues are the same. When I speak of Negroes I don't mean the educated ones or the successful ones. I'm talking about the ones who have no education and what's more don't want one. The Negro in the South is dependent on the white because he finds security in not having to make the decisions. However in the majority of cities in the South the Negro is afforded an education in schools equal if not in some cases superior to the white schools.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">You are right, the white in the south is taught that the Negro is inferior, but in actions only. This is not taught in any classroom but is learned merely by observation. When the Negro in the South decides to use his toilet instead of urinating off the back porch then and only then will he be accepted by the White majority of the south. Only when he takes advantage of the opportunities now afforded him will he become accepted. His color makes no difference. It's just that he doesn't give a darn about anything.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1965-1016think"> <h3>"Make Us Think," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 16 Oct. 1965, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">With no intention of disparaging the quality of the assemblies presented so far this year, we would question whether any of the programs have left students feeling uncomfortable -- have made them want to argue with the speaker -- have caused them to change their minds about an issue or to consider points which challenge the validity of their present beliefs.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>Controversial, active groups as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. . . would surely excite a great deal of response among students.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The assemblies have improved during the past year; many have been interesting and somewhat instructive. However, we have not been faced with debatable topics nor have any of our long-held beliefs been challenged. We students are capable of handling controversial issues, of being dared to think. Too often we sit and listen to persons speaking along our own lines of thought and can only nod our sleepy heads in general agreement. Our typical assembly program causes only this "passive" type of thought. Very few have made us take an active interest in their presentations through lively disagreement or a like stimulus.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>Want Active Groups</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Such controversial, active groups as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee which are willing to send representatives to campuses like Hanover, would surely excite a great deal of response among students. Active thought can be evoked also by members of the college faculty who are well-qualified to present the major viewpoints on current topics such as Section 14 (b) of the Taft-Hartley Act.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Considering the number of hours which we are required to spend in assemblies, we think it is not unreasonable to expect the programs to stimulate interest, teach us something, and <strong>make us think.</strong></p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1967-1201newnegro"> <h3>Aaron Woods III, "Black Collegians Generate New Negro Mood," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 1 Dec. 1967, p. 1, 5.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>Editor's note: The commentary following is published in the hope that it will provide insight into the thinking of the young Negro community today. The author is a senior student at Hanover College. This is the first of a two-part series.</em></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">As another long hot summer has drawn to a close, the battleground of Negro rights shifts from the ghettos of the northern metropolises to the white campus. This sweeping black movement which is led by the black collegian is generating a new mood among Negroes.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>As another long hot summer has drawn to a close, the battleground of Negro rights shifts from the ghettos of the northern metropolises to the white campus.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">TRADITIONALLY when the infrequent Negro was accepted at a white campus he was so elated that he worked frantically to become what he imagined the proper Negro gentleman in a white environment. In his attempts to attain the proper image he found himself confronted with an identity crisis and became what might to be best termed a "white nigger." Even though in the midst of the flow of activities and at the paramount of acceptance made possible by his assimilation he became isolated from his true self by having to conform to standards and values that held little meaning and enrichment for him, since he could never realize the fruits of these values in a hostile, color conscious society. Soon he became aware of that pervading socio-phychological distance which separates him from his white peer.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">UNTIL NOW he felt relatively complacent. However, viewing the situation in its true light he is unable to reconcile the bitter emotions within himself which became expressive of hostility.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The result of these factors is the formation Afro or all black clubs or societies. The membership of these black societies is characterized by a mood of militance, articulation and chauvinism. The members of these groups challenge the basic tenets of white America by continually assaulting the racial conscience of White America with protests of the inhuman treatment received by the Negro in America. Along with this surge to blackness or aggressive pride of being black come the rejection of the white culture. The basis of this new movement is an emerging black revolution which ranges in tone from angry militancy to a brotherly desire for mutual improvement which does not reject violence as a means to achieving the end.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">AFRO-BLACK GROUPS are formed for various reasons. Among them is the feeling that the curriculum in American universities has omitted or degraded the Afro-American contribution to the nation's history. While, on the other hand, many merely tired of eating alone at dining tables, enjoying little or no social life, and fending off questions about civil rights from white classmates. The creation of Afro-societies may be viewed as a type of self-segregation. The difference lies in the fact that it is a voluntary association, not a forced one. This voluntary association of black students in helping them deal with the realities of life and college and as individuals and Negroes. The best known of these clubs or societies are located on the campuses of Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and San Jose State.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">RECENTLY an assemblage of 200 persons met on the second floor of the Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles for the express purpose of deciding whether or not to call a boycott of the 1968 Olympic Games by U. S. Negro athletes. As the meeting closed the participants were divided as to the appropriate action, however the majority voted in favor of the boycott. The gravity of this proposition lies in its usage as a means to express disenchantment with the American system of racial injustice. It is the plight of American Negroes to remain trapped in virtual bondage in a society which recognizes neither his culture nor his heritage, but granted him his freedom over 100 years ago. The black man realized that civilized reason and Christian love which brought him to America in bondage now taunts him with a mythical freedom.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">THE NEGRO, an involuntary African transplant finds himself in the center of an unstable, emotional confused society, flanked by a hostile, bigoted Southerner to his right and the intellectually liberal but emotional racist Northerner on his left.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The feelings of the American white are marked by ambivalence toward the Negro. This ambivalence is manifested in a standard of behavior to which the Negro is expected to adhere. Any deviation from this standard constitutes an assault on the power structure. The white man becomes alarmed because the Negro has refused to accept his traditional backseat, and the white man's definition of the Negro's self and identity. It is this white-imposed standard that demands the Negro to be more farseeing and patient than whites and finds virtue in non-violence, inaction, and Tomism. As a result, the militant, chauvinistic Negro imposes a paranoia which transcends the minds of the best thinking white Americans.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The dilemma of White America is that a segment of the population is directing its efforts towards perpetuating the status quo which denies the Negro his humanity. While at the same time, the America--n dream freedom of opportunity, economic prosperity, and civil liberties -- is fervently pursued at the expense of the American Negro. An example of this is the great economic substance realized by industry through the employment of cheap Negro labor. However, industry has done nothing to help improve the economic, social and political conditions of black America in return.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">ONLY SINCE the Second World War, which made possible the emergence of the black nations in Africa has the white man attempted to deal with the American Negro in a different manner than ever before. A new sense of self, a black dignity, was invested in the Negro. But the basic indoctrination of inherent inferiority still persisted as a way of life for white American feelings toward the Negro. The white is unable or unwilling to resolve this great dilemma. Instead he retreats further and further into his sanctuary -- suburbia.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The two forces which serve to hinder the Negro freedom movement are the slum merchant and the white liberal. The slum merchant has long posed as the friend of the evolved out of a communal bond Negro. This friendship supposedly shared by both groups as a result of their desire to better the black community. This is a flagrant falacy. The slum merchant, representing the middle man or liaison between the establishment downtown and the Black man uptown has for generations pilfered the Negro community of its dollars and denied it any chance of economic stability, and prosperity.</p> <p style="text-align: center;">(To be continued)</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>. The editor's note is original to the print version.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1967-1215liberal"> <h3>Aaron Woods III, "Liberal, Slum Merchant Denying Negro Prosperity," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 15 Dec. 1967, p. 1.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>Editor's note: This is the conclusion of a two-part commentary on the thinking of the young Negro community today. The first part of the commentary dealt with the new mood of the Negro being generated by black collegians. The author dealt with the formation of all black societies on the college campus and the new militancy of the young Negro. The second part, he deals with two factors he maintains "hinder the Negro freedom movement": the slum merchant and the white liberal. The author of the commentary is a senior student at Hanover College.</em></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">INFILTRATING the black community and setting up businesses at its periphery, the slum merchant extracts the black dollar and reinvests outside of the black community. History has shown the slum merchant to be the ruthless profiteer who has knowingly and deliberately participated in the debasement of the Negro. This procedure has denied the black community prosperity and left it in a state of economic, social and political strife.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>The Negro must not be satisfied until he has received his unconditional freedom.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The white liberal, perhaps the most potentially dangerous of the two, presents an entirely different type of problem. The liberal is usually proud of his racial virtue and readily admits to having a best Negro friend at some time upon the first tinge of racial embarrassment. It is the liberal who gains the confidence of his black counterpart and arouses a guilt complex in the Negro when he feels the Negro is taking the wrong approach (militancy) or pushing a little too hard, too fast.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">THE LIBERAL PROFESSES to favor freedom and equality but denounces agitation in the pursuit of freedom. He supports a system which attempts to appease the Negro with tokenism and paternalism. The danger of the white liberal to the black liberation movement is so potential that the best advice offerable to the Negro is beware of white men bearing gifts and advancing pro-Negro causes. Strangely, most whites foster some innate fear of the mythical superhuman, savage, sex potential of the Negro. Such was proven by the survey where whites were asked to list in order the things which they felt Negroes wanted most. Heading the list was sexual intercourse with whites and equal opportunities were at the bottom. The same survey was conducted among Negroes, however the survey showed that Negroes actually wanted the same things but in the reverse order with sexual intercourse listed last and equal opportunities first.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">RECORDS AND CASE studies of Ante-bellum South shows that the Southern white male regarded his wife as a lily-white, pure, virginal figure. This image dominated the society to such an extent that sexual intercourse was rarely indulged in for the mutual pleasure of both partners. Its basic and only purpose became to produce children. This forced the wife to adopt characteristics of frigidity and coldness. The husband who was equally frustrated and bound by this Southern code ventured to the slave quarters at night to relieve his frustrations.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This also explains the great love and devotion which Southern families expressed for the black Mammys that nursed the families' children, since she more often than not doubled as a bed partner for the father and all of the sons when they became of age.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In an attempt to deny the Negro of what the white man believed to be superior sexual potency, castration became as much a part of a lynching as the lynching itself.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The presence of color has intimidated the white man because he fears the ultimate equality of himself and the Negro. In other words, he refuses to see himself as he really is. His energies are directed toward preserving a white system which excludes the Negro and encompasses what he assumes himself to be and what he identifies himself with.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">THE NEGRO TODAY represents the destruction of his entire value system because the goals that he aspires to are now available to a very, very, limited number of Negroes. This in itself distracts from the white exclusiveness of these values and makes it impossible for the white to rationally deny the Negro as an equal.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The solution to his great American dilemma is not one easily accomplished. Time has proven that civilized reason and Christian love alone are inadequate. However, the first step toward a probable solution is the union of white and black men to defeat the stratagems white America has used deny the Negro his humanity. Efforts should be made to purge the color curtain which is real and existent for 22 million black Americans.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">AMERICAN IS ON the threshold of a black revolt which, if realized, will erupt with such force as to astound the world. It has been the misfortune of white America to misinterpret the pulse of the black liberation movement, to do so at this point could be disastrous. The Negro community in America is united by its anger and swollen with discontent. The Negro is no longer willing to prostitute himself to a color-conscious society which exploits him because of his blackness, but rather he is preparing for the ensuing struggle. This struggle may be moral or physical, but it must be a struggle as history shall prove.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">THE NEGRO must not be satisfied until he has received his unconditional freedom. He must assail the ears of the white America not with endless debate or polite petition but with forceful protest of its shameful deeds toward the Negro until it has been ingrained in the mind of every America. Until this is done the Negro will be something less than a man.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>. The editor's note is original to the print version.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1968-0412king"> <h3>"King's Murder Shocks Hanover: Non-Violent Leader is Shot; Questions Raised by Death: What Are We Going to Do?" Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 12 Apr. 1968.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The irony of it has been repeated over and over again. The symbol of the American non-violent civil rights movement has been struck down in violence. Dead is the leader of those Negroes who hoped to salvage some kind of peace between the races from the bitter violence that is as old as this country itself. The death of the Nobel Peace Prize winner has left a void in the civil rights movement that may be more difficult to fill than was ever realized.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>We are here at Hanover to learn about the society we live in, and what are we to think when a great man like King must die. . . .</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The important thing is that the ideals for which he stood do not die with him. "Let his death not be in vain . . ." has been the cry raised by millions of Negroes whose dream of a non-violent battle for racial freedom was carried by King. The largest crowds ever to gather in a civil rights cause have been seen by countless communities across the country. An estimated 500 students, faculty, and townspeople attended a Memorial service for the late King earlier this week in Parker Auditorium.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">There seems to be a contagious fear behind these marches and memorial services-a fear that they must keep marching, keep mourning lest anyone forget. Unfortunate though it is, it may well be that King's death will be the act that will shock whites across the country into the realization that Negroes want an answer now. It seems, however, that the more negative seniment is prevailing. Many feel that it was the last straw. Negro students in the University of Kenucky's Black Student Union said: "they have killed the cat who was the epitome of non-violence in this country," and "You can mark my word that it is going to be a long, hot, summer-hotter than before."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">We are here at Hanover to learn about the society we live in, and what are we to think when a great man like King must die for that society to realize the value of his ideals. The announcement of King's assassination was met with a paradoxical kind of shock. Though it was difficult for us to believe that King had been murdered, we were not surprised, for we knew that he himself expected to die.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">We wonder, though, what really lies behind the nation's grief. Whether you admired Martin Luther King or not, he was generally accepted as the one remaining bridge over the widening gap of race relations. It was generally accepted that it was he alone who stood to balance the likes of Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael and the Black Power Movement. Is it just that he is gone, and now there is no one to turn to? Martin Luther King, at least, allowed us some relieved anxiety when riots raged throughout the summer. He stood for hope.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Now we must worry. Who will take over? What are we going to do?</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><img src="images/1968-0412king.jpg" alt="" width="450"></p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1968-0412king2"> <h3>Dr. John B. Mathews, "Campus Forum: Will the Dream of Dr. King Die?" Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 12 Apr. 1968, p 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">White-hot irons of grief and rage have seared the memory of Memphis and all that followed into the national consciousness. It has happened, and never again shall we be the same. There is no turning back for the American people. But shall we indeed overome or are we only moving further into the dark night of chaos that is our inescapable destiny?</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>What . . . would it cost us at Hanover to be brutally honest about our institutional ways and resolutely discard all those . . . with racist overtones?</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>THAT NON-VIOLENCE</strong> has suffered death at the hands of violence does not necessarily mean that the dream of Martin Luther King is bankrupt. What it unquestionably does mean is that we live in bondage to racism. For many Americans that is a hard saying, difficult almost beyond comprehension. Overt bigots we may not be, but that is of little value when even our good will and best intentions are subject to the corrosive influence of an all but invisible enemy. Consciously or unconsciously, and in a multitude of ways which are dimly perceived at best, black and white together have been corrupted by the racist institutions within our society -- institutions which, in denying to blacks the opportunity to be men, have diminished the humanity of whites as well. Memphis has made clear the reality of our bondage.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In bondage, and shall we ever overcome? Yes, but only at the cost of our racist institutions and power structures. It is true that morality can not be legistlated, that what is demanded is a radical change of heart and mind, and that all of this takes time. But it is equally true that the institutions and power structures in which morality is formed can be changed. And here is where it must begin, with a convulsive effort to root out these racist structures in which our lives have been rooted. The spiritual cost alone will be staggering, for no man can lightly throw out that which he has inherited, tear down that which he has helped to build, condemn that which he has condoned. What, for instance, would it cost us at Hanover to be brutally honest about our institutional ways and resolutely discard all those shot through with racist overtones?</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>IT WILL COST,</strong> yet here is where it must begin, and begin now-not because one man died, but because many men cry out to live. It was this cry which Martin Luther King heard and heeded, and for which he poured out his life. Not solely a black man's cry or even a poor man's cry, but the cry of all men, even as the dream which he dreamed was a national dream, a human dream. The passionate premise as well as the dark tragedy of this hour testify to the fact the dream is neither illusory nor bankrupt. It is our dream even as it is our freedom and our humanity that is at stake. And someday, black and white together, we shall overcome -- but we must have the courage to begin now.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1968-0412letter"> <h3>"Readers Sees Negro Plight; White Americans Are Guilty" (letter to the editor), Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 12 Apr. 1968, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">To the Editor:</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The recent assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King carries with it far more profound implications than the death of another great man, John Kennedy, four years ago. It strikes me as very ironic that America's apostle of non-violence and brotherhood should become a victim of the very thing he deplored, violence and hatred. In the aftermath of this tragedy, every white American must ask of himself, "What can we do to stem this hatred?"</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>Unless each white American can . . . admit his blame for racist behavior patterns . . .we will never cure the basic sickness that corrodes our society.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Perhaps in law the black man is "free" and "equal," but certainly not in practice. The President's Commission on Civil Disorders stated that white racism is the "fundamental cause" of Negro rioting. Yet how many of us on this so-called "Christian" campus would accept that indictment? A very small percentage, I'm afraid. "The Negro problem," Gunnar Myrdaln stated twenty years ago in <em>An American Dilemma,</em> "is predominantly the white man's problem." For generations the vast majority of Negroes, although suffering the consequences of the failure of America to live up to its creed of equality, justice, and the basic dignity of man, were "under the spell of the national suggestion." This is no longer simply post-Civil War America, this is post-Watts America, and those "long, hot summers" clearly indicate that the black man has fallen out of his spell; he has lost faith.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Thus, I ask again "What can we do?" Unless each white American can honestly examine himself and admit his blame for racist behavior patterns and understand that this crisis is a failure in human relations and the practice of democracy -- unless we recognize these things and do something to change them -- we will never cure the basic sickness that corrodes our society. No amount of federal programs, increased job opportunities, or civil rights legislation can bring America closer to its ideals unless we white Americans admit our guilt and begin to make up for 3-1/2 centuries of indignities heaped upon our black brothers.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Martin Luther King was perhaps his most eloquent in August of 1963 during the March on Washington when he stated: "I have a dream, I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,"</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">(Continued on page 5)</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1968-0514plan"> <h3>Sarah Howard, "Campus Forum: Alternate Plan Given for Racial Relations," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 14 May 1968.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Two weeks ago the <em>Triangle</em> carried a plan, proposed by Mr. Phelan, for the purpose of aiding the Negro youth. His basic presupposition was that education was the key answer to the Negro's plight. His plan was conceived with Hanover as the institution to be used.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>The Negro of today is seeking a sense of dignity -- a renewed faith in himself as a human being.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">First of all, may I commend Mr. Phelan for his concern and also for his effort in trying to seek a remedy. However, I must add that a plan such as his would never work at Hanover. Perhaps at a larger institution such as I.U. this plan might be feasible.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Why this plan wouldn't work is the first and most important question, and secondly, what plan might be apropos for the Hanover Family?</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">One element which Mr. Phelan omitted in his basic presupposition was that the Negro of today is seeking a sense of dignity -- a renewed faith in himself as a human being. The Negro has been stripped of his dignity, manhood, and self-respect. Without these a man becomes less than a man. The "Black Power" movement of today is but a means of reaffirming and re-establishing the Negro's love of self and sense of pride through slogans such as "Black is Beautiful."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">To use Mr. Phelan's plan at Hanover would add insult to injury. Hanover is a pseudo-classy institution composed primarily of middle class students. As corridor chairman last year in Donner Hall, one of my sophomore girls of very modest means told me, in a private conversation, that she couldn't remain at Hanover because here she "couldn't look people in the eye." Because she didn't wear the newest Villager outfit or a Pi Phi pin, she felt less than a human being-a reject. This was a white girl, one of your own, who felt rejection and discrimination. How do you think my underprivileged brothers would feel under such circumstances? Those Negro youths from slums and broken homes, who already have an inferiority complex because society has stamped them as dirty, black and therefore ugly, inferior and stupid-how can they survive within Hanover's artificial atmosphere when a white cannot?</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">There are many financially able and academically qualified Negro students who could attend Hanover. However, to attract such students Hanover has to be something more than a "beautiful campus." To induce qualified students and keep them, Hanover might implement the following suggestions: 1) add courses oriented toward the black aspects of the American culture; eg: a course in Negro History, Negro Literature, or Contemporary African History, 2) Rid the campus of Greek organizations which have religious and/or racial clauses, agreements, etc. The existence of such societies is overt discrimination. Why should a student attend a school where he had a choice of one or two organizations when he could attend a school where he had an unrestricted choice, 4) give Hanover an injection called "life." The Negro youth have been more exposed to the rudiments of life than his white counterpart and to be shipped to a "security island" is a backward step for him.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">These are my suggestions -- if you have others, please give them.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Sarah Howard</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1968-1115greeks"> <h3>"Hanover Greeks Put On Defensive," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 15 Nov. 1968.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Over 70 students packed into the JGBCC Student Senate Room yesterday afternoon in a spontaneous, emotionally charged "free for all" discussion that focused on racial discrimination and Hanover's Greek letter societies.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>The . . . meeting was prompted by accusations made by black students . . . that Hanover's Greek organizations were racially restrictive. . . .</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The discussion, which had been previously rumored as the formation of an SDS chapter, originated as a conversation between Sophomore Marian James and Mr. Joseph E. Scott, a Hanover instructor. The originaly planned meeting was prompted by accusations made by black students at the "Perspectives on America" discussions the night before that Hanover's Greek organizations were racially restrictive in their membership programs.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">During the debate, several Greeks, like Jean Rasmussen, attempted to justify their rush programs, referring to National organization pressures, and adding that racial prejudice did not originate in the chapter.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Very emotional and personal accusations were made repeatedly throughout the meeting. Some of the Greeks insisted that though there were opportunities for racial prejudice in their houses, the organizations were worth saving and should not be eliminated.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Hunt Protho, a junior, advocated elimination of the sororities as the only satisfactory solution. Jean Rasmussen shouted, "stop calling us racists! We're inside the system, and we're trying to make it work!"</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Time schedules and other obligations prevailed and the number of people diminished. The remaining students attempted to keep the issue alive and organize another form of discussion.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1968-1122action"> <h3>Susan McGaw, "Only Action Brings Changes," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 22 Nov. 1968.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">During Perspectives there was a lot of talk about change, about righting all the wrongs of the world. People communicated with each other openly and honestly. Many reassessed their views. Others substantiated those ideals already held. After the guests had left students were faced with the question "What can we do?" They looked around and found the nearest thing to them to attack and to righteously change.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>They looked around and found the nearest thing to them to attack and to righteously change.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">What they found was the Greek system. They decided to change it. A meeting was called between representatives of the four sororities, who were charged with having racial clauses in their constitutions, and some independents. What could have been a constructive meeting, resulted in an emotional, name-calling, finger-pointing session. The representatives were accused of being members of racial organizations. They defended themselves by saying that the racial clauses in their constitutions had been deleted several years ago. They went on to add that each house had been working for the past three years within their own organizations writing resolutions and pressuring their nationals to change their antiquated values. Maybe in the "conflicting" atmosphere no one understood what the other was saying. One segment labelled the other "racists." The other segment denied the accusation. This seemed to be the result of the confrontation -- a lack of communication and a greater barrier raised between the Greeks and Independents -- two groups which could do a lot for each other.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">A meeting, such as the above, is illustrative of what happens when people grasp for change, more for the sake of change, than for progress. More often than not, the outcome becomes the division of people, who in this instance, are working for the same goal. This fact might have been realized if the accusers had stopped for a moment and examined the Greek system as a whole. They would have found that two of Hanover's national fraternities were the first chapters to take Negroes into their membership; that one of the fraternities has three-fifths of Hanover's male Negro population in its house. These are factors to consider, especially when some of the supposedly progressive Big Ten schools can not cite similar statistics.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Yes, change would be fabulous. But it won't evolve from verbal arraignments or by advocating boycotting the "System," Greek or whatever. Change, effective change, is wrought by a rational attack of the problems by both sides. Then through practical solutions both may work to amend the prejudices and injustices of society. A divided group vocalizing a need for change, won't accomplish anything.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">- Susan McGaw</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1968-1122whites"> <h3>Beckie Thompson, "Whites, Wise Up!!" (letter to the editor) Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 22 Nov. 1968.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">To the Editor:</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>Whites, why don't you wise up? The "Negro problem" is actually the white man's problem.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The recent Perspectives discussion on race relations made one thing very apparent-the incredible naivete of the typical Hanover student. Whites, why don't you wise up? The "Negro problem" is actually the white man's problem. We created it with slavery and we've perpetuated it through legalized bigotry. Now it's up to us-and the solution seems obvious. The white majority can no longer insist upon control of institutions which morally, if not "legally," belong to the blacks. We must be willing to supply vast amounts of public and private money to build quality black institutions-schools, housing, businesses, etc.-and insist that they be maintained by the black community. All too often we whites forget that this nation was founded and built upon black slave labor. This money belongs to them by right.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">- Beckie Thompson</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1968-1216unappealing"> <h3>Julie Field, "Hanover Unappealing to Intelligent Blacks?" Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 16 Dec. 1968.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>In response to the Triangle Forum question: is the Hanover Admissions Program racially and economical'y discriminatory, Miss Julie Field, a sophomore at Duke University writes:</em></p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>But were I . . . an intelligent black high-school senior, I would find the Hanover campus . . . a threat to the preservation of my own identity.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>THOUGH I REALIZE</strong> that, not being a member of the Hanover College community (invited to contribute to the<strong> Triangle</strong> Forum), I am speaking out of turn, I would like to respond to your Forum question of Friday, Nov. 22.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>I HAVE MADE</strong> numerous visits to the Hanover campus, and I find it attractive in many ways. It is peaceful and seems ideally conducive to academic pursuits. The low-key greenhouse attracts, it seems, the brighter flowers, but even they express an overwhelming need for escape, at least on weekends. The atmosphere is a little too heremetic, and the intellectual cross-pollination which occurs in so circumscribed an environment produces ideas inbred to an astounding degree of similarity.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>I HAVE MET</strong> and observed several black students at Hanover; they seem to be experts at the art of assimilation, and with those whom I have seen, it is easy to be colorblind. They have become accepted by the Hanover College community through cultural de-pigmentation (I cannot judge their willingness to undergo this process).</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>AT HANOVER, A</strong> poor student or a black student would find an ideal schooling in middle-class Americanism; dependent upon his capacity for adaptation, he could become part of the culture to which, we assume, the whole world aspires within the space of four years.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>PERHAPS I AM</strong> aware of this because I attend a fairly large university in the south where, because of racial tensions, nearly absent in the isolation of Hanover, black students have taken on a bushy militant new identity. Perhaps because they were never (with few exceptions) as well integrated into the student body as are Hanover Negroes, they have not hesitated to make a nearly unanimous break with the rest of the student body.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>THEY ARE ARROGANT</strong> and one senses a confusion in their aims, but at least they are allowed to be themselves. This is part of a national trend, and a rather quiescent example at that; how has Hanover (at least ostensibly) escaped it? Again, I would lay blame (some would give praise) to the isolation and ensuing isolationism of the campus.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>AS MY COMPARISONS</strong> are with an institution which is not exactly a bastion of student revolt, my stance must be fairly moderate. I have been very cordially accepted on the Hanover Campus and would probably have been content there as a student in my WASP skin. But were I at the present time an intelligent black high-school senior, I would find the Hanover campus unappealing and a threat to the preservation of my own identity.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1969-0407campus"> <h3>"Hanover: Negros Are Here Really As Tokens -- They 'Bring' Them Here," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 7 Apr. 1969, p. 6,7, 10.</h3> <p><strong>14 Campus Blacks Discuss The College, First in a Four Part Series</strong></p> <p>Photographs by Mark Davis</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>Last week, the Hanover College Triangle had the opportunity to tape a discussion between the 13 black students at Hanover. The discussion, lasting 1 1/2 hours, centered around the (1) students, (2) faculty, (3) and Administration of the college. The discussion, moderated by a senior, Sarah Howard, was initiated at the request of the Triangle editors and was taped in the music listening room of the J. Graham Brown Campus Center. The Triangle had hoped to print the full text of the discussion, but because of space limitations, the text had to be edited. In the future, the remainder of the text will be published. Only two students, the Triangle Editor, Mike Palmisano, and Triangle Photography Editor, Mark Davis, listened in on the discussion with the thirteen students listed below. The students speaking will be referred to by a letter (A-M) rather than by name. The thirteen students participating were: Raymond Thomas, Clinton Davis, Willie Perkins, Jim Reed, Arlene Johnson, Lercy Jenkins, Rick Lyles, John Burlew, Hinnea Ghanim Cindy Stephens, Bertha Lewis, Dorothy Herring.</em></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>The discussion began on the topic of the faculty, then finished up with discussion on the areas of administration and the white student at Hanover. By taping the discussion and publishing comments as much in text, we have tried to preserve the spirit in which comments were made. This is the first part of a four - part series. -- The Editor.</em></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>THE FACULTY</strong></p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>I don't think Hanover has anything to offer any black person in the entire country.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">H: I think I have a good relationship with a lot of the professors. I'm not here for the social life. I can live without it. I don't have to justify my being a black student in this regard. Because I know, and the profs know, and the majors know who the best are.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">N: I can agree with you on points about faculty being very good. My only complaint is that there is not a black person on the faculty. And I think, as a black, there should be a black person I can go to for advice in some regard. I need someone who will understand my field as a black person, and to tell me or to guide me, or to warn me about down falls, whereas a white person can tell me so much, I mean he's not a black, he can't fairly understand me or what I'm after or where I'm trying to go.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>I disagree. . . .You can always find some other place that is easier. . . .I'll make it anyway.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">H: Well, we have different philosophies about life, because I don't want anyone to tell my what to do.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">N: I don't mean to tell me exactly what to do. Someone who can understand me. A white person. . .there's a difference between relating between a black and a white person. A white can only see into a black so far. . .but a black to a black -- there's an unwritten understanding. Does anyone see what I mean?</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: I think if you're talking about Hanover College per se, and my relationship to the faculty. . . I don't think -- the faculty may be fantastic it may be marvelous, but this does not make up Hanover College, and this to me personally does not make up a college experience. The professor may sympathize with me for ever and ever, but this does not make up my college experience.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">J: I don't have a relationship with the faculty actually. I go to classes and that is all. But, they don't have anything to say with me. .nothing that could help me with anything that I could do. . .not one little thing. If they want to tell me about a subject, that's fine.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: If your talking about Hanover being a good Liberal College, well, you can't just tell me that there's not one black man in the whole country that's not qualified to teach here at Hanover College.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">B: Horner has said, at the last coffee hour that he had received a call from a president at a black college in the south, wanting the white colleges to stop recruiting the black professors.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: Well, actually my feelings are, personally, all black people should leave Hanover College, and no blacks should go here. My feeling is that Hanover should be totally white, this is my feeling. I don't think Hanover has anything to offer any black person in the entire country. If you're going to carry on the farce, I mean, do it right. I feel all blacks should leave, and no blacks should apply.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">H: I disagree. I disagree. . .100%. You can always find some other place that is easier. You can always take the line of least resistance, but if you want to go to some place for knowledge for knowledge's sake, which is all right here, because I want to be the best in my field, and I want to relate with the people, the kind of people I am going to have to deal with. And, it's a fact that the white man controls everything, and you're never going to know how to beat him unless you understand him. And you're not going to understand him if you go to A M&M, or Grambling. If you want to look for someone to guide you. . .that's strong, that's fine. . .I'm strong enough to go to an institution where there's no black -- I'll make it anyway. Don't say 100%. . .don't say everybody.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">N: I agree with K that unless this school becomes integrated. .</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">INTERRUPTION: Desegregated!</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">N: Alright, desegregated to the point where there is total equality, and when I say equality, I mean freedom, the freedom to join and participate in any and everything. . .I'm not talking about phony greek societies. I'm talking about in your department. For example. When I say I want someone to talk to, I don't mean to tell me where to go, because I'm going to make my decision myself. . .IQ WANT A MAN WHO HAS MORE EXPERIEN grown-up above me who has been through where I'm going to go, who can tell me when to watch. .there may be a branch there, if you step a little you might not trip. For example I went to a certain professor, and I said, I wanted suggestions for the best graduate school to apply to. He says to me, I should go to Indiana University where you have an 'in" there. Well. IU is an ass of a school -- pardon me -- it has a rotten ________ department. He says you can't get away from your blackness, why not go to an easy school, and that is a very poor thing to tell a student. So I called an advisor on another campus, I asked him to suggest some other schools, and he whipped off some of the biggest name schools, some of the best departments in the whole country. . .this is all I want. I don't want a man who will tell me what to do; Unless Hanover fixed itself up so that you've got black people in the departments, so you can go to them if you need them, black administrators people who understand the black psyche, the black child, then you're out -- it's not service to you, it's doing nothing but killing you.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Any institution of higher education, be it totally white, can have a more significant meaning to a black person if it in truth says that even a white person here is able to do their thing. Hanover College the way it exists now, is not conductive to any black furthurance of any sort. . .You can name many white universities across the country that are better than Hanover College, some black universities I wouldn't want to go to because I'd be in the same rut as I am here, you see, it's not a question of black or white, it's a question of truth. . .an honest college experience. . .that's what we're talking about. You talk about dealing with people. The white man may rule everything, but the white man ain't everywhere. You don't deal with just white men.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">H: Talking about college experience, how many people were at the faculty discussions the other night.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: I had a choice, did you go.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">H: Yes. If I'm going to knock an institution, I'm going to experience it. I'm not going to knock it without experiencing it.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">N: I don't think that a faculty coffee hour is the total experience.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">H: You don't even understand what went on and you're going to knock it right now.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">B: Well, the reason I didn't go, was because I'm tired of these people always discussing, discussing, discussing.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: . . .and not doing anything.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">B: Discussion. Discussion. .</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">E: When I went to open house discussions my freshman year, and I heard a certain administrator, and you said over and over what you found disatisfactory, and he said yes, you're right, and he went back doing the same job doing the same thing, not making any kind of qualitative difference. I don't know what's the purpose of this kind of thing. I don't think you have to go to a faculty open house discussion to experience it. I think living here 24 hours a day I'm experiencing this place, unfortunately so most of the time, but I don't think you can go to a faculty open house and say I can't knock it if I haven't experiencing it, I think just being here at Hanover is experiencing it.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">H: I think you've got to make do with what is here.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: I don't think any black student should have to settle for second best. I don't think you have to "make do" here. I don't think a white student should have to do that.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">E: It's like she said. . .it's just that truth is truth, and I think that when I've got a history book, and you read about this certain regiment that was supposed to take this hill, and went up the wrong hill, and you don't hear about it, mainly because he was prsident, and you know that a black regiment took that same hill. Well, a white student who doesn't know that is being denied the same kind of truth as far as I'm concerned. Or, that a black man discovered New Mexico or Arizona or started Chicago, when a white student doesn't know he's being denied the same thing that I am, I think that I am more so, but this school seems to perpetuate that kind of thing, and that's where you get second-best things. Second-best is not black or white it's just plain lack of knowledge that you get here -- knowledge and truth, and the white students are being denied the same thing.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">B: And the sad thing is, that a lot of the white students don't know that they are.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">E: Like that farce Negro history week--heck, man, it ought to be Negro history year like we had in high school.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">L: Did we have a Negro history week here?</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">D: Perspectives! (laughter)</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><strong>RELATIONSHIP WITH ADMINISTRATION AND STUDENTS</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">D: Well, I think with students that it is a personal thing. Either you get along with people or you don't. Really it's the administration.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">L: Well, I have a question that I'd like to throw out. Do any of you think that the administration is really sincere in wanting to improve things here for the Negroes?</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: No!</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">C: Personally me, since I have been here for two years, I have had several opportunities to talk to Dean Bonsett, and from what I can gather from our little interrogations, Hanover is here, ah, Negroes are here really as tokens, and they bring them here, and if you don't conform to the midwest, and here at Hanover. . .</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">D: At the corn curtain. . .</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">C: . . .you just can't make it.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">L: If you don't conform to their idea of a good nigger!</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">C: He brings things up that, if I'm not walking the line here at Hanover, he can't prove himself. If a Negro comes here, there's always a question down in his mind if you're doing alright. And he (Bonsett) asks why you aren't acting right. They think they're doing me a favor by letting me come here. This is the most injustice I've had in my life, cause I had scholarships from all the way across the country, I hadn't planned on coming here, but they kept calling my house, bothering my mother, and she said "oh, they're so nice, they want you so bad."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">E: I would say that most of us had at least one or two other opportunities. . .scholarships. . .then you got these phone callings talking about what a fine college experience you would have here, and I can top whatever other scholarship offers you might have, and that's what you're told. And then you get here, and then you're told---maybe you'll have to work.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: They might tell you they gonna pay for something, then one month you get a bill for it, like me.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">E: I wonder if some of us could say here, that some of us are brought here on a farce. Because I asked, how many black students were here, were there other blacks, and I was told "Oh, we have black students--there's no problem." And so I said, tell me the truth, I'm not being any trailblazer, any pioneer, and they said, plenty of black students." Well, to me, this is out and out lying.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">L: When you applied, would you like to know how many black students were here? Four (1,000 enrolled at that time).</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">E: Yeah, they said, "you will be in the minority, of course, because Hanover is predominantly white, but you will not have problem in that area Miss ----."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: Something else is a kick up the butt. When you get here, and you done accepted a smaller amount of money that you could get anywhere else, and when you get here they take some of what you have away.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: Well, we discussed something before about our relationship with the students, well, I can only talk for men personally, well I've been told that you don't fit in here, 'cause you're just not a lady, and you have a bad attitude, and you're too verbal--I think what it is, and I've experienced this over at (living units) I didn't fit in here with the rest of those students. As living a white middle class life--conservative, and I think the first thing that really hit me when I got here was the conservatism, and I think, then blattan racism began to come into the picture. And this is really what kind of shook me up. Even white, radical students here, like you say, the white radical elements, here, they have it bad, and Hanover says, I heard a professor say, Hanover says it wants to have the quote "white radical elements" but when your at a school and you don't provide for the radical element or for the black element, then that's just going to disappear, and your institution's going to fal apart, and not do what its supposed to do, so actually, I think the relationship here with students is not so good, because, actually the power in any institution is that when push comes to shove; the power lies ultimately with the students, and I think the majority of students at Hanover College perpetuate Hanover College, and they are Hanover College.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">N: In talking about relationship with students, one thing that I find very discouraging, is that you're told when you're brought here, or you come here. . .</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: . . .no, you were right, brought!</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">N: You are told you are coming to a selective community of selected students, and you think of it as being highly selective, and you think certain things could be accomplished here that couldn't be accomplished elsewhere, for example, casting without regard to color lines in plays and this is in regard to husband and wife, and Romeo and Juliet, I don't mean the little clown and the nurse. If you cannot do it here, where can you do it. I think that here, faculty is too interested in own reputation and too interested in maintaining to this white thing that they aren't appealing to minds anymore.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">B: The same thng is this business with the La Noue controversy. If the faculty wanted him here, he would be here, but they're just scared.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: I t really kind of a jolt, well, when the Hanover College administration started to mess with me, charges were brought against me, and first i t threw me a jolt, because I couldn't realize that the Administration would just kick and pull with me and it seems like something could be done about it, and the ultimate power rests with the students. I think that the students perpetuate this system, and the faculty helps it. I think you'd gain something from staying here, but I think you lose something in the long run.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">D: It seems like to come here you have to pay a price to be a part of the system. . .I mean, it seems every encounter I've had with the administration has been unpleasant. They get in here and trey to get me to fall in line and you know the first time is happened, I laughed, but the second time I realized the man was not kidding and it wasn't funny. They will pick you out of a bunch and say, "we're going to make an example out of you." It would be different if I had actually violated a college rule but the thing they have against you is your attitude. What has my attitude got to do with my studies And if you break a rule, they hold it over your head, and say, if you don't do such and such, we'll do such and such.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">K: When I was called in for my case, my charges, and Dean Quilling told me, and Isat in that office and I faced her, and she said, "this is the only way I could get you in my office to talk to you about your pattern of behavior, I don't know what your purpose here at Hanover College is, what kind of a black subversive group you are in," and this is a quote, and I am not kidding you, and she said, "and whatever it is you came to Hanover College to accomplish, I just want to tell you that you will not succeed." And I sat there dumbfounded, like I wish I was in a big group. And it just made me feel so bad that I wasn't, and she said, "your attitude," And there was, "my attitude, and I just don't know how to talk to you, and your' too verbal, you see." And I just feel so dumb, not doing anything. And it makes you feel so bad that you can sit here, and they're able to tell you all this mess, and they are able to prosecute you for what -- your attitude. And that shouldn't be -- for anybody, and they've gone this for radical whites too.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">?: Here's an example. They are trying to keep us separated. Now Bertha was told she was staying over at Donner too much -- why? Because she wanted to stay with me. Now that was when they brought charges against Cynthia Because she was taking too many overnights at Donner Annex. My roommate didn't mind, so I'm going to be bad and walk up to the director and say, "I'm going to stay over at Donner. Know why she told me I couldn't? Health reason. (Laughter). I told them after Christmas that I just couldn't make it at the Donner Annex, cause they're 22 white girls there, I mean give me a closet by myself, No! Move me out. No! Give me a campus residence. I didn't want to bring any trouble -- I wanted to be nice.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">B: It is because we want the whites to have a full college experience.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>. The editor's note is original to the print version.]</p> <p><img style="display: inline-block;" src="images/1969-0407discuss6.jpg" alt="Triangle, 1969" width="400"><img style="display: inline-block;" src="images/1969-0407discuss7.jpg" alt="Triangle, 1969" width="400"></p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1969-0508talk"> <h3>"Talk Centers on 'Naive Whites'," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 8 May 1969, p. 6.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>In the following section of a taped interview with Hanover's 14 Black students predominantly centers around white students, the personal lives of students, and Admissions Director Charles Bedford's admissions methods. In the near future, the Triangle will offer Bedford the opportunity to explain recruiting and admissions rationale at Hanover.</em></p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>White students "perpetuated Hanover's whiteness" [and were] . . . more subtle or polished, perhaps, . . . but were just worse than the admitted, white bigot from the south.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>The Black students on campus seem to be genuinely concerned about the white student's naivite about the black people of this country. One black student suggested a black studies just for white students--so they could overcome their mythological preconceptions about the Negro race. They also generally agreed that white students "perpetuated Hanover's whiteness," tended to be more subtle or polished, perhaps, in their discrimination, but were just worse than the admitted, white bigot from the south, for example.</em></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>Since this series began, however, one black participant has left Hanover College. That leaves 13, and that is an unlucky number. Aside from graduation, several other black students are leaving. The college may have difficulty recruiting non-white, middle-class students with it's increasingly poor reputation. It is not unlikely that in the near future the college may find its self in the uncomfortable position of being labeled and actively attacked as "racist" in its admissions policy.</em></p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>All 14 Hanover blacks [said] that they would not come to Hanover College knowing "what they know now."</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>More disconcerting for Hanover's 1,000 white, however, was the unanimous statement by all 14 Hanover blacks that they would not come to Hanover College knowing "what they know now." They other consensus was that though this may be, in the end, a trustrating "college experience" for any black student, they have found their experience as rewarding simply because they are in the process of learning to "beat white man at his own game." It must be that the one student who left a few weeks ago, after only being here for 1 1/2 semesters, had sufficient experience in the white man's world, and has left to find her own distinct, SEPARATE peace. (The Editor)</em></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">D: You know, I don't think the administration realizes what it's like for a black student here. D.Q. (Dean Quilling) said to me, "As long as you'll conform you're all right. Every white here is loved. When you first got here everybody just loved you. And then you changed. After Perspectives I didn't feel comfortable talking to you. So many people here at Hanover College want to love you. But you won't let them. You want them to love you on your own terms."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">E: Bedford said "we'll have more black students next year." There were 12 here last year and there are 12 this year.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">D: In my high school, I was a guinea pig. Out of my whole school my counselor picked two girls: my and some other little light bulb. Bedford (Director of Admissions) was in my home city a week, and during that whole week, Bedford only interviewed us. Bedford gets there and he gives us this big spiel. See, after I came here, Bedford started sending home all these little clippings about how what a good Nigger I was. My counselor used to paste them up on the bulletin board - Come to HC the land of opportunity? I went home for Christmas, and I went into that office, and I asked for a list of all students who had applied to HC. I sought out each senior, and I knew most of them, and I told them forget it, you understand? All I had to say was, Look, this ain't it. No matter what this man tells you, that ain't what's happening." They withdrew their applications. Now you see why we're not going to have no people from my high school coming here next year. They knew they made a mistake, and that is all there was to it. I think Bedford is a poor representative of this school 'cause I think he actually believes all of this mess he says. Bedford was all I had seen of HC. He sincerely believes what he's preaching. He sincerely believes that we don't have problems here, and if he ever wakes up to it, he'd probably die.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">E: When I talked to Bedford, and this is an attitude I don't like because it negates me as an individual, he says, But think of the good you're doing the white student. And I said, Well, what good are they doing me? It can't be one way. I can give them, but what are they giving me? They're killing my spirit, my fire for life. It can't go one way. It's got to go two ways.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">E: Every time I go through this same questioning about my hair and my appearance and my ancestry, and do I tan, I'm giving to them. The thing is, I figure how is it that I know I don't tan and how they look when they tan, and can tell my roommate to cover her eyes under the sunlamp so she won't burn. Why is it that she can't think, or the white student can't think enough to open her eyes and her ears to grasp that? They're so smart to be here. Why is it that we have to tell them? I don't mind answering questions, but it's just why can't it be a two way thing?</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">F: When you say things that to you are plain common sense they ask you questions that your five year old cousin knows. Well, why? You know this about them, and one thing I've discovered, in talking with these whites around here is that they get angry. When that play was given in the Coal Bin Theater, and the statement was made by one of the black students 'We have been psyching you out for three hundred years. We know how you think, we know how you feel, we've had to survive.' When this statement was made one white student just almost went in hysterics and she said, 'You don't know what I think, and you don't know how I feel,' but she's talking about herself as an individual. I'm talking about the white mind, the white rational. I've had to know this to survive in this country. And that is completely the truth.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">E: It's pitiful how easy it is to psyche out a person on this campus. I used to walk around or sit in my room. Like I've got an interview tomorrow with Bonsett about my scholarship, and I can sit there for two hours before I go in and write down exactly verbatim, what the conversation is going to be.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">D: I've been trying to figure out why some of you have more trouble with the administration than I have. And I've figured out that the thing that hurts me more than anything else is that I'm paying my way through, every penny. And they don't have anything over my head. And that's the catch.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">C: The thing we talked to the Dean about was money. I said not one word. He said, What's wrong with you at student assembly? I know you've never been to the meetings. I heard you were against the meetings. I said, That's what you heard. Then, he couldn't get me on that, so he said All right, that incident in the infirmary that happened about a week ago -- yea -- he threw that at me. He said, All right, have you been drinking? Well, what am I supposed to say? He wants to get something on you so that when you start really talking you're at the disadvantage. And then, when you don't want to explain yourself to him he gets angry. If you don't want to explain to me than something's wrong with you. You have to change your attitude to get along with me.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">A: They say you can't have this and that because you dress to well, you do this too much, and you do this and so and this, and so and that's personal business. And I don't see where that's any of their business. I can't see why my personal business is just put on display like that! It's just torn apart and I can't see this. They say you have a scholarship here and all that. And I said, Well I feel like I'm prostituting myself. I feel like someone is buying me. And that's one of the reasons why I will not stay here.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">B: I think too that another reason why Hanover is not conducive for a black student, or a white student who thinks as an individual, who has finally come unto his self, is that once he is finally growing up, or evolving a sense of self, or understanding, he don't like to be led around, like you can't wear pants here. Here I am twenty-one and I'm told how to dress, when to dress, what to dress. The black student has experienced too much of life because he is black first of all, to be dropped to a place, to be fed like a ten year old kid. The thing I hate, too, is they talk about our grades -- I say how can I study in any kind of atmosphere like this. I mean like I'm sitting around being told what to do, when to do it, and you know you have nothing else to do so you study. I don't study. I think it's ridiculous. I don't see how they can ask a human being to try to think in an atmosphere like this.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">F: A lot of whites here are so naive. I don't like to admit to myself, but I think actually that I've become more hateful. When a person first has a realization of blackness it hits you like nothing else. And then you have this hunger for reading. I read and that made me hate even more, but then I decided nah, this is wrong. I came to Hanover to help, and what happened to me? I can't stand to live in that house with those white girls. I can't stand to be around white people here. And this is what Hanover's done to me.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">A: When I came here my only contact with white people had been through sports and TV. The thing was I really didn't mind. But I get here now, and I hate it, and I say they're using me.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">B: I went to an all white southern school for two years all by myself. I was called everything: you name it they said it. And I was spat on, kicked. I never let myself hate, because I said to myself, if I hate them I become as low as they are. I'd fall to their level. I never hated one of them. But then I come to HC, the land of opportunity, where everything is beautiful, everything is perfect, where I am able to come into my own, and I start hating. This is the first time I ever hated in my life. And not an individual. I hate the race as a whole.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>. The editor's note is original to the print version.]</p> <p><img src="images/1969-0508discuss.jpg" alt="" width="400"></p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1969-0508nig"> <h3>Supplement to Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 8 May 1969.</h3> <p><em>(The following essay, first printed in the "Daily Bruin Spectra" of the University of California at Los Angeles, was written by Gerald Farber, an instructor in the University of California system. The essay, originally titled, "Student As A Nigger," has been reprinted widely in the student press. It is presented here because of its relevancy,and comment upon its content in the form of letters is encouraged.) -- Ed.</em></p> <p><img src="images/1969-0508nig.jpg" alt="" width="350"></p> <p>[The May 8, 1969, issue of the <em>Triangle</em> included a four-page supplement, featuring the above illustration and editorial introduction. The remainder of the supplement reproduces the text of an article by Jerry Farber, which is <a href="http://losangelesfreepress.com/the-student-as-nigger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">available</a> at the <em>Los Angeles Free Press</em>. The print version of the <em>Triangle</em> is available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1969-0522bardonner"> <h3>Ken Bardonner, letter to the editor, Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 22 May 1969, p. 5.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">To The Editor</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">I hope that those who have read "Student as a Nigger" and have seen "Lysistrata" will not be blinded to the meaning and significance of their content by the glaringly obscene vehicle of communition which helped bring them to your attention.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>The glaringly obscene vehicle of communication [of "Student as a Nigger" and <em>Lysistrata</em> should not "blind" us] to the meaning and significance of their content.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Taken in the broad sense covering the whole field of writing, the writer has no inherent obligation to the reader. He only has an obligation to himself to endeavor to accomplish that which he has set out to do in each individual and particular piece of writing. The writer's own evaluation and appreciation of this aspect of his work will be the only initial measure of success and satisfaction and must be his primary consideration as a writer and an artist.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">What the reader wants, needs, abhors, and/or buys is entirely a different matter although it may affect the writer considerably. The mature reader should be able to discriminate freely. That which does not appeal or relate well to his needs and those of society will fall by the wayside.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Ken Bardonner</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Class of 1972</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1969-0522queen"> <h3>"Sarah Howard Elected 1969 May Queen," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 22 May 1969, p. 6.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Amid long skirts and green and white bouquets, Sarah Howard was crowned May Day Queen at the morning Family Day ceremony. Other court members were Jackie Skinner, Mary Burnham, Marcia Watkins, and Alice Young. The May Day crown was presented to the most outstanding senior woman.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>Amid long skirts and green and white bouquets, Sarah Howard was crowned May Day Queen.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Sarah started her life at Hanover with the sole objective of causing as much chaotic confusion on Donner Second North as possible without being caught." She recalls her supreme prank as removing a corridor chairman's door from the room without being discovered.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Aside from pulling pranks during her freshman year, Sarah managed to earn the Alpha Omicrom Pi model pledge award. Also during her freshman year Sarah served as a member of a board that evaluated the Hanover plan, was initiated into Hanover Players, served as social chairman for her pledge class and was named corridor chairman for her sophomore year.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Sarah pursued her interest in counseling a step further her junior year by serving as a student staff member. This year, Sarah has continued to serve the school and community largely through acting in some plays and by directing several others.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">During the college years Sarah has been active not only in college activities but also in national organizations. From 1964 until 1966 Sarah led the National Association of Girls Clubs as its national president. Sarah explained the purpose of this organization as "Clubs organized for the betterment of black girls. It was organized because there weren't many organizations black women could belong to." Sarah pointed to the motto, "To lift as we climb," to explain the purpose of the organization.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">This past January, Sarah had the opportunity to serve as one of two National Representatives of the Girl Scouts of America at a conference in India. Every two years the Asian Center has a conference where every country who is a member of the World Organization of Girl Scouts sends two representatives to learn about the women of one of the Asian countries.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">However, Sarah claims that the real cultural shock came when she arrived back at Hanover. Sarah explains that while in India she had not been allowed to wear shorts because the natives weren't used to them. She said she used to tell the Indian girls, "In America you can wear what you want, when you want, where you want because in America you are free to express yourself in the way you dress." Sarah explains her cultural shock by saying, "and then I came back to Hanover - all of the freedoms I had told the Indians about weren't here."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Sarah claims there is something missing at Hanover. "There is a desire for excitement that is life, but it just isn't here at Hanover. People exist; they don't live. Everything is too ordered, even the trees on the quad are placed just so. There is no randomness here like there is in life. College should be a place where you can be out from underneath parental control and discover life for yourself, not be sheltered from it."</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><img src="images/1969-0522howard.JPG" alt="Sarah Howard, May Queen 1969" width="500"></p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1969-0926project"> <h3>Shelley Campbell, "Project Commitment In Madison: Racial Project Engages Students," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 26 Sept. 1969, p. 5.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"People everywhere, and especially here at Hanover, are scared to death to express their real opinions-they're afraid of being criticized," says Steve Jones, Hanover Chairman of Project Commitment, a totally new program aimed at breaking down racial and age barriers.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>Blacks, whites and citizens of different social classes in the three-county area . . . will be involved in a series of lectures and discussions.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Blacks, whites and citizens of different social classes in the three-county area of Jefferson, Scott and Switzerland counties will be involved in a series of lectures and discussions lasting six weeks. An estimated group of 200 local citizens will first hear lectures on such subjects as "The Nature of Prejudice," "Black Power and Politics" and "Education, Employment, and Housing" and then will divide into discussion groups of five members each. The members will include a black high school student, a white college student, a white middle class businessman, a lower class white collar worker and the group leader, who will probably be church-affiliated because the program is sponsored by IICHE (Indiana Inter-religious Commission on Human Equality).</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Originating in Detroit in 1966, Project Commitment has been used in many other communities, although our three-county area is the first to use the program in southern Indiana.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">To bring about awareness of the problems of the blacks in this area is the first goal of Project Commitment, which recognizes that the blacks are greatly in the minority here. Summer jobs are very difficult for the black high school and college student to acquire, since the jobs are taken mostly by white students who are contracted year after year. Small businesses also discriminate against the black. The Madison area has a Human Relations Commission which, Jones states, is "very ineffectual-without much money and with a definite lack of support from the white community."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Jones, a psychology major, foresees several problems that may block the success of Project Commitment. First of all, when the lower class white-collar worker comes in contact with the black student, conflicts will probably arise, due to the lower class's hostile feelings against the black power movement. Then again, there may not be enough blacks or as Jones says, "not enough people, period" at the programs to serve any worthwhile purpose.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"The most prejudiced people, those who need it most, probably won't come because they know they'll be confronted with things they don't want to hear," Jones commented. "People tend to avoid very controversial, touchy issues such as interracial dating and marriage and the whole discussions may just stay intellectual-merely skim the surface and never get down to facts.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"People don't know how to express their prejudice," Jones continued. "It undercuts their whole feeling of security to have their emotions exposed. They should be strong, not fearful."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Optimistic about Project Commitment's outcome , Jones expressed the wish that "hopefully people can take back the things they learned and put them to use in their community." In addition to this specific local program, Jones believes that "Hanover College could use much more dialogue between students in seminars. This is a graduate school idea which takes controversial subjects, not only here at college but also outside, and gets people to interact and speak out."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The first meeting of Project Commitment: will be held October 2 at Madison Consolidated High School. Registration may be completed by contacting Steve Jones at extension 326, and transportation will be provided.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1969-1010sig"> <h3>"Sigma Chi Statement Bucks National Fraternity," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 10 Oct. 1969, p. 1.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Hanover's Chi Chapter of Sigma Chi fraternity took the final step in a long planned effort to overcome a racially-discriminatory national fraternity member selection process this week, when the house membership released a statement which simply revolted against the national dictates. The statement, which indicated that the house was shrewdly reinterpreting the principle of one of its founders, Issac M. Jordan, was released to the faculty and student senate this week.</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>Hanover's Chi Chapter of Sigma Chi fraternity . . . [rejects discrimination based] on a man's appearance, nationality, religion, race, or heritage.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Several members of the chapter expect some difficulty from the national fraternity, but one faculty member indicated that he was simply surprised that the Administration of the college did not meet the announcement with "hysteria." The administration, through the person of Dean of Men, Glen L. Bonsett, who placed a telephone call to Sigma Chi President Bob Houghton, gave his support to the move.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The statement was released as follows:</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"We, the men of Chi Chapter of Sigma Chi, make the following public statement, of our criteria for membership in our fraternal organization."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"We are in accordance with the views of one of our founders, Issac M. Jordan, who stated, "a man's character is the only point open to question." We presently accept, and will continue to accept in the future, men on this and this criterian only. We do not subscribe to any restrictions on a man's appearance, nationality, religion, race, or heritage. Our decision will not be altered or coerced by any outside force."</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1970-0313faculty"> <h3>"Faculty Takes Anti-Discrimination Stand," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 13 Mar. 1970, p. 2.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Monday, the Hanover College faculty approved the following position statement concerning discriminatory practices on the Hanover College campus:</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>The Faculty of Hanover College . . . support the abolition of racial, religious, or ethnic discrimination on the Hanover College campus.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">WHEREFORE:</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">"The Faculty of Hanover College makes the following statement concerning practices of racial, religious, or ethnic discrimination in student or faculty organizations. Great progress has been made in this area in the past few years and these changes deserve the faculty's acclaim and total support. Nevertheless, due to policies of off-campus individuals and practices of organizations of which Hanover students are members, certain instances of racial discrimination do persist within the college community. This condition is injurious to the reputation of Hanover College in that it violates the spirit of both of the free search for knowledge and civil rights within the United States. Any social system which permits systematic debasement of the ideals of free men is particularly abhorrent in a liberal arts college which avowedly supports the concepts of the Brotherhood of Men and the Fatherhood of God.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">It is the immediate purpose of the Faculty of Hanover College to support the abolition of racial, religious, or ethnic discrimination on the Hanover College campus. This support would be in accord with the 1964 Statement concerning this issue made by the Board of Trustees of Hanover College.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The Faculty, through the Committee of the Faculty, will carefully study the practices currently utilized by social organizations and/or agencies, to assure that no discriminatory practices are in fact present on the Hanover College campus. If discriminatory practices are established as existing within a social organization or agency, the Committee of the Faculty will recommend through the President of the College to the Board of Trustees that this discriminatory organizations be notified that it must change its discriminatory policies and/or practices or risk complete dissociation from Hanover College. Action of the Board of Trustees could require severance of ties with a national organization which is preventing the practice of nondiscriminatory policies or the termination of the group as an authorized campus organization."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The Committee of the Faculty which presented the statement is composed of James Fairleigh, Dr. Enos Pray, Dr. Harve Rawson, Lee Schroeder, Dr. Henry Van Leeuwen, and Dr. Stanley Wheater.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In comment, Academic Dean Harold Haverkamp stated, "We are pleased with the progress made by the students in this area. The action taken by the faculty is intended to be supportive our students' efforts to eliminate any discrimination clauses and practices."</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">An announcement was also made to the faculty stating that the non-western studies course requirement can now be waived by any student who has lived in a non-western country. Likewise, any student who has lived in a non-English speaking country and has a fluent understanding of that language is not required to take a foreign language as it is presently required.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1970-0918apathy"> <h3>Eric Johnson, "Freshman Finds College Life Trying Though Confusion Begins To Clear," Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 18 Sept. 1970, p. 5.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>Editor's Note: Eric Johnson, freshman from Evansville, expresses his first impressions of college life.</em></p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>I have noticed a lot of apathy among Hanover students.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">The transition from high school to college is tremendous because it involves four important factors, (1) learning how to depend on oneself; (2) learning to live in a totally academic oriented environment; (3) learning how to adjust to group living in dormitories; (4) growing as a human being with others while achieving response, recognition, security, and new experiences from the educational opportunities being presented. Upon coming to Hanover, these four aspects of college life were of paramount importance to me.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">High school in comparison to college is a relatively elementary pursuit in education. Therefore, when I came to Hanover, I found myself having to adjust to an academic environment. This was not easy because my ideas, aspirations and life in general had to expand to a new dimension. As the days go on, I feel I am slowly becoming more adapted in this particular aspect of my education.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Becoming dependent on oneself is extremely trying, because this symbolizes a new period in a student's life when he is entirely responsible for those decisions which will determine the destiny of his life. When I came to Hanover , there were several things I had to begin doing on my own. I had to choose my courses and buy my books with very little assistance, display enough maturity to study without being forced, and manage my money with great scrutiny. I had to take responsibility for purchasing the incidentals that I needed for my room and finally I had to start cleaning my own clothes.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Living in a group is a challenging experience because one has to be conscious of the habits, problems, and goals of others. In the dorm in which I live, this was an easy task because of the friendliness and kindness that has been shown to me.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">There are certain things I expect from this institution because I believe education is a two way street:</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;">1) As a new student, I would like to see a student body that is active and not apathetic. I have noticed a lot of apathy among Hanover students.</p> <p style="padding-left: 80px;">2) I would like to see a progressive administration. If the administration and faculty of a school make education rewarding, there will be no reason for student apathy. The administration of any college must be progressive in its programs because the institution that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">In the Hanover College community, I feel that I will grow. I do not as of yet know in which direction I will develop. I feel that I am receiving recognition, security, and new experiences at Hanover.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>. The editor's note is original to the print version.]</p> <p><img src="images/1970-0918fresh.jpg" alt="" width="400"></p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr id="1976-0123wells"> <h3>Pamela Wells, "Black Like Me" (letter to the editor), Hanover College <em>Triangle,</em> 23 Jan. 1976, p. 3.</h3> <p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em>Ms Wells opinion is directed to the fact that the Black women of the freshmen class have left Hanover, expressing disenchantment with the 'whiteness' of the College.</em></p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">To the editor:</p> <aside class="pquote"> <blockquote>Black women of the freshmen class have left Hanover, expressing disenchantment with the 'whiteness' of the College.</blockquote> </aside> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">A few days ago I lost several people that I loved. Why did they leave me? (Or did they leave me at all?) The answer to this question is 'No' - they didn't leave me, they left you!</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Now ask yourself, "Is she talking to me?" "Well, am I?" If so, ask yourself why. And since they left you why didn't I? (If you really want to know, read on.)</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">What type of a problem does the community of Hanover College have people, if students, like yourself, cannot feel comfortable? Of course there is always that possibility that you, as well, are not comfortable-then we could lable those who left and those who stayed but were uncomfortable, as cop-outs. Needless to say, this would only be defeating the purpose of this article. What did these students encounter or not encounter, as the case may be, to make their lives as students in this environment so miserable? Why did they have to leave to find inner-peace? There are answers to these questions, but you won't find them here. However as a beginning, why don't you check out your mind!</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">There are reasons why one should not suggest answers. First of all it has been done several times before in Hanover's history and it hasn't done any good. (When you have time check out Volume 16, 1968-1969 of the Hanover Triangle.) People in general do not like being criticized by others. Self criticism, however, is effective. Therefore my second reason for not suggesting an answer is because I want you to find out for yourself -- about yourself. It is a longer process but one has to be patient and let people become aware of themselves by themselves. It's worth it to me. In the long run it's more rewarding. Self experience is always a rewarding experience.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">It is precisely for above reasons that I chose not to explain our misery.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Note: A VOTE OF CONFIDENCE THOSE WHO ARE "blind" to the situation on cmapus: It is said that even a blind man can tell when he's walking in the sun.</p> <p style="padding-left: 60px;">Pamela Wells.</p> <p>[This is a faithful transcription of the text as it appears in the print version of the <em>Triangle,</em> available at the <a href="http://libguides.hanover.edu/archives" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hanover College Archives</a>.]</p> <p><a href="texts/bnw/triangles.php#top">Back to Contents</a></p> <hr></div></div> </div> </section> </main> <footer class="template"> <div class="footer"> <div id="site_info"><a href="/" title="History Department" class="site_name">© 2024 History Department</a><a href="tel:(812) 866-7000" class="site_phone" title="Contact Phone Number" aria-label="Contact Phone Number">(812) 866-7000</a><a href="mailto:historians@hanover.edu" class="site_email" title="Contact Email Address" aria-label="Contact Email Address">historians@hanover.edu</a></div> <div id="site_social"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/649553985151651/" class="facebook icon_facebook" target="_blank" title="Facebook"></a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/hanoverhistorydept/?hl=en" class="instagram icon_instagram" target="_blank" title="Instagram"></a></div> </div> </footer> </body> </html>