1
10
33
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586a16354a130b7ae3f7954c2ca1a622
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Black History at IU Kokomo
Description
An account of the resource
Images and digitized records related to the history of black students, staff, and faculty in the IU Kokomo community.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1945-2020
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Performers lead dance at International Day Festival
Date
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1997
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image\jpeg
Identifier
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KP0002473
1990s
Black history
Community
events
International Day Festival
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3868f49503207ad2c2365982c0f33d20
PDF Text
Text
IUK ARCHl, ES
V
.Focus:
Black .America
March 21, 1969
Havens Auditorium
Dr
-.
O
.Arthur L
Q
_ m=i_th
S
'
"Readings ·i;n B_ ack LLterature
1
and Poetry"
�Dr. Arthur Smith will read selections from
the following:
Le Roi Jones
Langston Hughes
Gwendolyn Brooks
Mari Evans
Sterling Brown
The final event for the Focus: Black
..4.merica Series will be the showing of
the film: "Nothing But A Man.9t1 and
dance in the Stuqent Co~Jnons with Chuck
Berry I s, Ba'i1d.
Admission is free and the film will begin
at 7:00 pom. in Havens Auditorium. The
dance will be held in the Student Commons
at 9:00 p.m.
EXHIBITS
Bill Ferguson's Art
Show
March 16-22
West Corridor
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Black History at IU Kokomo
Description
An account of the resource
Images and digitized records related to the history of black students, staff, and faculty in the IU Kokomo community.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1945-2020
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Paper
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Title
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"Readings in Black Literature and Poetry" by Dr. Arthur L. Smith
Description
An account of the resource
Program for event hosted in Havens Auditorium as part of Focus: Black America
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1969-03-21
Format
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pdf
Identifier
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KA00040-027
KA00040-028
1960s
Black history
events
Focus: Black America
Program
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c65c8ad5076a2c11d73b149f52f0ccbc
PDF Text
Text
~
Black Focu r- - Jazz
l7 M
1
The Billy Foster Trio livens the first night in ·the Focus Black America
tl,
played four numbers an provided the b ac k-up f or pop voca 1·1st L·11·1an
1
Dunlap. Sharing the bill with the jazzmakers was mezzo-soprano Ruby
program at IU's Havens Auditorium here Sunday night. The group
Jones who sang arias and gospel songs. (Tribune Photo)
.
.
ES
Musical Session Opens 'Focus' ~}gg}~ms
By BOB WARD
The week of Focus Black America got
under way Sunday night at Havens Au~ ditorium with performances by mezzo. soprano Ruby Jones, the Billy Foster
Trio, a jazz group, and pop vocalist Lil. lian Dunlap.
Miss Jones offered a two-part progr am of arias and gospel songs. The
arias included four by Johannes Brahms; "Standchen," "Wie Melodien
Zieht Es Mir," "Meine Liebe 1st Grun,"
and "Von Eqiger Libe," two by Samuel
Barlier, " The Daisies," and "Sure of
. This Shining Light," and "O Ma Lyre
Imortelle" by Charles Gound.
In all of them Miss Jones showed a
dramatic flair as well as a pleasing vo. cal quality. In the Gound selection,
some challenging, pianissimoes were
well-sustained, preserving the tender
. tone of the pie<!e.
After singing the Brahms and Gound
in German and French, she reverted to
a convincing field-hand dialect for the
gospel songs. Leading off was "Didn't
My Lord Deliver Daniel?" a lively tune
that nevertheless held a hint of sadness
felt by a people whose idea of deliverance was not limited to the next world.
This was followed by the plaintive "I
Want Jesus To Walk With Me, '' and
the stolid and powerful "Let Us Break
Bread Together."
Miss Jones t<_?pped her show with
the exultant spiritual, "Ride On, King
Jesus," a rou~ing crowd-pleaser that
she performed with excitement and joy.
She was accompanied by Robert Morris who did a sensitiwe job.
The Billy Foster Trio featuring Foster on piano, Bruce Evans on bass and
Dwight Grady on drums, has a harddriving style that gave a new sound to
the tune "It Was a Very Good Year"
which usually gets a softer treatment.
. It was a successful change that gave
the tune body but preserved its subdued
mood.
The driving style was less successful
on "Up, Up and Away." Here the
group's heavy rhythms were an anchor
on Foster's excellent piano work,.
In "The Return of the Prodigal Son,"
bassman Bruce Evans shone on solo
and in dialogue with Foster's piano.
This is a tune that swings from the start
and builds to a good climax.
One of the most delightful tunes of the
night was a blues offering, "Bag's
Groove." This was in the low-down,
raunchy blues style that isn' heard
much anymore.
In the group's final number, Dwight
Grady showed that he is a percussionist
and not a mere drummer. In an extended and expert solo he played everything
in sight including the center piece of the
cymbal stand and the sti~ks themselves.
-His solo was long and good variety,
swinging from an expectant and barely
audible beat-keeping on the bass drum,
to the explosion of snare, bass anf ~
ym-
bals. He ever tossed in what sounded
like a dancers nerve-roll on the bass pedal.
Singer Lillian Dunlap, backed by the
Foster Trio, bends a note nicely and did
a nice job on what may be one of the
greatest jazz tunes ever confected, ' 'I
Wish You Love .''
Beginning with a quiet verse that had
Bruce Evans bowing his bass, Lillian
and the trio burst into the main part of
the tune like a skyrocket.
In a more modern idiom, she did a
nice job on " Going Out of My Head"
but gave the impression she would have
been more comfortable in a lower key.
She showed signs of straining for some
of the high ones.
·
She ended her performance with the
Leonard Bernstein tune "Somewhere,"
from "West Side Story. " Lillian's version of this had more of a pop touch to
it than it had in the musical show and it
was an especially effective number
within the context of Sunday night's
concert.
The evening's bill was a particularly
enjoyable one largely because of the
range of musical styles it offered.
The Monday night portion of the
.Black America program will turn more
serious when Dr. Orlando Taylor, assistant professor of speech and theater
at IU will discuss " New Directions for
American Education: A Black Perspective. " Dr. Taylor's presentation will
also be in Havens Auditorium and will
begin at 8: 15.
�
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Title
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Black History at IU Kokomo
Description
An account of the resource
Images and digitized records related to the history of black students, staff, and faculty in the IU Kokomo community.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1945-2020
Text
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Newspaper
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Title
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"Musical Session Opens 'Focus' Programs"
Description
An account of the resource
News article from Kokomo Tribune reporting on opening events of Focus: Black America
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Kokomo Tribune
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1969-03-17
Format
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pdf
Identifier
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KA00040-006
1960s
Black history
events
Focus: Black America
Newspaper
Performing Arts
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53097828df4a4ecb13b2f0a57cd340eb
PDF Text
Text
l Changes Urged I~ Schools
-
--
.
'
To Stress Black Culture
educators who have defined Afro-American culture in terms of cultural deprivation: "Most educators who tend to ignore the cultural contributions of
Afro-Americans . . . imposed the term
'culturally deprived' on millions of
black and white children of the poor.
Imagine the educators' dismay, however, when some of the same students
whom they supposed were suffering
from cult_ ral deprivation began to deu
mand courses in Afro-American culture
and history."
By KIRK WEEKS
A plea to change the American educational system to reflect the culture and
history of Afro-Americans was made
Wednesday night by Mrs. Beatrice
Young, education director of the Illinois
Commission on Human Relations, at the
fourth session of the week-long "Focus
- Black America'' programs at Indiana University-Kokomo.
Mrs. Young dramatized her "appeal
for institutional changes within the educational system by quoting extensively
from Negro writings, historical interpretations and cultural contributions
which have received little or no attention from American educators until the
last few years.
She also denounced American historians for teaching for many years that
enslaving the American Negroes was
necessary - at least for a time - in
order to "civilize" them and for perpetuating the "Sambo" and "Uncle Tom"
images.
Teaching Afro-American culture and
history from black America's ·standpoint is only half the job which must be
done, Mrs. Young said, adding that
white America must remove from its
history books "racist assumptions" and
"anti-Negro" distortions.
"What we need are new insights into
the nature of slavery - insights which
would allow us to share the human
reactions of the slaves to their condition," Mrs. Young said, "a course in
Afro-American culture must be based
in the slave era with the imprint of African culture upon America's forced immigrants clearly visible."
The black student movement currently disrupting many campuses across
the nation is a result of educators who
still cling to some of the old racist ass um pti ons which have characterized
the American educational system, Mrs.
Young said.
In teaching Afro-American culture
educators who have been influenced by
traditional American history will have
to "demythologize" their thinking, Mrs.
Young said. "This traditional history,
which has been a bulwark of the prevailing system of racism in this country
has been allowed to flourish in our academic institutions," Mrs. Young
charged.
"White America created the myth of
the contented slave and the wretched
freedman and thus destroyed for nearly
a century any possibility of seriously
teaching about Afro-American culture,"
she said. ·
Mrs. Young also scored some modern
'' If there is a lesson to be learned
from a survey of Afro-American culture
it is the obvious fact tha,t we cannot
simply make changes in our course
structure and write new curriculum
guides," Mrs. Young said, "we must simultaneously seek creative ways to
sensitize teachers to the need for
change given the nature of racial attitudes and prejudices.
"Such an essential sensitivity to black
bards and black historians might find a
beginning in planned in-service workshops _and programs dealing not only
with Afro-American culture and history
but also the history of anti-Negro atti
tudes and actions, called racism," sh
concluded.
·
The "Focus - Black America" pr
gram will continue tonight at 8: 15
Havens Auditorium with a panel disc1
sion on "Black Power: Development in
the Black Community."· Participating
on th~ panel will be William Crawford,
orgamzer for the Black Radical Action
Project of Indianapolis; Mrs. Kenneth
Fowler, secretary of the local chapter
of the NAACP who also serves on the
state executive board of the Indiana
bran~h of NAACP; and Algie Rousseau,
a former educator and minister currently employed at Delco Radio.
About 70 persons attended Wednesday
night's Black America program on
black culture and history - this was an
increase· of about 20 people over Monday night's lecture session which dealt
with a different aspect of the same subject.
Black Culture Sources Cited
Mrs. Beatrice Young, education director of the Illinois Commission on Human Relations, dramatized her talk and
illustrated the need for incorporating
black culture and history into the
American educational system by extensiv_ely quoting writings and books by
Afro-Americans and others who view
history and culture from a "black perspective."
There was much interest shown by
the audience who attended Wednesday's
"Focus - Black America" session in
her bibliography. A list of that bibliography follows:
"Souls of Black Folk in Three Negro ,
Classics" by W. E. B. DuBois, John
Hope Franklin, 1903.
"The Book_of American Negro Poetry" edited by James Weldon Johnson,
New York, 1922.
"The Book of Negro Folklore" edited
by Langston Hughes and Arna Bont~m ps, New York, 1958.
"The Negro in American Culture"
by Margaret Just Butcher, New York,
1956.
"Life and Times of Frederick. Douglass" originally published in 1892, NewYork, 1962.
"Lay My Burden Down: A Folk History of Slavery" edited by B. A. Botkin,
Chicago, 1945.
"The Journal of Charlotte L. Forten"
edited by Ray Allen Billington, New
York, 1953.
"A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States" by Herbert Aptheker, New York, 1966.
-"The Negro Caravan" by Sterling A.
Brown, Arthur P. Davis and Ulyssess
Lee, New York, 1941.
"The Negro ln American History" by
Kenneth M. Stampp, et al, California
State Dept. .of Education, Sacramento,
1964.
''The Selected Poems of Claude McKay," New York, 1953.
Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist
and the Racial Mountain'' reprinted in
"Negro Protest Thought in the Twentieth Century," Francis L. Broderick
and August Meier, Neu York 1Qf;~ .
"Paul Robeson " . .
lute to Panl P
�
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Title
A name given to the resource
Black History at IU Kokomo
Description
An account of the resource
Images and digitized records related to the history of black students, staff, and faculty in the IU Kokomo community.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1945-2020
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Newspaper
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
"Changes Urged in Schools to Stress Black Culture"
Description
An account of the resource
News article published in Kokomo Tribune reporting on remarks by Beatrice young during Focus: Black America events
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Kokomo Tribune
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1969-03-20
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KA00040-005
1960s
Black history
events
Focus: Black America
Newspaper
-
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0bcffd9c7b8aa095c079f6960fc3a9f9
PDF Text
Text
Baker Quintet Provides Excel lent Jazz
By BOB WARD
Like the five fingers of a hand,_each
member of the Dave Baker Jazz Quintet works with a sure feel for what the
others are doing and knows instinctively how to help the group get where it's
going.
The quintet appeared Tuesday night
at Havens Auditorium as the third program in the week of Focus on Black
America sponsored by IU-K. Baker is
professor of music at Indiana University. His professional background includes stints with Lionel Hampton and
the pioneer of the progressive movement in jazz, Stan Kenton.
The Kenton influence could be heard
Tuesday night, particularly in the first
part of the program that included two
tunes popularized by Miles Davis,
"Walkin"' and "Dear Old Stockholm."
The style is less melodic . and more
intense than in the cool jazz forms that
have come up since the late fifties. Unlike the tight, neat work of a Wes Montgomery or Art Farmer, .Baker's music
features the wild-running tenor, the
reaching, driving trumpet whipped on
at an unforgiving pace by percussion
and piano.
Sax and trumpet both showed more
restraint and even as the excitement
grew the feeling of restraint was there
like a pot boiling with its lid on. When
the tenorman took off the link to the
basic theme and beat was more direct
than in the earlier numbers.
One of the most intriguing touches in
Baker's music is the use of a slow, legato piano in a rhythmic counterpoint to a
fast-moving drum and bass. This was
done rather frequently and provided a
good change of pace without let down
from the high pitch of excitement.
This technique was especially noticeable and well-used in the piece co_ m
posed by the group's own piano player,
Shelby James. The tune, also contained
by some unconventional intervals and
unexpected phrasings was held together
by Baker's muscular bass.
In the evening's final selection, drummer Harry Wilkinson finally slipped his
leash. After an evening of creative
work in support of the group, he took
off for a solo that was among the neatest pieces of work that night.
Baker, in describing his approach to
jazz,·says he finds 'greater opportunity
- although more risk -in working
from the melody l_ine of a tune rather
than the changes in it.
Baker uses his own bass as much for
a lead instrument as for rhythm. He
frequently plays high on the fingerboard or slides along the strings to
make it sing. In his solo work he does
things no one would ever demand of a
bass player. Assisted by Shelby James'
sensitive piano work and the support of
drummer Harry Wilkinson, Baker toys
with the basic theme. Under his expert
hands, the big bass has all the suppleness that comes naturally to a guitar.
Baker is even more amazing a musican that can be appreciated simply by
hearing him play a bass. To really appreciate his talent you have to know
that he has been playing the instrument
only since last summer. He was originally and professionally a trombonist.
An auto accident about five years ago
collapsed his face and, as he says, "I
had to learn another instrument to get a
job."
In 1962 he began playing the cello.
This introduced him to strings, and ultimately to the bass.
After his first two numbers, Baker
announced he would move "a little left
of center,'' and do a tune developed by
Th~lonious Monk. Here the style was
cooler. Larry Wiseman on trumpet took
the lead with tenorman Harry Miedema
following along and supporting underneath. They rhythm was stronger, closer to the lead.
This means, he explains, that by imp~ovising from the melody line rather
than on the harmonic structure, there
are more different directions you can
go but there is less to guide you.
His time with Kenton, middle 1950's,
had as much influence on him as any
big band, he says, but not as much as
his work with the smaller groups. It's
the smaller combos, he says, that make
the real innovations in jazz · happen.
Kenton and Ellington were exceptions,
he declares, especially Kenton whose
work with the 40-piece orchestra ip the
late forties was not even progressive
but downright ''experimental.''
Baker's own days with Kenton, he
said, came well after the great innovator had returned to ''something like
normality."
jazz, we went on, are not new to music.
Jazz is a young art form and can't cover all the ground that older forms of
music, some of them 600 or 700 years
old, have been able to cover. Even
some of the really far-o.ut sounds can be
found in the atonal music of Schoenberg
and other non-jazz composers active as
long ago as the turn of the century.
Wednesday night at Havens, the
Black Focus program 'continues with a
talk on "Renaissance in Black: Teaching About Afro-American Culture" ·by
Mrs. Beatrice Young.
Mrs. Young is director of education
services for the Illinois Commission on
Human Relations.
Among the present day groups, he
says the really riew sound have come
from such groups as the Blood, Sweat
and Tears and Cream. He definitely excluded the Beatles from the makers of
new sounds.
The Beatles; and most other of the
new rock groups, are using ideas explored ten to 15 years ago by Bo Diddley. "There is no tune in the top ten,"
he asserted "that doesn't do things Bo
Diddley did long ago.''
Many of the new sounds in today's
//
MIEDEMA, WISEMAN
o om · l bun-c.
I
WILKINSON
JAMES
BAKER
�
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Black History at IU Kokomo
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Images and digitized records related to the history of black students, staff, and faculty in the IU Kokomo community.
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1945-2020
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Title
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"Baker Quintet Provides Excellent Jazz"
Description
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News article published in Kokomo Tribune reporting on performance during Focus: Black America events
Publisher
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Kokomo Tribune
Date
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1969-03
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pdf
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KA00040-004
1960s
Black history
events
Focus: Black America
Havens Auditorium
Performing Arts
-
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PDF Text
Text
DR. TAYLOR DISCUSSES EDUCATION FROM BLACK VIEWPOINT
Black Educator Speaks· Out
\0\\ #\RC\-\N~- - - - - -
'U.S•.School System Destroys Negro
Culture, Keeps Blacks iii Bondage'
I
By KIRK WEEKS
-
The effect of American education culturally destroys black people and keeps
them in a state of ·perpetual ignorance
and bondage, Dr. Orlando Taylor, as-.
sistant professor in the departm~nt of
speech and theater at Indiana University, told a group of about 50 people Monday night at Havens Auditorium.
In order to rectify this situation, Dr.
Taylor called for establishing a system
of cultural pluralism in the nation's educational system during the coming
decade.
"This means school boards will either
have to share their power with blacks;
or, if that's not possible, then divide
their power so that _black people can
educate their youngsters in ways that
are relevant to the black community,"
Dr. Taylor said. He was speaking on the
subject "New Directions for American
Education: A Black Prospective," part
of the week- long IU-K program on "Focus -Black America."
Dr. Taylor said integrated education
has failed black people, at least as it is
presently practiced. "When the white
m~m talks a~ut integration he is really
saying to black people that 'we will let
you come to our schools as long as you
agree to buy white culture, white
values, white history, and learn to think
white, learn white, talk white and act
white,"' he said.
"How relevant do you think it is for
black people to be taught that George
Washington was a hero?" Dr. Taylor
asked, "Washington owned slaves.
When he talked about freedom he was
not talking about freedom for blacks,
but for whites only. Washington's no
hero to black people; he's a slave- holder. Our heroes are men like Nat Turner, Malcolm X and John Brown who
talked about freedom for black people.
They wanted to kill slave- owners like
Washington, but in white history Washington is a hero while Turner, Brown
and Malcolm are portrayed as radicals
or murderers."
Dr. Taylor said that American
Negroes have developed their own language since being imported to the United States - "but 'soul language' is considered 'bad English' by whites, and
when Negroes go to white schools they
are told that they don't talk right and
that everything they've learned at
home and in their community is somehow bad or wrong.
"I submit that language is - a tool, a
means of communication, and that's all
it is," Dr. Taylor continued, "and that
the Afro-American laguage is as
expressive and communicative as any
language, including standard English
which is taught in white schools."
Dr. Taylor went on to say that being
educated in standard English is, for
many young Negroes, like being educated in a foreign language. "Black youngsters are told they're not as bright as
white youngsters, when the truth is that
the white child is being educated in his
· native language while the black child is
not. How fast would white · kids learn if
they were educated in a foreign Iangauge - say in Afro-American - instead of in their own language?"
Plays and stories written in Afro-American in Watts, Calif., show that supposedly "illiterate and under-educated"
Negroes are bursting with brilliance,
talent and originality, Dr. Taylor said,
because they are allowed to express
themselves in a language and style familiar to them.
Modes of dress and behavior by black
people are also anathema to white people, the educator said. "If we go to
school dressed in African robes or let
our hair grow natural or grow beards we
are told by the whites to go home and
change our dress, cut our hair and
shave off our beards. Blacks don't object to whites wearing their hair short
and dressing in a European manner, so
why should whites object to blacks
wearing their hair long and dressing in
an African manner?" Dr. Taylor asked.
Blacks have been systematically excluded from the education required to
adjust to an industrialized and technological society, Dr. Taylor said, "so
now we are a nuisance to a white society which no longer has use for unskilled
laborers who can be exploited. You
have machines now which do the work
we used to do."
Blacks do serve a psychological need
for whites and that psychological need
· requires that whites keep black igno~
rant and in bondage, Dr. Taylor said.
"Whites need to feel that blacks are in~
ferior so their treatment of us as slaves
and as something other than human can
be justified in their own minds. It also
provides whites with an excuse to treat
blacks in a paternalistic fashion to alleviate their own guilt feelings.
"For this reason whites are afraid to
see blacks become really well educatied," Dr. Taylor said.
Whites will have to recognize the cultural values of the Afro-American society before education will be really meaningful to Negroes, Dr. Taylor said.
''This does not mean that whites should
look down on black culture or feel that
they 'have to lower their standards' to
accept us. It is not a matter of whites
'coming down' or black 'coming up.
It's a matter of letting the black and
white cultures exist on equal planes and
equal levels, with neither 'superior' to
the other."'
This means, Dr. Taylor said, that
blacks should be allowed to control the
schools where black students constitute
a majority and to have propoi:tional
representation where they cunsiitutE: h
minority.
Educational standards and goals,
even for predominantly black schools,
are defined by white school boards, Dr.
Taylor said, consequently whites are
telling blacks how and what they should
teach their own youngsters. "If there is
a black brother pn the board, he is consistently out-voted by the white majority," Dr. Taylor said.
Dr. Taylor urged decentralization of
the school board system so schools can
be run by the parents whose youngsters
are attending the schools - in other
words, neighborhood control of schools.
Whites are against this idea, he said,
because whites are afraid of what black
teachers will teach black youngsters.
"This is simply the modern way of saying to black people that you 're not to be
trusted to educate or govern yourselves," Dr. Taylor said.
Nonetheless, Dr. Taylor said he is
"guardedly hopeful" that in the decade
ahead a trend toward "cultural pluralism'' will develop, whereby whites will
permit blacks to educate black youngsters in black heritage, black history,
black pride, black culture, and black
(soul) language.
"The issue is not how many black
youngsters are allowed in white
schools," Dr. Taylor said, "but whether
or not black people will be allowed to be
educated in ways that are relevant to
their needs and their communities."
The school board system can be helpful in this effort if it agrees to share '
power with blacks, Dr. Taylor said, oth
erwise the power should be divided on,
proportional basis.
!
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Black History at IU Kokomo
Description
An account of the resource
Images and digitized records related to the history of black students, staff, and faculty in the IU Kokomo community.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1945-2020
Text
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Newspaper
Dublin Core
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Title
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"Black Educator Speaks Out: 'U.S. School System Destroys Negro Culture, Keeps Blacks in Bondage'"
Description
An account of the resource
News article published in Kokomo Tribune covering talk by Dr. Orlando Taylor during Focus: Black America event
Publisher
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Kokomo Tribune
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1969-03
Format
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pdf
Identifier
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KO00040-003
1960s
Black history
Campus
Community
events
Focus: Black America
-
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f8f89aa2db4b6275608f323e9724dfd5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Black History at IU Kokomo
Description
An account of the resource
Images and digitized records related to the history of black students, staff, and faculty in the IU Kokomo community.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1945-2020
Still Image
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Original Format
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Newspaper
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Title
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Frank Talk, Criticism of America Highlight of 'Focus' Panel
Description
An account of the resource
News clipping from Kokomo Tribune covering panel discussion during Focus: Black America event
Publisher
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Kokomo Tribune
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1969-03
Format
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image\tif
Identifier
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KA00040-001
1960s
Black history
Campus
Community
events
Focus: Black America
Newspaper
-
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838549c18c58641bf18e76a75beb5559
PDF Text
Text
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�2 KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE
Saturday, March 15, 1969 '
The Negro in America .... From the Beginning
(Editor's Note - The following was
written by Dr. Harvey Ford, ·education
editor of the Toledo (Ohio) Blade and
appeared in the Blade as a part of a
series. The Tribune believes the material is one of the best overall views of
the key developments affecting N~groes
in America from the earliest days of
African slave trading through the more
recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions
that has been published. We express our
appreciation to the Blade and to Dr.
Ford for permission to reprint the
material. Dr. Ford earned his doctorate
in American history at the University of
Michigan.)
Slavery as an institution has its roots
far back in human history, and these
roots are closely connected with the
conduct of war.
In combat in remote times the losers
ordinarily were put to death by the winners. But this changed as society developed, and agriculture became its base.
Instead of killing prisoners, the victors
in battle enslaved their captives and put
them to work in the fields. Slavery was
widely practiced in both ancient Greeceand Rome.
In Europe, slavery was replaced by
serfdom, and serfdom was on the decline in western Europe by the 15th
Century, the era of the Renaissance and
the start of the age of exploration and
discovery. However, one deplorable byproduct of the age of revival of learning
was the revival of slavery in a new and
shameful form .
During the 15th Century, Portuguese
explorers pushed steadily southward
along the west coast of Africa under the
direction of Prince Henry the Navigator . In 1442 one of the Portuguese capt---------=- : f!ac!.i1nc1._~s received from the Moore 10 Negro
:.-lt
slaves, in exchange for some Moorish
prisoners captured by the Portuguese.
The slaves were sold in Portugal, and
with the sale the slave trade of the
modern era began.
Item of Commerce
The Portuguese soon fitted out many
ships for the ' slave trade and established forts or factories along the west
coast of Africa, where slaves were collected for shipment to Europe. The
siave became an item of commerce,
like any product or raw material.
The Africa which the Portuguese discovered was a diverse region, but essentially it was an agricultural society.
The family was the basis of society.
Families were organized into clans,
clans into tribes, and tribes into the
confederations or kingdoms. The kingdoms were governed by hereditary rulers and varied greatly in size, some of
them being very large.
The African tribes and kingdoms often were at war with each other. Slavery was widespread and long established. Most of the slaves were prisoners
captured in war. These slaves were sold
or traded to the Portuguese by the na.i
tive kings and chieftains.
This was not a new development, except for European participation. Centuries earlier Mohammedan invaders of
Africa had enslaved its peoples. Native
rulers in Africa long had been accustomed to selling slaves to Moslem traders.
But there was little future for slavery
in Europe. It was not until after the
discovery and settlement of the New
World that slavery became big business.
In 1502, the first Negro slaves arrived
in Haiti, a Spanish colony . These appear to have been descendants of slaves·
who originally were imported to Eu~
rope. Thereafter Negroes were to be
found with many Spanish explorers and
-About the Section
~
The road of life is not easy for any
man. Great achievement or average
success does not drop from the heavens
as manna. It is something that must be
pursued, and the pursuer must be willing to exert all his talents and efforts
along the way.
Perhaps as never before in the history of this nation, Americans today are
alert to the fact that there have been
hurdles in the road traveled by the
black Americans that have not thwarted the white American. And while the
road is not yet cleared of all the hurdles, many have been pushed to the
side and more can be expected to be
cleared away with the passing of time.
If and how and when all the hurdles
are removed so only one road remains
- a road for all humanity - neither we
nor any other living person can predict.
We do know that what is achieved today
will be experienced in the years ahead
by today's children. It was because of _
this belief we selected the cover for this
special section. What six-year-old Karen E . Peters will experience in America
ERIC HALL
tomorrow is being determined in great"
measure today.
The Tribune also believes that some
of the emphasis being placed on race
relations today may have caused many
Americans to overlook the fact that
achievements by black Americans have
been numerous in this nation's history.
Black Americans are a proud people
and the record of achievement in the
face of obstacles is proof they have every right to be.
No one can deny that no two communities are alike. Each is making its own
individual way in this prominent national concern. What can be said in or
about one community cannot necessarily be said in or about another.
Indiana University-Kokomo has in the
recent past undertaken several programs designed to assist anyone interested in gaining more insight in the
area of race relations and black history. A week of special programs entitled
"Focus. Black America" is scheduled':
there beginning Sunday. The thrust of
the series is to give any who will come
a chance to learn more about black
America.
·
And so it is a culmination of things the IU-K series, realization that each
community has a situation unlike that
of any other and an interest in keeping
our community informed of all the major issues of the day - that leads The
Tribune to publish this special section.
In ' 'focus on a proud people,'' The
Tribune has attempted to give its readers an historical view and a reading on
what has been and is being accomplished in our own city. We have tried
to bring special focus on the local community by conducting numerous interviews with citizens in various walks of
life.
Our hope in this undertaking is that
the material contained herein will be
useful to all readers who have an interest in learning more about our community and our nation.
First Negro Congressman
lhe first Negro Congressman was Hiram Revels,, He was sworn in as a
Senator from Mississippi in 1870, as is depicted above.
conquerors in the New World.
Negroes were with Balboa when he
discovered the Pacific Ocean, and followed Cortes in the conquest of Mexico.
They were with Pizzarro in the expedition to Peru, and accompanied Coronado into what now is the American
Southwest.
Perhaps the best known of the Negro
explorers was. Estavanico, who prepared the way for the conquest of Arizona and New Mexico by the Spaniards.
Estavanico was killed by Indians.
Meanwhile, the slave trade slowly
was becoming a major element in European commerce. At the beginning,
the growing plantations in the West Indies absorbed most of the slaves. By
1540 it was estimated that 10,000 slaves
annually were exported to the West Indies.
At first the Portuguese had a monopoly of the slave trade but they could not
keep so profitable a venture to themselves. Sir John Hawkins, the first English slave trader, broke the Portuguese
monopoly in 1562 by carrying a cargo of
slaves from Africa to the Sp~nish colonies.
Big Business
Hawkins was followed by other interlopers, and in the 17th Century the slave
trade became big business. In addition
to the Portuguese and the English, the
Dutch, French, and Danes also took a
hand in the trade.
In 1619, a year before the Mayflower
voyage, a Dutch ship landed the first
Negroes in the English colonies at the Jamestown settlement in Virginia.
These first arrivals may have been indentured servants, not slaves, and in
any case there was no immediate
boom. By 1650 it was estimated that
there were only 300 Negroes in what is
now the United States .
However, the tobacco plantations began to grow, and so did the number of
slaves. Salvery was legal in all of the
English colonies.
There were few slaves in New England, which was unsuited for plantation
agriculture. But New England nonetheless profited greatly from slavery, for
New England ships carried many of the
slaves. What was called the triangular
trade soon developed. Trade goods were
carried from New England to the west
coat of Africa. Slaves were transported
from Africa to the West Indies. Sugar
and molases were carried from the
West Indies back to New England.
Middle Passage
The so-called middle passage of this
triangular voyage - the slave trip from
Africa to the West Indies - often was a
nightmare of horrors. Large numbers
of slaves were packed into small, unsanitary quarters, where disease found
a fertile breeding ground . Sickness
spread rapidly and often killed off
members of the white crews , as well as
the slaves. One slaver arrived in the
West Indies with only 372 of his original
cargo of 700 slaves, and losses; of 50 per
cent and more were reported.
But, is one authority points out, not
all slave voyages could have been that
costly, or the business would not have
been so profitable. Profits of 100 per
cent on a voyage were not uncommon.
Figures on the number of slaves
brought to the New World are not exact. One estimate is 900,000 in the 16th
Century~2,750,000 in the 17th Century, 7
million in the 18th Century, and 4 million in the 19th Century. In 1791 there
were 40 slave stations on the west coast
of Africa: 15 Dutch, 14 English, 4 Portuguese, 4 Danish, and 3 French. That
year 74,000 slaves were transported,
38,000 in English ships.
Raids For Slaves
As the demand for slaves increased,
native roles in Africa expanded their
efforts to increase the supply. Chieftains led continual raids upon their
neighbors, in search of prisoners to enslave. Spurred on by Europeans, native
'rulers sometimes captured and sold
their own people.
· Slavery also1 helped to bring on wars
in Europe. At the treaty of Utrecht in
1713, Britain compelled Spain to permit
British slavers to sell 4,800 slaves annually to the Spanish colonies. Spam
resented yielding this vaiuable privilege, called the asiento, to Britain, and
it was the source of endless trouble be(Continued on Page 17)
�Saturday, M, rch 15, 1969
a
KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE 3
Here's the Schedule . f Events
o
For Indiana Univ, rsity-Kokomo
e
'Focus Black America' Week
"Focus Black America" is the theme
of a week-long series of programs being
presented by Indiana University
Kokomo beginning Sunday. The program is designed to give all who attend
a better insight into some of the culture
background of the black American.
Here is the day-to-day schedule of
events:
ALGIE ROUSSEAU
SUNDAY
Miss Ruby .Jones, a graduate student
at Indiana University-Bloomington, will
present a program of folk songs, arias
and spirituals. Her presentation will be
followed by the Billy Foster Trio from
Gary. Havens Auditorium, 8:15 p.m.
Ruby Jones, mezzo-soprano, made
her professional operatic debut this season with the Kansas City Opera. She
has also appeared with the Kentucky
Opera Assn. and IU's Opera Theater.
She recently won a regional Metropolitan Opera audition. A native of New Orleans, Miss Jones returned to appear as
soloist with the.New Orleans Symphony
last year. Her selections will include,
''My Thoughts Like Haunting Music'' by
Brahms and "Let Us Break Bread Together.''
MRS. KENNETH FOWLER
The Billy Foster Trio has played a,t
the Palmer House in Chicago., as well
as high schools and colleges in the Midwest. Foster, the pianist, and Bruce
Evans, the bass player, are both senior
music majors at Defiance College in
Ohio. Percussionist Dwight Grady is .a
senior at Bishop Noll High School in
Hammond. Their selections include,
"Up, Up, and Away," and an original
creation by Foster.
Lillian Dunlap, a vocalist with the
group, teaches music in the Kokomo
schools. She will sing, "I Wish You
Love," "Somewhere" and other popular
tunes.
WEDNESDAY .
Mrs. Beatrice Young will address her
audience on the subject, "Renaissance
in Black: Teaching About Afro-American Culture." Havens Auditorium, 8: 15
p.m.
Mrs. Young is director of education
services for the Illinois Commission on
Human Relations . She is also on the
faculty of Chicago State College as an
instructor in Afro-American history and
culture. Last year she was co-director
of the Institute for Administrative Leadership in School Desegregation and
Equal Opportunities for nine cities in ,
Illinois. She has co-authored, "Guidelines for the Establishment of High
School Human Relations Clubs ," and
has compiled two Afro-American biographies, one for elementary children
and one fbr high school and college students.
RUBY JONES
THURSDAY
Panel members William Crawford,
Mrs. Kenneth Fowler and Algie Rousseau will discuss the topic, "Black Power: Development in the Black Community." Havens Auditorium, 8: 15 p.m.
Crawford is organizer for the Black
Radical Action Project of Indianapolis.
Mrs. Fowler has been secretary fo the
local chapter of the NAACP for five
years .and now serves on the state executive board of that organization. She
has been awarded certificates for outstanding work in the NAACP for the
past three years, including one in 1968
for legal redress work.
Rousseau is employed in the personnel department at Delco as an investigator of suggestions that relate to- labor, material and time savings. He has
taught school and been a social case
worker and minister in North Carolina.
He is a native of Cincinnati.
FRIDAY
Dr. Arthur Smith will present read-
MONDAY
Dr. Orlando Taylor will speak on the
subject, "New Directions for American
Education: A Black Prospective." Havens Auditorium, 8: 15 p.m.
M~S. BEATRICE YOUNG
Dr. Taylor is an assistant professor in
the department of speech and theater at
Indiana University. He has done advanced study at the University of Indiana and the University of Michigan,
and has written widely in his field. He is
the past president of the Indiana University chapter of the NAACP and is on
the executive committee of the Bloomington Fair Housing Commission, a consultant to the Indiana Civil Rights Commission and a member of the American
Civil Liberties Union.
TUESDAY
The Dave Baker Quintet will present
a program of jazz and discussion concerning the black man's contribution to
this musical form. Havens Auditorium,
8:15 p.m.
DAVE BAKER
Baker is a professor of music at Indiana University, with broad background
as a performing artist and composer.
He has pla~red with jazz greats like Stan
Kenton and Lionel Hampton. His group
appears on a new record cut for Crest
Records. Their program will include original works by Baker.
ings in black literature and poetry. Havens Auditorium, 8:15 p.m.
Dr. Smith is a member of the department of speech and theater, Purdue
University. He received his doctorate at
the University of California and is the
author of "Break of Dawn," a book of
poems; and "The Rhetoric of Black Revolution". His readings for the program
will be taken from LeRoi Jones, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Mari
Evans and Sterling A. Brown.
ORLANDO TAYLOR
DISPLAYS
An art exhibit by Bill Ferguson, a lo-
cal artist. The west corridor of the University, Sunday through Saturday.
A display of paintings, sculpture, and
native African costumes from the Black
Radical Action Project of Indianapolis.
The student lounge, Wednesday and
Thursday.
The public is invited to view the displays and attend the programs. There
will be no admission charge.
SATURDAY
A film "Nothing But a Man," starring
Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln, will be
shown in Havens Auditorium, 7 p.m. A
dance will follow in the student commons from 9-12 p.m., with music by
Chuck Berry's new group, "Soul Intention."
The movie will feature the personal
struggle of a Southern Negro and his
wife in a society hostile to them. A
young railway worker gives up a good
job to settle down and marry the
preacher's daughter, a s_
choolteacher.
His emotional adjustment to the universal, age-old problems of earning a livelihood and supporting a family, of living
in peace and dignity, becomes poignantly difficult because the place is Alabama today and the man will not play
the expected Negro role.
POSTERS, LIKE THIS
ONE, DOT CAMPUS
�4 KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE
Saturday, March 15, 1969
Edward Ray-Athlete, Businessman
Needed: One
Negro Center.. !
A wide-eyed Kokomo basketball fan
once made the statement: "We'll never
win a state high school basketball
championship until we have a real big
Negro center."
That was in the mid-50s. That big
Negro center he was waiting for showed
up in 1959 as an ineligible freshman at
Kokkomo High School.
He was a lanky 6-3 kid by the name of
Jim Ligon. As a sophomore, he was 6-5
and helped Kokomo to sectional and re. gional titles. The Kats lost, 88-85, in an
overtime game with Bluffton in the
Fort Wayne Semi-State that-year.
But in 1961, Ligon, as a 6-6 junior, did
everything a real big center should do
and the Wildcats romped through a 19-1
regular season and won the city's first,
and only, state championship.
The next year, as a 6-7 senior, he led
the Wildcats back to the Final Four
where they lost a 74-73 afternoon game
to East Chicago Washington.
Jim Ligon stands out as the most successful black athlete in the history of
Kokomo High School sports.
And that's quite an honor, when you
consider the really fine Negro athletes
our town has produced.
One of the first, perhaps, was Ed
Ray. He enjoyed great success here,
then went on to DePauw University for
an outstanding career.
Ray's high school career spanned
four years ending in 1920.
Since then, there have been some
great ones come down the nike.
The records will show that Ligon has
gone farther in sports than any other
Negro athlete who graduated from Kokomo High Sch_ol.
o
He didn't play college basketball after
earning a spot on the 1962 Indiana AllStar team but has since made his mark
in pro basketball.
When the American Basketball
League opened in 1967, Ligon signed a
contract with the Kentucky Colonels after being released by the Indiana Pacers.
Big Jim became
starting forward
and has been a starter ever since.
He led the team in rebounding last
year and was second in scoring at 16.2.
He averaged more than 12 rebounds a
game.
His 1968-69 play won him a spot on the
Eastern Division ABA All-Star team.
Whitney Vancleve, a member of the
1939 KHS football team that went undefeated, went on to compete at Tuskegee
Institute, and upon graduation remained there as a member of the
coaching staff.
He's still there and is now head football coach.
There were two other brilliant black
athletes on that i939 team. Bill Waldon,
whose father for years was a prominent
barber here, was a standout player on
that team, and so was J.C ..Frazier.
Frazier was an outstanding basketball player and track man, as well.
One of the most colorful Negro athletes ever to hit Kokomo was an effervescent all-around athlete known simply a~ . . . Circus John. His real name
was John Byers, but few people knew it.
But every kid in town knew Circus
John.
There were few baseball players running around town 10 years ago who, at
some time or another, hadn't received
some advice or coaching from Circus
.John.
He was devoted to the game of baseball . . . and was devoted to youth,
whether it be black or white. Everyone
who knew him loved him.
Ba~eball was his life. When he died,
he was buried in a baseball uniform.
Kokmo High School, of course, produced some outstanding black all-around athletes back in the golden days
of Chet Hill's regime at KHS.
Chet developed some great track
a
FRANK BELLAMY, FORMER WILDCAT ...
... pointers for Geoff Shuck, Denney Bowman
powers back in the 30s. He won seven
state track championships.
Among the outstanding black performers was Fred Elliott who for years
held the state track meet mp-yard dash
record. Fred placed in the state meet
three years in a row.
Frazier was one of the fine threesport athletes Hill coached. He was outstanding in both football and basketball,
and developed into a brilliant broad
jumper.
There were many great Negro athletes who graced the Kokomo scene in
the middle to late 30s.
Who from that era can forget the
likes of Gordon Morgan, Bennett Foster, Charles Bond, the late John McClure and Ray Bowman?
They were, in fact, the hard core of
Chet Hills' fine track teams of the era.
Morgan was a hurdler deluxe, and
Foster was a stickout high jumper.
Both earned their spurs in the keep
competition of the state meet.
Bond, Bowman and McClure all carried heavy loads for the 1938 team th_ t
a
chased Hammond High to the state
crown.
Hugh Bowling was a standout tackle
on Hill's 1937 Wildcat football team, and
graduated that spring. The nexn year,
1 Hill welcomed the trio of Vancleve,
Waldon and Frazier. Frazier was the
youngest member of that potent combination.
The late Leroy Tyler was one of the
fine tackles on the 1934 KHS team.
McClure, who came along four years
later, graduated from high school in '38
and became an air force officer. They
are both deceased.
Track man Dennis Johnson was in the·
same era. He graduated in .1935 after
competing for the cinder squad for two
years.
The early to late 40s _produced a nephew of a former track great. His name
was Elvin Elliott, Fred's nephew, and,
like Fred, was a talented dash man for
the Kokomo teams of 194_-42 and 43.
1
About that time, too, there was a
promising quartermiler show up as a
sophomore. He was Bill Bassett. But
the family moved West after Bill's
sophomore year and he was never heard
from again.
Joe Collier was a standout cross country competitor for Bud Overton's 1945
Wildcat team.
The early 50s produced Charlie Killings, now a Kokomo police officer, and
Milt Coleman. Killings specialized in
football and track.
Coleman was one of the two 10-second
dash men Kokomo has had since the
day~ of Fred Elliott. He ran the 100yard dash and broad jumped for Overton's 1952 North Central Conference
championship team.
Coleman placed well up in the state
meet in both the 100 and 220-yard dashes, in addition to the broad jump.
The mid-50s produced a flock of excellent black athletes in Kokomo.
Who can forget, for instance, a fine
defensive end by the name of Walt Ligon. He was Jim's older brother. He
was a feared defender and, perhaps,
had his greatest night at Berry Bowl in
Logansport one night when he personally put the stopped on Logan's great belly series quarterback, Dave Loner.
About that time there was another defensive end that kept Bob Hamilton's
Wildcat teams among the respected. He
~as rough, tough Eddie Perrara.
There probably are a few North Central Conference runnings backs from
that era that can still remember his
name.
Scrappy Jim Orndorf gave Joe Platt
some brilliant moments on the basketball court in the mid-50s, too. He seldom
started, but developed into a fine relief
man .
(Continued on Page 5)
�They Didn't Like His Kind
Saturday, March 15, 1969
KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE 5
Negro Athletes Many, Great
In the World of Sports
JACKIE ROBINSON
They didn't like his kind, not for a
minute. And the fact that he belted out
four hits, scored four runs and stole two
bases on the 18th day of April of 1946 to
lead the Montreal Royals to a rousing,
14-1, win over Jersey City, N.J., made
no difference.
What · did make the difference was
that Jackie Robinson was a Negro who
was seriously threatening major league
baseball's all-white domain. Jackie, a
former football standout at the Univer-_
sity of California at Los Angeles and
now a marvelous second baseman, did
silence the critics in 1947 however,
when he became National League Rookie of The Year with the Brooklyn Dodgers._
And to back this up, two years later
(1949) Jackie won the batting title and
became the league's Most Valuable
Player. The Dodgers went on to take
six pennants during Jackie's 10-year sojurn in the majors, and in 1962 he was
voted into baseball's Hall of Fame at
Cooperstown, N. Y., the fir~t time his
name arrived on the ballot.
The Robinson case was only one in a
long line of Negro Achievements in the
world of professional sports. And today
when people talk of Brooklyn, and those
wonderful, zany Dodgers, the name of
Jackie Robinson is automatic.
Needed
(Continued }l~rom Page 5)
A few years later, there came a barrage of stickout black stars. Ed Darden,
for instance, was a relief man on the
1959 Wildcat basketball team that made
it all the way to the final game.
Darden had his big: <:lay in the afternoon round of the Fort Wayne SemiState when he took over for foul-laden
John Gillum and fired in four crucial
baskets as the Kats licked Fort Wayne
South, 92-90, in a classic struggle.
A year prior to that, Don Bowling had
a big hand in leading the Kats to the
Fort Wayne Semi-State for the first
time since 1954.
Don played on the same 1958 team as
Jimmy Rayl, and finished second to the
prolific Rayle in scoring. He was also a
fine rebounder.
Clarence Foster was All-North Central Conference and All-State for the
Wildcat football teams in 1960 and 1961,
and went on to a career as a running
back at Purdue.
Clarence also played basketball and
ran for the track teams from 1959
through 1961. He was a member of the
1961 state champion basketball team.
A few years prior to Foster's appearance on the scene, there came a cleancut, hard-working athlete by the name
of Dorsey Seldon. He was a three-sport
man.
Dick Colbert was one of the mainstays of the 1963 Wildcat basketball
team and will go down in history as the
biggest man on that team at 6-4.
Frank Bellamy played baseball, basketball and football as a Wildcat, and
went on to compete at the college level
at Taylor University at Upland.
About the sme time, Sylvester Rowan
was going about the process of becoming a state champion wrestler in Wildcat red and blue silks.
Right on their heels was Raleigh
Grady, whom Richmond Coach Hub Etchison called "the finest running back I
ever saw in the North Central Conference."
But that wasn't where Grady's talents
ended. He became a polished, determined basketball player who was on
two Wildcat teams that went to the
semi-state.
He was a great prospect as a lefthanded pitcher until he. developed a
sore arm in_ ~is junior year.
He probably could have succeeded at
about any athletic endeavor he tried.
He had talent oozing out of his ears.
Then, in the last three years there
have been three of the finest Negro athletes we've ever enjoyed.
Joe Patterson and Bill Artis grew up
together: They played basketball and
football together in junior high, then
combined talents at Kokomo High
School.
They became three-sport stars, competing in basketball, football and track.
Each in his senior year won the Honor
Ring for outstanding athletic accomplishments.
Artis, now a student at Michigan
Tech, was on the basketball team that
advanced to the Fort Wayne Semi-State
two years running.
Patterson was on those teams, too,
and ran as a halfback on the football
squads both years. Both were track
standouts.
For his efforts, Artis made All-North
Central Conference, All-State and was
elected to the North team for the shrine
North-South All-Star game.
The latest Negro superstar is Frank
Watters, a 133 pounds of dynamite. He
was a starting guard on three straight
Kokomo teams, two of which weren't
beaten until they marched into the Fort
Wayne Semi-State.
Frankie was the "old man" of the
1968-69 Kokomo team. He averaged
more than 23 points a game and was
third in NCC scoring in the past season
with a 23.5 average.
There will be more to come, too. Jim
Gaillar-d, a sophomore of _
the past season's KHS basketball team, has all the
earmarks of a diamond in the rough.
He'll become a great one. And we can
go over the rosters of freshman and
junior high teams throughout the city,
and on almost every one there are future Negro greats in the making.
America's black athletes have become the backbone of our sports programs.
No matter what sport you refer to,
the name of a Negro has, at some time
or another, been right at the top of the
list of standouts.
It's been the same right here in our
own community.
And it will continue to be.
OF COURSE, other dramatic things
occurred earlier to prove that the black
race was star material.
How about a bright night in June of
1938, the 22nd, when New York's fabled
Yankee Stadium caught the sight and
sound of a young 198-pound heavyweight by the name of Joe Lo~is pounding out a first-round knockout over German Max Schmeling before 75,000 peo-.
p}e?
I
Just two years previous (1936)
Schmeling had scoffed at Louis and his
race after humiliating the Brown Bomber in New York in 12 rounds. Such scoffing and humiliation allowed Schmeling
to last only 124 seconds in the 1938 return match, and the German never entered the ring again.
The pride, passion and quality that
were Joe Louis was to carry over 11
years and eight months and 25 successful def ens es of the title, the longest
championship tenure ever. Finally, it
took a military ·stint to obscure the
flash and power of Louis and thus enable Ezzard Charles, also a Negro
champion, and Rocky Marciano to dethrone what is possibly boxing's greatest performer ever.
Of course, other great black fighters
were to arrive such -as Jersey Joe Walcott, Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston,
Cassius Clay, Archie Moore and Sugar
Ray Robinson.
·
Walcott whipped Charles in 1951, after
Ezzard had dethroned Louis in 1950;
Patterson, who held the title twice,
knocked out Moore in 1956, after Maciano had retired, and when Swedish Ingemar Johansson kayoed Floyd in 1959,
Floyd atoned for it the following year in
five rounds.
Liston arrived from a Missouri penitentary to quell Patterson, and then the
WILMA RUDOLPH
CHARLIE SIFFORD
man some say could have been the
greatest, Cassius Clay, finished Liston
in seven rounds.
Now, Louisville's (Ky.) Jimm Ellis
and Philadelphia's (Pa.) Joe Frazier
are the claimants to two pugilistic
thrones.
However, · the very first Negro ring
king was Jack Johnson, who took out
Tommy Burns in 14 grueling rounds
back in 1908. Johnson held the reins for
seven years, second only to Louis in
longevity, before losing to giant Jess
Willard in Havana, Cuba in 1915.
Sugar Ray is recognized by the experts as the · "greatest fighter pound for
pound that ever lived." He held both the
welterweight and middleweight crowns.
Perhaps the g re a t es t singular
achievement was made by Henry Armstrong, the man they referred to as
"Perpetual Motion" Henry. He won the
featherweight, welterweight and lightweight titles in less than a year between
1937 and 1938. And, he was the only man
to ever own three crowns simultaneously.
RIGHT ALONG with those great early days of Louis came another four-day,
history-making feat, this one by a lithe,
slender, lightning-quick Negro from
Ohio State University, Jesse Owens.
Before a Berlin, Germany Olympic
audience of some 100,000, a crowd that
included Adolph Hitler, Jesse scored
the first grand slam in Olympic history.
Jesse grabbed four gold medals by winning the 100 and 200-meter dashes,
smashing the broad jump record and
leading the U.S. 400-meter relay team
to a record-shattering performance.
Since that time in August of 1936, gold
medals have become commonplace tor
Negroes. Matter of fact, without the
black performers the United States
would be hard-pressed to stay close, let
alone finish on top.
Cleveland hurdler Harrison Dillard
gave perhaps the most heart-warming
Olympic showing ever in 1948, when he
came back to qualify for the 100 meters
after an injury had eliminated him
from his specialty. It was in London,
England that Dillard outran the field
for the coveted gold medal.
Of course, Rafer Johnson, a UCLA
product, set a world record in the decathalon in 1960, after bearing the torch
as the Olympic athletes marched into a
Rome, Italy, stadium. During the same
games, slender Wilma Rudolph (Ward),
a young girl from Tennessee, won three
gold medals.
.
More recently, Bob Hayes, now a Dallas Cowboy flanker, became recognized
(Continued on Page· 7)
�S~turday, March 15, 1969
6 KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE
Steady Progress
The Working
Negro Woman
Negro women are making steady progress in their chosen career fields, as
indicated after chats with three of
many who have made solid achievements in different areas here.
The three interviewed are Mrs. Henry
Moore Jr., who is employed in the office of the county clerk; Mrs. Roosevelt
Solomon, who is employed as a teller by
Union Bank and Trust Co., and Mrs.
i~":;,",:r,
W,,
3/&-
,y
~7~-';-"
&~.-;:.:.~.. .,,t,: ·_, _-:- . :'. :
.. ~ : 1 : : ~
zw-P"
~,.,,
,
ir,
v:~#&~
MRS. ROOSEVELT SOLOMON
Lawrence Bonnafon, a secretary at Indiana University - Kokomo.
The fields in which these women work
are demanding ones. They entail working with the public. They require a high
degree of skill. That these women are
finding satisfaction in their jobs and
that they feel generally optimistic about
career opportunities here is indicated
by their comments.
Mrs. Moore, whose smile greets those
stopping in at the voter registration office, feels life for a Negro woman is
exactly what she makes it. And she enjoys her 8-to-4 duties at the Court House
because they bring her into contact
with people.
Mrs. Moore's official title is "voter
registration clerk". Her duties require
that she register persons to vote according to Indiana State voting laws,
and give information in regard to their
established voting record, and also for
social security and pension purposes.
Also, Mrs. Moore's duties entail keeping registration books in good order and
up to date, and preparing for readying
voting lists prior to elections. She also
helps do follow-up work after election,
determines precincts for persons· regis- .
tered, and makes accuracy checks.
To qualify for this job, Mrs. Moore
developed the skills of typing, filing and
answering the telephone. In addition to
these qualifications, she thinks it is
helpful if a person is willing to learn
and willing to take instructions. She
also knows it is necessary to look neat
and to assume a pleasant outlook on
life.
Mr. and Mrs. Moore are the parents
of four children; Mrs. Gwendolyn Lockert, Henry Clay Moore, Charles Leon _
Moore and Mrs. Sandra Elaine Geyton,
all of Kokomo. Mrs. Moore is a graduate of Kokomo High School.
After 16 years of service with Union
Bank, Mrs. Roosevelt Solomon has become an important member of a
smooth-working team. She serves as a
teller, using her smile as she takes care
of the clients' requests. Her job involves handling money, bookkeeping,
the use of certain office machines, filing and typing. She helps in the bank
training program by advising and training new tellers at the window.
Mrs. Solomon shows a deep concern
for her responsibilities by keeping her
money count accurate. Shortage or surplus of even a few pennies would cause
her to worry, even after bank closing,
until the disrepancy is "found". If this
happens, however, there is a supervisor
who assists, and a proof room, and a
computor, so Mrs. Solomon does not
feel alone with her concern.
"Most of my duties are routine;'' says
Mrs. Solomon modestly. But, serving in
such a capacity carries a grave responsibility. Mrs. Solomon carries this responsibility proudly and well, as those
who bank at her window are aware.
"Kokomo is a good place to live," responded Mrs. Solomon to a question
about opportunities for · Negro women
here. She feels that if one shows qualifications, one may find a career that will
be worthy and satisfying. She would
like to work at her job until retirement.
"Many women I know are working in
industry, but this is through choice,
since the starting pay scale is so good·,"
she remarked. "But there are opportunities for persons with skills. I do think
though, that there should be fair housing, and that if a person is able to pay,
he should have the type of housing he
desires.''
The Solomons are the parents of two
teenaged children, Roosevelt, Jr., 16,
and Cinseria, 15. Mrs. Solomon is a native of St. Louis.
It wasn't until after marriage and her
first child was in school that Mrs. Lawrence Bonnafon felt a desire to find employment outside of her home .
She worked in the county clerk's office for six years. before going to her
present job as secretary to Dr. Charles
L. Sharp, director of education, Indiana
University-Kokomo. She has worked for
six months for Dr. Sharp.
Although she enjoyed the legal secretarial work in the county clerk's office,
_ she decided it was time to expand her
secretarial career.
Her 40-hour a week job offers a variety of experiences, including working
with students and registration, typing
and grading tests, posting grades and
arrangement of the student's needs,
such as speech and hearing test, in order for him to complete his graduation
and certificate requirements.
Besides these duties, she takes care
of all office phone calls and general office work such as typing, filing, appointment scheduling and making sure Dr.
Clark's day goes as smoothly as possible.
Mrs. Bonnafon is a graduate of Kokomo High School. After starting work in
the court house she decided to take
night courses at KHS in business education. These have proved beneficial in
her work.
Mrs. Bonnafon feels that today's secretary needs additional training besides
a general high school education to perform her duties. "The Negro woman
has just as many educational and job
opportunities in Kokomo as any other
woman," she says.
She is the only Negro woman working
in a secretarial capacity at IU-K. She
stated that she has been asked for
!/ip&f-4½
llu,""' .,_,._
For Scholarship
Mrs. George Gaskin, treasurer; Mrs. Willis Robertson, and Mrs. Theodore
Clark, scholarship chairman (L-R) of Chumming Club, are busy with lastminute details for the annual auction and hobby show. The 12 members
of the club make articles for the auction, which is conducted by the
group to raise money for the scholarship fund. A $50 scholarship is presented to a high school senior to be used toward expenses at the college
of his choice. It has been an annual project since 1956. (Tribune Photo)
Mrs. Lawrence Bonnafon
names of young girls looking for work
but "the younger girl has a more
immediate need of money and has chosen to work in· the factory where the
pay is higher," she says.
Since working at IU-K she has decided that some day she wants to go back
to school and probably study in the field
of social work.
Other qualifications that are impor-
tant in her work, according to Mrs.
Bonnafon, are good personal habits, a
good personality and the ability to get
along with people, good personal relationships between employer and employee, punctuality and a good attendance record.
Mr. and Mrs. Bonnafon are the parents of two children, Dino, 11 and Marisa, 18 months.
�Saturday, March 15, 1969
KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE 7
Chumming Works To Provide Scholarship
A $50 scholarship for a high school
senior is one of the projects completed
each year by the Chumming Club, a
group of 12 local Negro women. Working through high school officials, the
club offers the scholarship to the
school, which in turn presents it to a
student to be applied toward his expenses at the college of his choice.
Money for this scho)arship, which has
been presented annually since 1956, is
raised within the club by its members.
The group conducts an annual auction
and hobby display for its members to
raise a part of the money. The remainder is obtained through a "mystery
package" that is purchased at each
meeting. This year's auction and hobby
show is planned for Wednesday.
The Chumming Club was ·organized
Oct. 3, 1928, and conducts meetings
twice a month. Its purpose is to promote social and civic entertainment.
Sangralea Valley Boys Home, Good
Fellows and Cerebal Palsy are among
the charities to which the club contrib-
They Didn't .
The very first established star of the
NFL was Emlen Tunnell of the New
York Giants. This man went on to set a
league record in pass interceptions ( 79)
in 13 seasons in New York and Green
Bay, Wisc.
Tunnell was also the first Negro to be
accepted into the pro game's Hall of
Fame at Canton, Ohio. Motley was inducted two years ago.
Of course, when you mention Negro
football greats you have to talk about
the man whom some regard as Mr. Pro
of the NFL, Jim Brown, who retired for
a movie career in 1965 after leading the_
legue no less than eight times, netting
an unbelievable 12,312 yards (5.2 per
carry) and scoring 126 touchdowns.
And now, Cleveland has another fine
black fullback who is proving nearly unstoppable, Leroy Kelley.
And then, how about invulnerable Willie Davis, defensive captain and star .
end for the Green Bay Packers; or Dea-
Willie Mays, one they say is THE greatest; Frank Robinson, hard-hitting Baltimore outfielder and Bob Gibson, former
Harlem Globetrotter and now the king
of the St. Louis Cardinal staff who
hurled three wins over Boston in 1967
and set a World Series strikeout mark
of 17 in 1968.
And too, one could mention the likes
of the Curt Floods, Lou Brocks, Billy
Williams, Willie Hortons, Tony Olivas,
Earl Wilsons and others.
But, you can't mention the great
American game without reference to
the man who perhaps had his own private corner of ability - LeRoy Satchel
Paige. Satchel, described by the Yankees' Joe DiMaggio as "the greatest
pitcher I ever faced" finally made it
past the color barrier in 1948, many
years after time had taken some of that
great arm away.
He helped Cleveland to its first pennant in 28 years, along with another fine
• •
(Continued from Page 5)
as the world's fastest human in 1963 by ,
going 100 yards in :09.1, and Jim Hines
took over Hayes' claim with his fabulous showing in the Summer Games in
Mexico City last summer.
FOOTBALL IS now history-rich with
names of Negro greats, a trend that
came into being as early as 1949 when
Levi Jackson lead Yale's Ivy League
squad. Of course, William H. Lewis captained a Harvard grid team in 1893,
playing for Amherst three seasons; was
field leader in his senior year and eventually entered Harvard to seek a law
degree.
The earliest overall list of black football All-America players contained the
names of Fritz Pollard of Brown University; Paul Robeson of Rutgers who
later became a great concert singer;
Brice Taylor of the University of Southern California, and Duke Slater, one of
the outstanding linemen in Iowa University history.
The first Negro to captain a Big Ten
team was end Homer Harris of Iowa in
1938. Other greats included Brud Holland of Cornell; Willis Ward of Michigan; Bernie Jefferson of Northwestern,
and Kenny Washington, UCLA, a teammate of Jackie Robinson's.
In the 1940s, Illinois produced a flying
Negro halfback by the name of Buddy
Young, and he was joined by fellow Big
Ten performers such as Lenny Ford,
Bob Mann and Julian Franks of Michigan, and Bill Willis of Ohio State.
Black football greatness really came
on in force in the 1950s and 1960s. Syracuse University produced two of the
most fabulous ever in Jim Brown and
Ernie Davis. Brown went on to set 15
offensive marks as a nine-year man
with Cleveland's Brown in the National
Football League (NFL).
David, a Reisman Trophy winner,
had a great future snuffed out when he
died of lukemia in 1963.
Others of this era were J. C. Caroline
of Illinois and later on Chicago Bear
fame; Gale Sayers, the incomparable
Kansas Comet who now is the rage of
pro football with Chicago; Mike Garret,
great USC halfback and also a Reisman
Trophy winner; Ohio State's Bob Ferguson and Jim Parker; the late Calvin
Jones of Iowa, and Sandy Stevens, a
quarterback, of Minnesota.
Looking back over the collegiate list,
Washington, Pollard, Slater and Holland have been added to the college
football Hall of Fame.
During the past college campaign,
names such as 0. J. Simpson of Southern Cal; Leroy Keyes of Purdue; Ron
Johnson of Michigan, and Ohio State's
Rufus Mayes and Jack Tatum drew
endless acclaim.
PRO FOOTBALL involved black performers as early as the 1920s and 1930s,
but Negroes were shut out from 1933 to
1946. The old All-American Conference
provided the breakthrough in '46, as
· cleveland's Paul Brown signed hulking
and talented fullback Marion Motley,
who had played for him with the Great
Lakes Service eleven. Ohio State's Willis joined Motley, and soon the entire
league was seeking the exceptional
black talent.
Among the club's activities is a sunshine committee, which sends appropriate cards of cheer, condolence or · congratulations to other members. Monthly
Sunshine Friends are members who select one month out of the year as a specific time to spread cheer to a shut-in
with a visit and a small gift.
The Champ
Joe Louis (L}, r;tired heavyweight champion of the world at the time of
this bout, lands a left in the early rounds of a l 0-round bout with Al
Hoosman in Oakland, Calif. This fight, in 1949, ended when Louis
knocked Ho!oosman out in the fifth round.
con Jones of Los Angeles' famous Front
Four defensive unit, a man who has
won Defensive Man of The Year laurels
back to back; or Deacon's teammates
LaMarr Lundy, former Richmond, Ind.,
star, and Rosy Grier.
·
Big Daddy Lipscomb became the
main pillar of Baltimore's Colts years
ago. And after his death, another great
college name came along, Michigan
State's Bubba Smith.
There is no end to the long line of
outstanding professional football players when it comes to the black race.
THE BASEBALL world has no peer
when it comes to Negroes with better
than average ability. Following in Jackie Robinson's footsteps were the likes of
Roy Campanella, former Dodger catching great who was cut short by a paralyzing auto accident, but who also received due acclaim by being named to
the Hall of Fame; Ernie Banks of the
Chicago Cubs, the optimistic and ageless · star who is now approaching his
39th birthday; Hank Aaron, Atlanta
Brave slugger who always figures high
among the leaders; the incomparable
Negro, Larry Doby, fhe first American
League black player. Moses ( Fleetwood) Walker, a bare-handed catcher,
is gefierally recognized as the first Negro to play professional baseball, with
the old Toledo Mudhens in the American Association in the 1880s. Josh Gibson, a tremendous received, died before
his opportunity arrived.
And again, the list of great black
baseball performers is endless, and for
every World Series winner there's always a Negro there to provide at least
part of. the drive to the payoff. Branch
Rickey got Robinson into the game, but
he also paved the way for more phenomenal black p]ayers.
THE NEGRO HAS made one of its
most lasting sports impressions in the
world of basketball. Can you imagine a
7-2 Wilt Chamberlain, 6-11 Bill Russell,
6-9 Nate Thurmond, 6-6 Elgin Baylor,
6-5 Oscar Robertson, 6-2 Sam Jones, 6-3
Hal Greer, 6-9 Wesley Unseld, 6-2 Earl
Monroe, 6-2 Dave Bing, 6-5 Cazzie Russell, 6-10 Walt Bellamy, 6-8 Connie Hawkins, 6-8 Elvin Hayes and 6-8 Willis
Reed on the sam~ team?
utes. In addition, it helps to further the
education of someone in need.
Two charter members are still active
in the group. They are Mrs. Avis Winburn and Mrs. William James.
Other members are Mmes-. Dennis
Johnson, president; John Grimes vice
president; Raymond Artis, secr~tary;
George Gaskin, treasurer; Theordore
Clarke, scholarship chairman; Willis
Robertson; Artis Gaskin· Charlotte Artis, Edwin Darden, and Stafford White.
These are 15 bona fide reasons exemplifying why the black race is so big a
part of the pro hardwood sport. And
each is either at the top of his game or
has been there.
The Harlem Globetrotters are referred to as America's Ambassadors of
Good Will, and visits covering practically every country and millions of miles
make them so. The names of Goose Tatum, Marquis Haynes, Sweetwater Clifton and other Trotters will be rernembered as long as there is a ball to
bounce.
A new giant looms on the immediate
horizon, 7-0 Lew Alcindor, the Mr. EVerything of UCLA, and a young man
who seems destined to call his own
shots upon graduation this spring.
AL THEA GIBSON and Arthur Ashe
have been big news in the tennis world
for some 20 years. Althea won both the
Wimbledon and American Women's
championships. She has a string of tournament titles in the U.S. and abroad.
Charlie Sifford, who broke the color
line in southern tournaments, won his
first PGA tourney in Hartford, Conn.,
two years ago. And Bill Wright's national public links .amateur championship in
Denver in 1959 lends more evidence
that Negroes can play the game as well
as anybody.
Isaac Murphy, of the 1800s, stands out
as the greatest Negro jockey, having
won the Kentucky Derby no less than
three times.
The Professional Bowlers Association
and the American Bowling Congress
has had Negro champions, Harry Johnson being a regular contender in the
PBA. There has been only one hockey
player involved in the National Hockey
League, Willie Rhee, who had a brief
trial with Boston. But there are several
Negro minor league hockey performers.
THE INCEPTION of the Negro on the
professional sports scene has led .to
many black coaches of major instituions and franchises.
Bill Russell is the player-coach of the
Boston Celtics; his teammate, K. C.
Jones is the head man at Brandeis Uni- ~
versity, and current Celt player, Sam
Jones, will retire this year to take a
college post.
William Gordon, a California football
player from 1916 to 1918, was assistant
coach for the Bears in the late 1930s
and early 1940s. In baseball, the names
of Aaron, Mays, Robinson, Banks and
several others have been discussed as
good possibilities as to managing or
coaching.
·
Speaking of baseball, Emmett Ashford is now a top-flight arbiter in the
American League, the first Negro umpire in the majors ever. And Frank
Forbes has been a capable boxing judge
in New York for at least 25 years .
Both pro football loops, the NFL and
AFL, have colored officials, also.
THE DAY IS rapidly diminishing
when the color of a man's skin determines whether he plays in Yankee Stadium or the Rose Bowl, etc. All men
were supposedly created equal, although times and cases have been when
the black man found it all to difficult to
get his just dues.
But, name a sport and you'll always
find the Negro making the impression
in the only way it really counts - ability.
�--------------8 KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE ·
--------·~-----------Saturday, March 15, 1969
What Does It Take To Make It
0~ Your Own ..if You Are Black?
What does it take to make it on your
own if you're black? Is the color of a
man's money more important than the
color of his skin?
Some Negro businessmen in Kokomo
have found that race has not been important in the successful operation of
their businesses. Others insist that discrimination has hampered them in their
drive toward independence.
The need for capital is an inescapable
fact in a capitalist economy. Walter
Humphries, 37, owner of Humphries
Bar on Apperson Way North, was told
by a lender that business such as he
planned couldn't succeed in the location
he selected. "But," he asks, "would
they have tolerated it in the south end
of town?"
To open his business it was necessary
to go outside the usual channels of risk
capital, put in jeopardy some real estate he owned, and pay considerably
over the bank rate for his money. Humphries admits this is frustrating but he
says, he is willing to pay more for his
capital in order to do something.
Humphries has found that a measure
of independence costs .him more of other things besides money. One of them is
work. He has been a full time employe
of the telephone company for 17 years
and still puts in a full night of work
there in addition to managing his tavern.
In a separate part of his establishment is a banquet room about the size
of a basketball court which he rents for
private parties and banquets. The stage
is being enlarged and Humphries is
doing most of the carpenter work himself with just one friend helping out.
He also manages, with his brother's
assistance, a barber shop located on the
same premises. He has found it less
troublesome to manage it himself than
to lease it out to barbers. Leasing is
also complicated by the requirement
that the operator of a shop be a master
barber. "It's hard to find Negro barbers," he says, so he assumes that responsibility himself too. Humphries acquired the credentials at an Indianapolis school in 1959 and, when he is able to
slow down a little, he wants to work at
that and nothing else.
Humphries never finished high school
and is determined to do something to
compensate for the lack of formal education. While in the Army, 1951-53, he
had $50 taken out of his $72 a month pay
as an allotment, When he was released
he had $2,700 saved plus his mustering
out money. He used this to acquire tax
sale and distressed property as an investment. This is what ultimately made
it possible for him to launch his own
business.
This kind of powerful motivation is
common among Negro entrepeneurs in
Kokomo, even among those Who reported encountering no racial barriers: One
man who operates a contract cleaning
service for commercial and residential
premises also holds a very demanding
full time job. He is not a college graduate although his salaried position re-.
quires a working knowledge of a high
specialized field.
When he first launched his cleaning
service, he says, he did at least 60 per
cent of the work himself in order to
keep down his overhead.
Nathan Bluitt, owner of the 13luitt F'uneral Home, 511 E. Monroe St., works a
full shift in a local industry each night.
Charles Reed, senior partner in the
Reedmeyer Development Co., home
builders, enrolled at the local university wherever he happened to be stationed while in the Air Force. He ultimately earned a BS degree in tool engineering.
James Cumbee, president of Cumbee
Electric, a contracting firm, started his·
business with his personal savings in
1952. He is at the shop, in work clothes
each morning by 7:30 a.m. and often
works until 9 at night. He holds a BS
degree in electrical engineering from
Purdue and his firm has $300,000 yearly
volume.
Cumbee says race has had no effect
on his business life and suggests that
one reason is the kind of work he is in·
although, he said, he couldn't think of
any type of business where race would
matter. Humphries, who operates a tavern, has had a very different experience.
.. His establishment, he says, has been
the target of clergymen who urge their
congregation to avoid spending their
time and money with Humphries.
''They mention the place by name,'' he
declares, "and that doesn't help business much."
There are also public relations problems that plague a -tavern owner. When
there is fight or disturbance of some
kin? near his place, he complained, the
pohce come - which he doesn't mind.
But, he says, they send two or three
cars that park outside his place with
their red lights spinning.
As a. result, Humphries contends, his
place gets a bad reputation and many
Negroes won't go there. He has also
had occasion to summon the police to
haul away a troublemaker only to have
the ingividual return in half an hour.
Negro businessmen who reported no
racial difficulties in their careers also
spoke of a st~ong family environment
while they were growing up. Reed noted
that his family was the only Negro family in the Russiaville, New London area
and that his father's reputation for integrity and ability was an important
boost to him when he took over the family business. His family had been there
for generations and his great-grandfather operated a tile factory in the area.
Although his father was primarily a
carpenter, he often did all work but the
elctrical on a home he was building.
~eed says he began working with his
father at the age of 12. His father, he
says, was "a tremendous man," and
Reed attributes whatever success ·he
has enjoyed to his father;s training and
example.
Similar sentiments were expressed by
the man oper?ting the cleaning service.
He considers his father's example his
"biggest competition" in evaluating his
own performance as a parent and worker. There are some things a father has
to do according to the law, he points
out, but he wants to do more because he
believes a father should. "The responsibilitie's of being a father," he says, "you
learn from your own father."
When he was first beginning in a busi~ess of his own, he still had his regular
Job and he made a point of letting his
children know where the money for
"those extra goodies" came from. Today, one of his sons is at Purdue, ·the
other grown children all have good jobs
and when they return to Kokomo for a
visit, he says, they help him out with
the cleaning business.
Cu_mbee, although he did not go into
detail, stressed that his family life as a
boy was "very stable."
In dealings with whites most Negroes
_ business said they 'had very little
in
problems with either customers or em. ployes. One said that some visitors appeared surprised to find a Negro in a
position of resp·onsibility and public con- ,:
tact and often walked right past his
door assuming he was not the man they
had come to see. Once they realized he
was "The Man," they didn't seem to
give the matter further thought.
·
"After all," he shrugs, "they're here
to do business and I'm the one they
have to -do it with." With a grin, he sug-
gests that m~ybe the old-fashioned profit motive will do more to improve race
relations than all the speeches about
love.
His white employes, he finds, work
harder for him than many of his Negro
workers. He had no idea why this would
be true but thought it might be because
they feel a desire to support a Negro
trying to gain independence through his
own efforts~
Cumbee, a subdued person who
speaks evenly and without hesitation,
says he can "meet any man on any level,'' and says all nine of his employes,
including workers of both races, are
"very loyal" and race has never come
up in his relation with them.
He has never, he said, had a man
turn down a job with his firm because
of a reluctance to take orders from a
Negro.
In dealing with employes, customers
and anyone else, he says, he has found
that his firm is accepted and that he is
accepted as its president.
''My ·experience is respected and my
professional judgement is accepted,'' he
~a~s.
·
Reed builds homes that sell for up to
$70,000 dollars. His junior partner in the
development firm is a young white man
who brought some real estate with him
as equity into the company. That real
estate is now the Lynn Miner subdivision.
Reed is convinced that race was the
reason he was refused a job as an engineer by two local industries but these
were the only occasions he can recall
when he encountered serious discrimination .
One Negro operator said it might be
true that he had to produce a little
more than a white man would to gain
the same recognition. If this true, he
said, "It works in our favor. Whenever
you see a Negro in a position of trust
and responsibility, you know he is a valuable man and is ,not going to be
bumped."
Most men agreed that many young
Negroes believe that to be black means
you can't make it. Cumbee remarks
that "Believing this is your first defeat.
An individual must project himself in a
businesslike manner and accept himself."
Another man, asked if absorbing this
attitude at an. early age is part of the
Negro experience, replied, "It is part of
the black experience," not the "Negro"
experience.
He added that any young man who
believes he can't make it won't make it
regardless of color. Young blacks he
said, should never believe this about
themselves. It's important, he asserted, to believe that if you equip yourself
you'll succeed.
Success, in the sense that these men
have succeeded is sometimes denounced by the more militant "rights
leaders" as "playing the white man's _
game" and being an Uncle Tom.
"I was taught as a boy, at home and
in the church, to respect the rights of
other people," said one man, "and if
that makes me an Uncle Tom, then I'm
an Uncle Tom."
The man said that the preferential
treatment for Negroes in the area of
employment, which is being demanded
by some, is unfair to the employer and
to the N_egroes. An employer, he says,
should hire the man with the most ability without regard to race.
Asked what he thought an employer
should do when faced with two men
one black and one white and both pos~
sessing equal qualifications for a job, he
laughed and said, "There's got to be
some difference between them besides
race."
The only two persons 1:ivho are exactly
alike, he said, are "God and God."
THE REV. KEMPER
Views
Housing
As Vital
"If housing were fully integrated in
this community, you would not have
the problem of discrimination in the
schools," the Rev. F. S. Kemper said.
Mr. Kemper has been the minister of
the Mount Pisca Baptist Church for the
past eight years. There are about 200
parishioners in his all-Negro congregation. Mr. Kemper says housing has been
the biggest problem for Negroes in Kokomo.
"Up until just recently Negroes who
had buying power were not able to purchase housing they could afford," he ,
said. "All the Negroes were congested
in just two sections of town."
This condition has changed somewhat
since the local and federal open housing
laws were passed. "Some Negroes are
moving into previous all-white neighborhoods, and for the most part their
reception has been good," Mr. Kemper
said.
The gap is a long way from being
closed, however, Mr. Kemper said, apd
he would like to see efforts toward integrated housing stepped up because he
believes this would solve· the problem of
school discrimination.
"You don't run into the problem of
the neighborhood school concept_ discriminating against Negroes in the
school system if all the neighborhoods
are integrated," Mr. Kemper said. "Racially segregated schools result from
racially segregated communities."
Mr. Kemper doesn't believe that Negro gains, locally or nationally, measure
up very well against the total society,
despite some improvement in recent
years.
He would like to see more whites take
an interest in the Negro community and
work with Negroes to overcome the
source of some of the problems that divide the two communities.
"I think whites also fear the consequences of Negro equality. For instance, when public accommodations
were integrated many of the white merchants feared they would be overrun by
Negroes and this would destroy their
white trade, but this hasn't happened.
"Once the Negroes were accepted
they didn't overrun anything, although
they do avail themselves of the facilities. Many Negroes just want to know
that they can go wherever they want,
even if they never do,'' he said.
"In housing you have the same fear
on behalf whites now, some of thorn believe the Negroes will 'take over' some
all-white neighborhoods. Actually, there
aren't enough of us in Kokomo to 'take
_
over' anything. There will be no mass
exodus from black to white areas."
'
Mr. Kemper was also critical of jopportunity and_employment for Negroes.
"There is a problem getting into apprenticeships for skilled trades " he
said.
'
�-~_,,,,________,.,._,.------~-----------~---------------r•---=-----._._________-__________________
Saturday, March 15, 1969
Negroes Finding More
KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE 9
Employment, Elective
And Appointive Posts
In
Government
Negroes are finding more opportunities for government employment in Kokomo and Howard County than ever before, but there are still many areas of
service in which they are not represented.
For inst,ance, there are more than 30
Negroes employed. on full or part-time
basis by Kokomo municipal, Center
Township or Howard County governmental units.
But -!)f the many city 1 township and
county boards and c o m m i s s i o n s,
Negroes are members of only six.
Of more than three dozen elective offices, only two are held by Negroes.
Durwood Bundrent is a Kokomo Cit--y
Councilman, and Vernard Johnson is
the Center Township justice of peace.
While Johnson holds an elective office, he was not elected to it. He was
appointed to the township post upon the
resignation of William R. Nolan, in December, 1967.
·
Johnson is a Kokomo attorney.
Bundrent is in his second year as a
city councilman, representing the Third
District. He also is a member of the
Kokomo Redevelopment Commission,
having been named to that post.
Bundrent is a native of Lafayette. A
former director of the Carver Community Center he is now employed by Delco Radio Division.
As far as is known, Bundrent is the
first Negro to serve as a Kokomo city
councilman.
He defeated another member of his
race, Sterling M. Davis, for the Third
District council post in the 1967 municipal election. Bundrent is a Democrat
and Davis, a Republican.
Davis is one of two Negroes serving
on the Kokomo Human Relations Commission. The other is Mrs. Juanita Cole.
Both were original appointees to the
nine-member commission.
Davis is employed by Stellite Works,
Union Carbide Corporation, and Mrs.
Cole is a teacher in the Kokomo-Center
Township school system.
One of two employes of the Human
Relations Commission is a Negro. He is
Franklin Breckenridge, a Kokomo attorney who is employed on a part-time
basis as special consultant to the commission's executive director, Edward
W. Nicklaus.
Breckenridge is a Kokomo native,
and he taught school here before returning to Indiana University to obtain
his law degree.
Prior to opening a law practice here,
Breckenridge served in the state government where he was an administra.tive assistant and supervisor in the corporation income tax division of the Indiana Department of Revenue.
In addition to Bundrent, Davis and
Mrs~ Cole, two other Negroes hold
membership on civilian boards.
Dwight Callaway is a member of the
Board of Regents which governs operations at Crown Point Cemtery, and Mrs.
Glenn Lancaster is a member of the
city-county Board of Health.
Callaway is awemploye of Delco Radio Division, and Mrs. Lancaster is a
registered nurse.
The Kokomo municipal government is
the largest employer of Negroes of the
three le'vels of local government.
The city police and fire departments
have seven Negroes on their rosters, including four on the police department
and three on the fire department.
There are five Negroes employed by
the Municipal Sanitation Utility, four by
the Kokomo Street Department, and
two as park policemen.
Another, Otto Bassett, is the custodian of the Kokomo City Building.
Dan McCreary and Andrew Ewing
On the Job
Nate Newsom, ci.ty policeman,
makes a check to be sure a mer.:chant's business is safe. George
Gaskins, city fireman, waits, re.a dy
to respond to any emergency.
are park policemen', and McCreary is
also employed as a school crossing
guard.
Of the seven Negroes on the police
and the fire departments, five have
been hired within the last seven years.
Only Russell Nicholas and Charles
Killings, both policemen, were in the
city's employe when .Mayor John W.
Miller first.took office in January, 1960.
Since 1962, George Gaskin, Silas
Humphries and Glenn Lancaster have
been employed as city firemen, and Nathanial (Nate) Newsom and Boyd Kirby
have been hired as city policemen.
Nicholas, who is the captain in charge
of the police detective division, has
more than 20 years service on the department, and Killings, a patrolman,
joined the police force on Jan. 1, 1959.
Newsome was hired last year, and
Kirby, earlier this year. Both are pa- ·
trolmen.
For many years, Nicholas and Henry
Waggoner were the only Negroes
on either the police or fire departments.
Wag~oner, the first Negro to be employed as a full-time city policeman, retired in December, 1958, after completing more than 22 years of service.
Gaskin was the first Negro to become
a city fireman here, and Humphries
was the second. Gaskin was employed
in January, 1962, and Humphries, two
months later.
Lancaster was employed _last year.
In addition to his police duties, Nicholas is a member of a committee named
by the mayor to spearhead plans for
construction of a new Kokomo City
Building.
Negro employes of the Municipal Sanitation Division include ·oscar Richardson, Jule Decker, Philip Fowler, Arthur
Tripplett and Robert Allen.
Tripplett is an operator for the sewage treatment plant and Allen is the
plant utility ,man. The others are members of maintenance crews.
James E. Fowler, Herbert Smith,
Wayne Hockensmith and Roosevelt Arrick are employed by the Kokomo
Street Department, and Frank T. Byers
and Calvin Solomon are employes of the
Howard County Highway Department.
- On the township and county level,
there are six other Negroes employed.
Mrs. Venus Page has been an e.nploye of the Center Township trustee's
office for the ~ast 19 years.
Ruby Berry is an employe of the
county probation department; Alice
Moore works in the voter registration
office, and E. Delores Brown is employed by the county welfare ·department.
DURWOOD BUNDRENT
The Courthouse building staff includes Will Woods, Cornelius Adders
and Anna Ewing.
�---~---·---------~··---~--..-.;..--_.;::;:.--,__
10 KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE
_.--
____ -
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Saturday, March 15, 1969
How Do Those in Educational Programs
Miss Dorothy Crossland Plans To Teach
Black students in Kokomo, whether at
the high school, university, or vocational training level, feel good about their
experiences and optimistic about the fu-·
ture..
" I got with black pride," is how Ray
Eddington, a sophomore at Indiana Univetsity-Kokomo, describes the difference between how he feels about himself at the university this year in comparison with last year.
The son of Mr. and Mrs. George Eddington, 113 S. Calumet St., Ray says
that originally he would have prefer,red
to go to the Bloomington campus be-'
cause he knew there weren't many
Negroes on the Kokomo campus.
The 1967 Kokomo High School graduate explained that in high school he relied on a group of black friends, but
when he got to IU-K he had to adjust to
a sea of white faces. "It was hard," he
Eric Liggon Will Be a Chef
said. "I was apprehensive about going
to the commons. I was uncomfortable
even with the people who tried to make
me feel welcome; I wasn't sure of their
motives."
This year it's different for Ray. He's
on the grievance committee of the Student Council, plays in the basketball
league, and i~ currently involved with
plans for "Focus Black America Week"
on campus next week.
Describing the difference, Ray says,
"My attitude has changed. I decided to
make the best of it; I decided to be a
whole student, not just go to classes."
Behind his attitude change, he explains, is what persons are referring to
as black pride. He says to him it means
being unaware you're black. "When I
was aware of color last year, I didn't fit
in. This year I decided to be myself, to
be a person." He continued, "This
means acting the same as when I'm
~round my own friends."
Ray's let his hair "go natural," that
is, he doesn't have it straightened anymore. And though his dress at the time
of the interview was a neat looking
slacks, shirt, and sweater outfit, he
says that he now feels free to dress on
campus as he would "back in the ghetto.'' He describes these clothes as
"loud."
"Being natural," he claims, "has won
me more friends than trying to conform. '' On the other side of the fence he
says, "I've accepted the white students
for what they are, too."
His new-found outlook led Ray to a
little evangelistic effort earlier this
year. He spoke to a special convocation
of black students at KHS, challenging
them to "start a trend," to consider the
opportunities offered at IU-K. He explained that they have the same hesitations he had, the same fears of isolation. "But so much potential is lost, " he
said. ''Kids take a job when they find
they can't afford to go away to school.
They could be coming out here.''
Ray will transfer to the Bloomington
campus next fall to complete his degree
in secondary education. He plans to
teach, though he also has an interest in
law. He· is optimistic about the future .
He feels that his color may even be an
advantage in getting a good·job.
Asked about his reaction to the recently announced black studies program by Indiana University's President
Sutton, he replied, " It's about time."
He feels that Negro history is an appropriate subject in a university setting. He sees it properly existing along
side of other history courses, literature
and language studies of various ethnic
·groups.
As a member of the committee planning "Focus Black America Week,"
Ray feels that it will help make blacks
more aware of the university facilities
in Kokomo. "But," he added quickly,
''this should not be an annual thing too
long. We'd have to wind up having a
Chinese Week, an Italian Week, etc.
This kind of week is needed for awhile,
though, to get the black thing going."
Ray's hope for a black studies program and a special week of emphasis at
the university is that these will become
vehicles for a truly integrated society.
"We want to become a part of the
whole rather than a separate entity,"
he concluded.
Ray Eddington: 'My Attitude Changed'
�Saturday, March 15, 1969
KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE 11
View the Present...the Future?
Ability and drive, coupled with being
known and getting a few breaks, is how
·
Sonseenahray Cumbee accounts for her
success at Kokomo High School, where
is a school leader.
The attractive senior is the daughter
of Mr. and Mrs. James Cumbee, 1405 E.
Jefferson St. Her list of activities includes the presidency of Girls League,
a post as dean's assistant, and Student Council membership.
Fielding with real poise a question
concerning her unique place in the
school, Sonseenahray explained, "It
started in grade school. I worked hard
to make good grades, and good grades
make people notice you." Help in being
known, too, came when she was elected
president of Junior Honor Society. She
concluded, "By the time I got to high
she is a school leader.
Though she personally feels no special · problems as a black student at
KHS, Sonseenahray pointed out that because she's black she's often sought out
by persons witl;l questions concerning
racial matters.
Asked about the grievances of fellow
black students, she answered, "There is
some exclusion here, but not to the extent they think there is." She said that
many Negro girls feel they are discriminated against in groups like Kokettes,
cheerleaders, and Girls League. Low_
grades disqualify many, though a teachers' screening is also involved: "It's
very important how a student impresses a teacher in class," she noted.
Her tone of voice belied her conviction that the burden rests with the students, whether they're "haughty and
militant" or "courteous and cooperative."
Sanseenahray views black pride as a
positive development. "Black students
now feel a support that enables them to
take pride in their color," she said.
Prospects for racial harmony at KHS
are "looking up," she believes. "As
long as students take an interest in improving things.," she said, "There's
hope." Keeping channels of communication open is another must and can be
accomplished "if black students will
talk honestly and the other side will
comprehend and accept what they're
saying."
The proposed Human Relations Committee at KHS will help, she thinks, if
students will cooperate. "It can help
smooth out hard feelings and help us better understand each other," she said,
, adding, "There can only _be trouble in
society in the future if black persons
pull off into their own little group."
Sanseenahray's own plans for the future include Earlham College in Richmond. She wants to teach English at the
high school or college level.
Eric Liggin, another KHS senior, has
a head start on his ambition to be a
chef in an exclusive r e s t a u r a n t,
"maybe even cook for the president
some day."
The son of Mr. and Mrs. Claude Liggin, 1025 E. Richmond St., has been
cooking for four years, presently at the
Golden Bear Pancake House. He's been
studying cooking in school since his
sophomore year. He's also active in the
Vica Club, which, he says, trains students for management.
Eric hopes eventually to owri his own
restaurant, but the immediate future_is
somewhat uncertain. He has an offer to
go to Florida to be a cook, 'though he
realizes th(;possibility of having an opportunity to cook for Uncle Sam first.
A two-year course at the Norfolk Institute, French Lick, is a possibility for
the budding chef, too. "I'm going to try
to get ahead," he said. "If it takes further education, then I'll get it."
Claiming black and white friends at
school and himself of mixed ancestry,
Eric insists that the racial incident at
KHS last fall brought students closer together. "There's been a much more ,
friendly atmosphere since· then," he
ventured. He also noted, "The teachers
are trying to understand us more."
That's a far cry from the isolation he
felt last year when he tried to run for
senior class president and got shut out.
"Society kids were running the show;
nobody knew me," he reflected.
A Human Relations Committee at
school is a good idea, in Eric's eyes. He
sums it up by saying, "Talking is better
than fighting."
One thing he'd like to see changed before he graduates is a change in the
rule forbidding Negro males to wear
mustaches. "Negroes are known for
their mustaches," explains. '1.. think
Negro students should be able to wear
mustaches as long as they're kept decent."
Mustache or no, Eric feels good about
the future of black people. "Blacks are
more proud because of what they're
gaining now - more education, better
jobs." For his own part, he recognizes
that with the changing attitudes of society, his color may be an advantage in
his own professional advancement.
Miss Dorothy Crossland decided in
the summer of 1967 to ·go back to college. She'd started out to be a teacher
many years ago but had to drop out of
school because of lack of money.
"There weren't as many opptunities for
black students then," she explained.
Since then she's worked for the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. She was an assistant supervisor before leaving her
job to return to school.
.
.
She describes her delay m gettmg
back to the classroom as "putting it
off," but the junior elementary education major at IU-K says frankly she's
.out to "get that degree" to improve her
employment potential.
Miss Crossland plans to teach in the
area after graduation and has already
done some substituting in her hometown of Peru, where she's also the president of the local chapter of the
NAACP. On campus, she's active in
various educational organizations.
Reacting to the recently announced
black studies program at Indiana University, she said this: "We've always
been taught what the white man has
done and nothing about black people . .
We don't want special concessions, simply equal recognition. But if someone
wants to major in this area to be able to
teach it, then he ought to be able to do
it. After all, there are specialists in
Spanish literature and every other
field.''
The subject of black pride is vital to
Miss Crossland. "I've always been
proud," she said, straightening in her
chair. "Perhaps it was my family background, perhaps I was born into it. My
father was a minister in the African
Methodist Episcopal Church, and two
members of my family are teachers.
We're embarrassed by the lack of pride
in others."
She notes, however, that the old
"What's the hse"
Attitude
of
Negroes is now being replaced by an
incentive to try.
Talking about black pride naturally
led her to relate an experience she had
recently while substitute teaching at
Peru Junior High School. She tells of
approaching the classroom and b~ing
asked by two black girls if she was
their teacher for the day. When she told
them that she was, she reports that
they jumped up and down and clapped
their hands in excitement.
- Her interpretation of the incident is
that they were thrilled to think that
someone they knew, someone like th~m,
had the status of a teacher.
The tragedy, she believes, of lack of ·
attention to the Negro in magazines and
the news media has been that black
children have been deprived of idols by
which to set their ambitions.
Miss Crossland would never claim to
be a substitute for Thurgood ~farshall,
or even Marion Anderson, but perhaps
she'll provide some real challenges to
her future pupils on an equally important level.
Ed Lee, 715 E. Jackson St., is a machine ,operator at Chrysler who spends
his Tuesday and Thursday . nights in
school. School is Ivy Tech's two-year
course in industrial electronics.
This is Ed's second year. He'll get a
certificate when he graduates, but more
than that, he hopes to get ahead in life,
upgrade himself professsionally.
He got started when he found out
about the course through a meeting at
Carver Center. He said he'd also noticed announcements on the bulletin
board at work. Chrysler picks up the
tab for the course.
·
The future? Ed indicates that there's
the possibility of a new program at
Chrysler which would call for a worker
carrying the classification, "electronic
technician". He feels his study will be
valuable if such a program develops.
Under the present system, the course
he's taking might help him be upgraded
to an electrician.
Ed confesses that when he's really
thinking big, he considers the possibility
of going after the two year associate
degree in electrical engineering technology at Indiana University's Kokomo
campus.
Ambitious, perhaps a little restless,
Ed says of his present status,· "It may
seem like you're holding the short end
of the stick sometimes, but then it could
be the person himself.'' He hopes in the
future to see more Negro foremen and
more black men in skilled trades. Expressing,. confidence in the future, he
added, "If a guy's got the right stuff,
they'll h~ve to do something for him."
Speaking, then, in a larger context, he
said, "The Negro is getting himself
,back together again." He was referring
.to things such as black pride, power,
unity, a stake in the future. And Ed's
one of those who's going to be prepared
- educationally- to be a part of the
black man's share of the future of our
society.
Sonseenahray Cumbee Plans To Teach
./
�12 KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE <
Saturday, March 15, 1969
Early Negro
Art Bought
Freedom
Do the names Henry 0. Tanner, Edward Bannister, Edmonia
Lewis, Robert Duncanson, Richard Barthe and Benard Casey
ring a bell?
If you are a student of art or
have a fairly good knowledge of
the subject, they will. In the
world of art, the names stand out
as being those of only a few of
some greats from the past, and,
p_ rhaps, greats of the future.
e
While the names may ring a bell
as being associated with the
world of art, it may not be re membered tnat all of them belong to blacl_{s .
The Negro has been a part of
the American art scene from his
earliest days on this continent.
Many Negro artisans found it
possible to buy his freedom by
~ashioning the wrought-iron grillwork that to this day graces
many an old home in Charleston,
New Orleans and other cities of
the South.
Today there is an emergence of
Negro artists stressing strictly
Negro themes. But until the early
1900's , the work of the Negro reflected the two dominant European styles - neo-classicism, inspired by ancient Greece and
Rome , and the romantic landscape as applied to American
scenery. There was little stress
on strictly Negro themes except
for portraits of abolitionists and
Negro military heroes.
Who were Tanner, Bannister
and the others?
t_
Tanner probably is the most famous Negro painter of all times.
He was the first Negro to be
elected to the National Academy :
of Design, the oldest institution of
artists in America. Today, his
works_ are in the collections of
many museums, among them the
Metropolitan, Chicago Art Institute and Carnegie Institute.
Bannister was a distinguished
landscape painter who lived from
1828 to 1901. His ''Under- the.
Oaks" won an award at the Pennsvlvania Centennial Exposition of
1876, the first such award ever
made to a Negro.
The first Negro sculptor to
achieve international .success was
Edmonia Lewis (1845-1890), who
was honored in public receptions
in Bos tori and Philadelphia.
Duncanson, also a product of
the 1800's, was another great artist. His landscape "Blue Hole,
Flood Waters, Little Miami"
hangs today in the Cincinnati
Museum.
Murals in the Social Securitv
Building in Washington are th~
efforts of Richard Barthe, a graduate of Oberlin .
And what about Casey? That
name may strike a· bell for football fans more than for -the student of art. He is one of the rising
artists of today. Only recently
has he earned a master of arts
degree at Bowling Green State
University, and his works are
shown in Los Angeles galleries.
His other effort in that citv is
playing professional football~ for
the Rams.
William Crawford (R)
displays some art
that focuses on the
Negro. These, and
the one above, are
' but a few to be on
display next week ·
at IU-Kokomo during
Focus Black America
Week.
�Saturday, March 15, 1969
KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE 13
•
,n Local Area Scant
History Of Negroes Settling
(Editor's Note- Mrs. LeRoy DeLong
of Kokomo undertook a study of Negro
history in Howard County for the purposes of preparing a term paper for a
course she was taking last year at Indiana University-Kokomo. She searched
numerous materials, although she said
resource material is scant, and she conducted several interviews. The results
9.f her efforts have been exerpted with
her permission to provide the following
report.)
In this paper I will endearvor to write
down some of the historical date that I
have been able to find concerning the
· coming of the Negro to Kokomo. In my
research I very soon found that you
must cover the history of Howard County to give a true picture of the background of the Negroes who first settled
here in our city, for most of the earliest
people s_ttled first in the county and
e
then later moved into Kokomo.
Kokomo and Howard County are located in Miami Indian territory so it is
no small wonder that the first white
man, David Foster, came to this area in·
1842 as a merchant who set up an Indian trading post in his log cabin on the
north side of the Wildcat in the center
of what is Main St. When the early settlers started thinking about a county
seat, the western part of the county was
suggested because there were more settlers there ( this is where many of the
Negroes settled too) and the land where
the present town of Kokomo is located
was very wet. After much discussion,
the area around Mr. Foster's trading
post was selected with his deeding 40
acres of land on the north side of the
Wildcat to the city. At this time a 24' x
24' court house was .e rected.
The first census was taken in 1850 in
both the county and Center Township.
Center Twp. at that time had a population of 954 whites and no colored people.
This is quite interesting as there is
much evidence of colored persons living
in other parts of the county at this time.
C. V. Haworth, who was raised in
New London about 12 miles west ·of Kokomo, tells how his mother was brought
here in a covered wagon in 1846 with
her parents who had lived in Marysville, Tenn. This was Indian land which
haci just opened up and so many of the
southerners who were opposed to slavery moved to Howard County. She and
her parents moved to New London
where there were two or fhree colored
families· already living.
"Many slave states. . .gave free
Negroes within their borders only a
short time in which to leave, or suffer
the probability of being sold into salvery. Since a move had to be made,
many of them decided to come to Indiana as the State at that time had not
forbidden their coming. Here, fertile
land could be bought from the government for as little as $1.25 an acre.
"There was plenty of work on the
public improvement projects and in the
for.ests at good wages. With the money
that they earned. ·.. they could soon buy
a tract of land and become independent
freeholders," The Negro in the History
of Indiana by John W. Lyda states.
In addition to the free Negroes many
slaves also very soon found their way to
Howard County via the underground
railroad.
In Indiana the underground railroad
had three main lines, the Western, Middle and the Eastern. I would judge that
the New London Station was one of the
three branches originating with the
middle route.
.... Durmg the first half of the last
century, many free Negro pioneers
from the South immigrated to Indiana to
escape the galling restrictions imposed
on them. . .to protect themselves from
being captured by kidnappers to be sold
into salvery, and to give their children
an opportunity to attend the schools
provided for them by their Quaker
friends .... these Negro pioneers usual-
ly made their homes in or near Quaker
settlements.,' ' one source recorded.
This was especially true of the
Negroes settling in the Roberts Settlement close to New London. This was a
strong Quaker and this abolitionist
area. In fact, by 1882 there were 500
members in the New London Friends
Church. Russiaville, a small town near
New London also was known as "one of
the stations of the famous 'Underground Railroad,' and the Friend Quakers were the most zealous workers in
the carrying on of the enterprise.
The Underground Railroad was most
prevalent in Russiaville, New London
and Poplar Grove. As I stated before,
the Robert's Settlement was close to
New London. Thomas Roberts for
whom the settlement was named was
quite a prominent man. In New London
the blacksmith was a colored man who
was considered to be an excellent
craftsman. Some of the family names
that I have been able to find are Billy
Christy ( who later moved to Kokomo),
Albert Carter ( an ex-slave who took his
master's name, and later moved into
Kokomo,) and Charlie Reed whose family apparently still lives in that area.
The names have been difficult to find
•• but these are the ones that Haworth
could remember.
The other settlements close to Kokomo were in Ervin Township. The underground railroad figured quite a lot in
the arrival of the people here. Poplar
Grove in Ervin Township was the closest station for the railroad. There were
two settlements located there. They
were four miles apart and the colored
folks living in Ervin Township probably
arrived in the 1850's. They lived on the
low, swampy but excellent, rich soil until the late 19th century when the industries came to Kokomo. These settlements were known as the upper and
lower. Some of the people's names were
Bassett and Edwards. These settlements
were like other towns in that day as they
had a blacksmith shop, two stores, a
school, churches and just about everything that any other settlement had. In
fact, these peope even had something
extra. They had a brass band that was
very much in demand for the featured
entertainment at Sunday School picnics,
political rallies, etc. In the late 1800's
when the industries and factories began
to open up in Kokomo, these colored
families began to move into the city.
When I first began to research for
this paper, I guessed that the gas boom
surely had to be a part of the influence
on the Negro moving into this area. All
the evidence I have been able to find
points directly to the first Negro residents of the City of Kokomo coming
from the settlements close at hand.
Now let us look back at some of the
sentiment of Howard County residents
in regard to the Negro at the time the
Constitution of 1851 was being drawn up
at the Indianapolis Convention, when
Schuyler Colfax of St. Joseph County
proposed "that the committee on elec~ive franchise be instq1cted to inquire
mto the expediency of separately submitting the question of Negro suffrage
to the people. In response the citi'zens of
Howard and Clark counties petitioned
the Convention to pass a law preventing
any more free Negroes from entering
the state. 'The ensuing debate resulted
in the State Constitu!ion of 1851 containing many stipulations regarding the
Negro and the Mulatto.
The end of the Civil War resulted in
the Negro having citizenships with the
right to vote, the right to testify in
court, hold any public office to which he
might be elected or appointed, send his
children to public school and engage in
any trade or profession that he might
_hoose.
c
This result was also felt in Howard
County for as soon as the factories and
industries began to open in Kokomo, the
colored people living in the Roberts and
Bassett settlements sold their land and
began to make their homes in the city.
with the prospects of a steady job with
"Those who lived down in Ervin gravgood ( at least better than they had ever
itated to Kokomo because they didn't
known) pay and even Company barhave enough work for them there. Koracks and houses available for a low
komo had it, so. they came here and
rent. In talking with King I found that
moved downtown . . Some did work in
this is the way that he and many others
industry as did Charlie Peters ... but ' C.Q.Qle to Kokomo in the beginning. One
they needed people to take care of their
or two would come up here and find
homes and their animals. . .in fact,
that it was well worthwhile so they
there was a livery station at the corner
would send down home to their friends
of Union and Sycamore run by a fellow
and family and tell them to come too.
by the name of John Christy (a Negro),"
The Pittsburg Plate Glass Company
Haworth related.
built several four room houses which can
There were several of these people
still be seen on Calumet, Cooper and
who made quite a significant contribuElizabeth Streets. These were rented
tion to the city of Kokomo in its early
at a low rate and then as a family was
years.Dr. John Wilson Ramey, M.D.; . able, they could buy their home. Many
Richard Brown, who was a teacher in
of the Negro families own their own
one of the settlements, became a barhomes today partly because of these
ber when he moved to town: Bond was
houses being available. Of the houses
a worker at the Armstrong Landon
on Calumet, Cooper and Elizabeth
Company; Christy had the livery stastreets, about three fourths of them
ble; Grant Waldron was a -barber; and
were originally built by the Glass Coma colored man ran the feed store. Some
pany. This was probably the one biggest
others of the earlier families were the
contributing factor to the larger Negro
Bassets, Edwards, Cunninghams and
population in Kokomo.
the Carters. I am sure that there are
.
In the first half of this present centumany others who also were significant,
ry the Negroes worked mainly for Pittsbut there is nothing written down and I
burg Plate ·Glass, Continental Steel,
must rely solely on what people can reHoosier Iron Works and the Globe Fac. member. I have been told by more than
one person that some of these were imtory. Most Negroes had to take the
hard, manual, dangerous work. The
portant citizens, but I cannot find any of
women workers were pretty well limitthe names even mentioned in any of the
ed to domestic or janitorial work.
county or city history books.
In the field of labor in Kokomo one of
At this particular tirrte in history, eduthe first biggest break-throughs was the
cation on a local level was met by the
Executive Order 8802 issued by Presione room school house. The 1882 school
dent Franklin D. Roosevelt during the
records of Howard County indicate that
Second World War. At this time the
there were 79 colored males, 67 colored
NAACP' was instrumental in helping the
females and 1 colored male teacher. I
first women into Delco here in Kokomo.
have not been able to find in any book
"Negro women were employed at the
the name of the teacher, but thanks to
Delco Plant (1944). The first to be emtiaworth's marvelous memory, I find
ployed were Mickey Tyler, Lucille
that the teacher was Charlie Harvey.
Wood, Brenetta Fowler and Ossie
He taught several of the Negro children
Cole." After this time three plants in
in one of the one room schools. Many of
Kokomo - Delco, Stellite and Reliance
the first colored children moving into
- began to give work to the Negro
Kokomo were also Haworth's students
women. Also, this began the trend to
in the old fourth ward school. In 1902 he
hire Negro men for other than janitorial
was the principal in the 4th ward and
work. Also, after this time the Globe
had about 50 colored children in the
grades 1-8.
. Factory hired Negro welders.
At this same time Ophelia Harris operated a one room school building near
Because of the very serious labor
where the Douglas School is located.
shortage during World War II President
She had about 40 students. The colored
.1:1 ·ranKHn V. Koosevelt issed the FEPC
folk who were interested in education
Proclamation opening all classes of
came to the Board of Education in 1918
jobs in plants having government conand petitioned the Board of School
tracts to all workers regardless of race.
Trustees to build them a building which
At this time there were several govthey agreed to do, and in 1919 the Dougernment sponsored specialized training
las building was elected.
vocational classes conducted at the loThe colored people under the leadercal high school. Through these classes
ship of Grant Waldron and one other
many learned more specialized trades
prominent colored gentleman of this
such as welding, etc.
city asked the board to build into the
The first settlers who entered Howard
Douglas building a large meeting room
County in the mid-nineteenth century
· where they could hold their own meetwere farmers, store owners, blackings and conferences. The resulting
smiths, etc. who later moved into an
Douglas school had 4 classrooms and
urban area and took industrial jobs;
thus, their standard of living kept imone large meeting room.
1t seems that through the years the
proving. From my vantage point it
Negroes in Kokomo have been somewould seem to me that the standard of
what scattered in their housing alliving of the Negro in Kokomo has imthough there are areas of heavy concenproved through the years, but it ha~ not
tration. There are a few in the norkept pace with his white counterpart
thwest part of town, a few in the west,
because of job discrimination as evi~ome on North Washington St., some on
denced jn liistory. Self determination
has contributed much in the advanceEast Jefferson, some on East Monroe
and of course many are living on Caluments that have been made.
met, Cooper and Elizabeth Streets.
As the labor ·unions began to have
Up to the time when the Pittsburg
open shop laws, and also as the Negroes
Plate Glass Company came to Kokomo
began to be admitted to the unions, they
there really were not a large number of
began to recognize improvement in
their lot.
Negroes living here. This seemed to be
the important turning point.
During t~~ early twentieth century,
In quick recap, Negroes in Kokomo
many families from the South immicame primarily at two basic times. The
grated to Indiana to better their own
first ones arrived in the county from
economic condition and to give their
the south before the Civil War when the
children additional opportunities to get
Underground Railroads were in full
force and later moved into Kokomo.
an education. Thi_s was the typical reason many came mto Kokomo with the
The second major influx occurred when
Pittsburg Plate Glass Company.
the Pittsburg Plate Glass Company enAround 1916-17 the Glass Company
larged their business here and the need
sent agents down into Kentucky and
for labor became acute. All of these
Tennessee where many of the Negroes
people were quite important in the
were farming, working in the saw mills,
growth of Howard County and then of
or were unemployed and enticed them
the city of Kokomo.
- /
�14 KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE
Saturday, March 15, 1969
Focus On
Citizens'
Views
BRECKENRIDGE
Progress Being Made
But Prejudice Still
Exists, Lawyer Says
Attorney-at-law Franklin Breckenridge is a busy young Kokomo native
who is working hard to build up a prosperous practice here even while he continues participating in the civil rights
struggle which he has been a part of
since his early college days.
Like most lawyers, Breckenridge
chooses his words carefully, especially
when discussing discrimination and racism. "First we have to know what W(.,
mean by those terms when we use
them," he said. "I define discrimination
as being the prejudice that one group of
people has - usually the largest group
- for another group of people - usually a smaller group.''
He says that there is prejudice
against Negroes in Kokomo in areas of
employment, promotional opportunities,
housing, education and public accommodations. He confesses that progress
has been made in all of these areas, but
he still feels the community has a long
way to go.
"The most progress has been made
with regard to public accommodations
and the least progress has been in employment and promotional opportunities," he said. Breckenridge does not
believe the large industries practice overt racism, but he says he knows
enough good Negroes who have not received earned promotions to make him
believe the problem lies with the department heads in some industries.
"You might describe this as being localized discrimination - localized within the department. It is a very subtle
and elusive form of racism. When you
have two whites and one Negro. all with
equal training, skills and experience,
how do you know it _is discrimination
when one of the whites is chosen for
promotion?
"You don't know, of course," he said,
"it can't be proved in any one case. But
when you look back through the whole
industry and see so few Negr6es in
leadership positions, a pattern of discrimination becomes obvious.''
Breckenridge said he had no e<!SY or
magic answers to end the_problem. "If
you ask me what can be done to end
discrimination, I have to answer I don't
know," he said. "Of course, the simplest and best answer would be for all
whites to slop judging a man according
to the color of his skin and to judge him
on his performance and individuality."
He added, however, that this is a Utopian ideal, and he doesn't expect to see
it happen in his lifetime. He doesn't intend to give up the fight, however. He
keeps his hand in civil rights activity by
acting as special consultant to the exec-
utive director of the Kokomo Human
Relations Commission.
Breckenridge is guarded when talking
about the progress Kokomo has made
in race relations - not because he
wants to deny what is true, but because
he does not want to give false comfort
and ammunition to the forces of the status quo.
In discussing his own experience in
the legal profession - he has been
practicing since last September - he
admits that the Negro professional man
is well received by the white community.
"White people are willing to accept
the Negro professional man more than
any other kind," he said, "but there
aren't very many of us and certainly
our success is of small comfort to the
thousands of Negroes who haven't
made it, or who are still struggling in
the system to make it."
Breckenridge engages primarily in
criminal law, and his clients are about
70 per cent white and 30 per cent Negro.
He said that he has not run into racism
in the courts and that as far as he
knows the Kokomo police do not practice racism on their black prisoners and
arrestees. "I don't want to speak with
absolute authority on this, however," he
added.
Breckenridge has no sympathy for
the black separatist movement, although
he does favor black study and history
courses in schools and colleges. "Fortunately, we don't ·have the separatist
problem in Kokomo," he said, "although it is a problem nationally. I
think some of those people are searching for an identity and they can only
find it in being black, so they run
around shouting 'black is beautiful' and
things like that. As for me, I know I'm
black and everyone can see I'm black,
so I see no reason why I should scream
about it. I know who I am."
Musician-Plastics Man
Tells His Views
Orval C. Hardimon is a nationally
known musician who plays the guitar
and organ at the same time.
He goes by the name of "Gabbie"
Hardimon when on stage and says he is
a musician first and a Delco employe
second. He is the only Negro who has
ever worked in plastics at Delco.
Hardimon is also extremely active in
his union. He has been a recording secretary for Local UAW 292 and is the
only Negro on the Shop Committee. He
is also the only Negro who belongs to
Musicians Local 141.
Hardimon, who was born in Kokomo
but graduated from Marion High
School, has been at Delco for 16 years.
He graduated from trade school in Philadelphia and was taken on at Delco after being laid off at Demerings Plastics
where he learned how to work with
plastics.
He applied to work in plastics at Delco, but they would, only give him janitorial work. He kept after the job in plastics for about two years before they finally accepted him. He worked there
for 13 years until he had to be transferred because of his health. Now he
works on coil~, with no cut in pay.
He is grateful for the way Delco has
treated him. "They not only have not
objected to my career in music," he
sayd, "but they have actually encouraged it. They ask m· to play at many of
e
their company functions."
·
Nonetheless, Hardimon is keenly interested in Negro progress in skilled
trades and he is troubled by the fact
that there are so few of them employed
there. "There are plenty of qualified
Negroes who have applied for skilled
trades who haven't been accepted," he
said.
"There's not one Negro in defense
work here, although it's difficult to believe this has transpired because there
are no qualified Negroes," he said.
He ticked off a number of other areas
of employment where he would like to
. see more Negroes: drafting, engineering, office- boys, shop clerks, personnel,
stock room employes, and secretaries.
, "In some of these areas there are either no Negroes, or a lot fewer . than
there could be," he said.
"Delco was kind of slow to catch on
to this movement, but now it's really
starting to catch up," he said. "I think
ORV AL C. HARDIMON
things will continue to improve here
and at a faster pace."
As a union activist he has also developed a perspective on Negro response
to opportunities. "We tend to focus on
areas that we know are aleady integrated, and overlook the other areas that
are not yet integrate~. For instance,
there ara quite a few Negroes in electrical maintenance, but none in tool and
dye. I think we should continue knocking down those doors that are still
closed to us instead of concentrating on
the ones that are already open," Hardimon said.
He ack°'owledged that knocking down
new doors is more difficult than going
through ones that are already open, but
somebody has to be first, he said.
Hardimon recently turned down a
promotion because it would have interefered with his work as a musician. He
plays six instruments and is widely
known in the area for his musical talent.
He lives with his wife, who also works
at Delco, at 807 Locke St. "The area is
integrated," he said, "but quite a few
whftes have moved out. I don't know
how long it will stay integrated."
Hardimon has four children, one of
them a Marine in Vietnam who he is
beginning to worry about because he
has not heard from him in six weeks.
Another son works at Delco.
'25-Year Man' Says Struggle Was Long
Charles E. Greer Sr. is one of seven
members in his family who work at
Deko Radio. In addition to his wife and
a daughter, he has four brothers who
are employed in relatively prominent
positions there.
Greer, who recently received his 25year service pin, was taken on by Delco
as a janitor in 1943.
"That was about the only job a Negro
could get around here in those days,"
Greer said. "I worked as a janitor for
several years, although I always kept
requesting better work. Finally, in 1948
I was given a job setting up a maintenance crib, which brought some improvement.
"Later work opened up in oiler classification and I applied for and was accepted there. But it wasn't until about
six or seven years ago that they would
let Negroes into skilled trades. I took an
exam and apparently did all right, because they soon offered me a job as a
millwright and I have been working at
that since then. I have acquired quite a
bit of seniority now," Greer said.
It's been a long struggle, Greer said,
but he has finally reached a stage in life
where he can honestly say "I'm satisfied now." Naturally, he hopes such satisfaction will come to his four children
- all grown and married now - easier
and quicker than it came to him. He _
sees evidence that they may not have to
put up with as lll:uch discrimination as
he did in his early years
Greer enjoys experimenting with the
new freedoms guaranteed the Negroes
as a result of recent legislation, and although he still lives in a predominantly
Negro area he does so by choice and
not necessity. He owns an apartment
building at 1207 N. Pearl and lives down
the street from there.
He recently had his hair cut in a
white barbershop for the first time in
his life and is pleased to report that he
CHARLES GREER
was treated "wonderfully."
'' I poked my head in and asked what t
needed to get my hair cut," Greer recalls, "I ·wasn't quite sure what kind of
reception I'd get. They just shot back
- 'All you need is money.' I had the money, of course, so I went on in and the)
treated me so well I even went back a
few· weeks later to get my hair cut
again. Frankly, I was quite surprised at
how friendly they were. They even did a
good job on my hair."
.
Greer says the
freedoms guaranteed the Negro as a result of recent legislation take a little getting used to, but
he enjoys them.
"At first I didn't take advantage of
them," he says, "but gradually I have
started to. There is real satisfaction in
knowing that you can do things and go
places where you couldn't before. There
may still be a few places where
Negroes are made to feel unwelcome,
but they would be in the che_per, dira
tier joints where most Negroes don't
want to be anyway."
Although Greer is content with his
own life, he understands why there is
discontent among other Negroes and he
sympathizes with them. He would like
to see more Negroes in skilled trades
and more of them employed at Delco.
"Delco has really opened up in recent
years," he said, "but there are still
many areas in which improvement can
be made."
new
�Saturday, March 15, 1969
r
KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE 15
'If We Forgot Color, We Could Make More Progressj
William W. Wald9n, 47, 801 E. Dixon
St., has been employed by the same
firm for 22 years, and Miller Bender,
38, 1118 E. Monroe St., has been a coworker for 16 years.
Waldon is a general foreman ih the
wire bundling department of Continental Steel Corporation and Bender is a
metal-chaser in the steel division of the
blooming mill.
Both have positions of responsibility.
"I've tried to give my company the
best I could. If you do your job, you'll
have no trouble" said Waldon, who was
promoted to his present job last October.
"I hope that if I do my job well, it will
encourage management to trust other
Negroes with jobs of responsibility," he
says.
Bender, a native of Gallatin, Tenn., is
the only Negro ever to serve as commander of the Howard County Veterans
council, and he is one of only a few
Negroes ever to be a delegate from Indiana to the national American Legion
convention.
As part of his job he must be able to
recognize 88 different grades of steel.
That is a challenge, and "It offers
something new every day."
To Bender, the future "looks bright"
for the Negro.
"The future depends on me. I think
you can go as far as you want to go ...
if you choose to work hard enough. I
don't want the company to promote me
because I am Negro," he adds.
Waldon appreciates the way he has
been treated "as a man'' at Continental, and adds "Race has had nothing to
do with it."
Neither knew of any incidents that
they would construe as involving racial
discrmination in employment, but they
stressed that they were speaking from
their own experiences.
Bender has completed more than 2½
years of work toward a degree in law,
and he continues to take college level.
GEORGE E. JACKSON
HAROLD FISHER JR.
courses. Waldon attended Indiana University at Bloomington for one year following his graduation from Kokomo
High School in 1940.
Both Bender and Waldon are married, and both have children.
Waldon, an all-time great football
player for Kokomo High School, 1s a
veteran· of World War II, and Bender,
· the Korean War.
Bender has served four times as commander of American Legion Post· 117,
and he was a precinct committeeman in
his councilmanic district for a number
of years.
Bender is proud of his family. His father eraned seven dollars for six days
work when Miller and his five brothers
were growing up in Tennessee. Today,
Miller earns that much in a couple of
hours time on the job.
"Bu~, we were a close family. Our
parents were more like brothers and
sisters than parents," he says.
Bender has one brother who graduates this year from Tennessee State University, and another brother is an officer with the United States Army.
George . Bellamy Jr., Alan Kennedy
and Sterling M. Davis Jr. are employed
by Stellite Works, Union Carbide Corporation.
Bellamy 35, has worked there for 14
years-since he was discharged from
the U.S. Air Force where he served four
years as a military policeman.
Davis, 47, is a native of Washington,
D. C., and a talented musician, has
been a Stellite employe for 11 years and
Kennedy, 26, a recent Purdue graduate
has worked there since Jan. 27.
Being a Negro has caused Bellamy no
problems at Stellite, he said.
He did say he never did get an expla. nation as to why he didn't get a promotion once after he had been told he
would.
But, that has not left him bitter.
Bellamy was a floor leader until plant
structure was changed, and he has had
no trouble getting along with fellow employes.
"I just treat others like a man ... we
had guys who didn't know how to talk to
people. I learned in the service how to
communicate.
Bellamy, whose brother, Frank, is an
employe of Continental, says that he
was encouraged t0 recruit younger
Negroes to work for Stellite, but he says
he has little success in pursuading
them.
Bellamy is assigned to the melt-shop,
where he carries a Class A rating. He
started in the same department as a
helper in the big foundry.
Davis joined Stellite as a helper in the
melt shop, and he has worked his way
up to his present job as a metalurgical
technician, . a job he has been in for
about five years.
I can find no fault with my treatment
at Stellite. Considerating the fact that I
knew nothing about the job, I think I've
done about as well as the next guy.
"It all depends on what you want out
of life ... on what you want for your
family.
Davis wants a better life for his family bad enough that he cleans three offices each night after he gets off the job ·
at Stellite.
He attended Sherwood Music School
and Depaul University as well as Columbia College in Chicago, where he
met his wife,. a Kokomo native.
Davis said he wants no special favors
- just the chance to better himself,
which he has worked to do.
His family was the only Negro family
in an all-white neighborhood in Kalamazoo, Mich., where he lived for 21
years.
Other than the visible difference, he
doesn't consider himself any different
than any other person.
Kennedy at 26 is the youngest of the
three interviewed.
But, he is the only one to hold a college degree.
Sterling Davis,
CJ
l
Metalurgica/ Technican
He attended Purdue under a cooperative work-study program, and he
earned a bachelor of science degree in
mechanical engineering after five years
of effort.
He always wanted to go to college,
and he feels the Negro must better himself educationally and financially if the
Negro community is to become a
stronger part of over-all society.
Kennedy used a corporate organization as an example of what he meant.
He said that a corporation is made up
of di visions or departments, and if one
department is weak the over-all organization is weakened.
He feels the same about society.
''What the Negro needs to do is to
prepare himself so he can assume a
more responsible position in his community, and eventually he can gain economic and political control of his part
of the over-all community."
''Right now the doors for equal opportunity are opening and they may
open further, if not all the way. There
are so many things now that we can do
that it is almost not worthwhile to keep
picking at the minor things. We should
be concerned with getting an education
and strenghting ourselves financially "
he said.
'
The Negro who elevates himself will
"be independent and self-supporting,"
he added.
"What you do after you get that education, is up to you," Kennedy said.
Waldon, whose father (now dead) was
~ w~l~-known Kokomo barber, says
This is a world we've all got to live in.
So let's try to get along. I think there is
room for improvement in all of us."
A dedicated family man, Waldon feels
that love-for his family and for his fellow man, regardless of color-is the secret to some of the world's troubles.
Miller Bender was asked this question: "What do you prefer to be called .
.. a Negro, a black man or a colored
man?"
'' I would prefer to be called Miller,''
he answered.
'If we forgot color, we could make
more progress," George Edward Jackson, 1037 E. Richmond St., asserted,
and his statement received the approval of Harold Fisher Jr., 1261 E. Jefferson St.
Jackson is a production worker at
Chrysler Corp. transmission plant and
Fisher is laboratory technician. But
they were both hired as janitors, Fisher
in 1955 and Jackson in January 1960.
Both are married and Fisher has two
children for whom he wants "the best
education possible." Their own educations consist of high school and Fisher
attended the Indiana University extension here for one year.
They agree they will need more education for further advancements and
have future plans for obtaining it in order "to have a decent living .."
As Jackson put it, "Most Negroes
want to make enough to support a family without the wife having to work."
Organizations such as the NAACP·
(National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and CURE
(Committee for Urban and Rural Enri~hment) are working toward this goal,
Fisher and Jackson said, but "the surface has only just been scratched."
It is necessary for many persons to
come up with a solution where everyone
is satisfied with the end result the two
men believe and Jackson added:
"I.~ shouldn't be a totally black thing
and it shouldn't b.e a totally white thing.
It should be a joint effort."
They each feel an animosity from
some white persons around whom they
wor~, but the unvoiced censure probably. would be directed toward any minority group, they said.
''The white man has been our teacher
for the past four or five centuries ''
Jackson ~aid! "and ~e've been pretty
good pupils m learnmg everything he
has put on us to learn.
"Now I don't see the hangup in the
20th_ century with some running around
talkmg about the inability of the Negro
to grasp."
I! is going to take courage to reach a
satisfactory solution, they said and it
will be up to union.and industry to come
up with something "so that no one
whether he be white or black is going
to be left with the short e~d of the
stick."
MILLER BENDER
�16 KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE
Saturday, March 15, 1969
'Things Are Finally Beginning To Improve
James Whitfield has been fighting discrimination all of his life, but he thinks
things are finally beginning to improve.
He hopes they will continue to improve
so young Negroes coming up will not
have to face the ups and downs he has
faced.
Born and reared in Carlisle,- Ind., he
graduated there as class president, and
then went to Washington, D.C., to train
to become an electrician at the National
Radio Institute. After graduating he
tried getting into the union, but when
they saw the color of his skin, Whitfield
said, they stacked the exams with loaded questions so he would be sure to
flunk.
Although a qualified electrician, Whitfield said he couldn't get any work to
practice his trade. He had to settle for
being a lathe operator. His first break
finally came in Terre Haute while he
was working for Alis Chalmers Co.
"That company was more progressive
than was Indiana as a whole," he recalls.
Nonetheless he may not have broken
into the electrical maintenance field if
it had not been for a white friend who
his father had trained as a blacksmith,
Whitfield said.
"This friend helped me get off the
lathe and into electricity," he said,
"and seeing as I was already in the
UAW as a lathe operator, I did not have
to take a loaded test. Once I got into the
electrical maintenance field I found
that most people were interested in fair
play. ~he problem was that everybody
was reluctant to be the first to break a
precedent and let a Negro in."
Whitfield applied at Delco for work
when he heard they were hiring electrical maintenance workers. He came up
from Terre Haute in 1962 for an interview and he got the job.
He lived at 1015 E. Taylor, an all-Negro area, until earlier this year when he
_took advantage of the open housing
laws and moved with his wife and
daughter into a white neighborhood.
"I was very pleased with my reception in the new neighborhood," he said.
''One of our neighbors - a woman was heard to comment that she was
delighted Negroes were moving in, because it would give her children an opportunity to learn about Negroes first
hand, instead of being told about them
which tends to breed bias and prejudice. So far there have been no ugly
incidents. Whitfield is genuinely opt i m is tic
about the future, but he does have some
reservations about the speed and quality of improvement of Negro life.
"I think that misunderstandings are
more easily generated between the
races than are understandings. Whites
don't always understand Negroes, and
this troubles them; but they should understand Negroes don't- always under_.
stand whites, either.
"One of the things troubling the white
community is the movement toward
preferential treatment for Negroes. If a
people are behind the rest of society,
and things simply remain the same,
James Whitfield
Sees Improvements
then they'll never catch up. This explains why sometimes it's necessary to
show pr~ferential treatment to N_egroes.
It will help close the gap," Whitfield
said.
Whitfield said whites should understand the Negroes' skepticism about
"black capitalism." As a former black
capitalist himself he has a deep understanding of the problem.
"Negro businesses find it hard to survive in Negro communities because
there is no middle income group. There
are some very wealthy Negroes and
most of the rest are very poor and can't
afford to pay for sales and services often enough to support the Negro merchant."
Whitfield .tried black capitalism in a
radio-TV sales and service business in
Terre Haute for awhile. He thinks black
capitalism will become realistic as
more Negroes enter the middle income
groups, but as a panacea now it just
won't work frequently enough to be
really useful.
He wants to see more Negroes break
into skilled and craft trade unions. At
Delco there are several Negroes in
electrical trades, he said, but in many
others there are only one or two, and in
tool and dye he doesn't know of any.
Whitfield believes Delco has improved in its racial policies since he arrived in Kokomo and he also thinks the
city has improved, too; but there is still
tremendous progress to be made. He
would like to see a closer working relationship and better understanding between the two communities in striving .
to make that progress.
Whitfield has three sons in addition to
a daughter who is a senior a,t Kokomo
High School. One son works in the
chemistry lab at Delco, another is a
salesman .and the third is a junior at
Earlham College. -
Interracial Friendship Group
It's Goal - Good Relations With ALL People
'' All your strength is in your
union.
All your danger is in discord;
Therefore be at peace henceforward,
And as brothers live together."
Council of American Baptist Women.
Mrs. Tiller's plan was to create a program which would help women of different racial groups, and also different
faiths, to know and appreciate each other.
Longfellow put it one way in "The
Song of Hiawatha" in 1855. George
Moore expressed it more succinctly at
the turn of the century: "After all there
is but one race -humanity.''
The Interracial Friendship Group
puts the philosophy into practice on a
year-round basis, stating that its goal is_
simply "good relations with all peoples".
The Intergroup Friendship Program,
as it was originally called, was suggested by Mrs. Carl W. Tiller of Maryland
ih 1962. She was then chairman of
Christian social relations in the Christian service division of the National
Mrs. James G. Simmons provided the
impetus for organizing such a group in
Kokomo. Mrs. Simmons was then president of the Judson Association Baptist
Mission Society, and she and Mrs. Lorene Pitman were co-chairmen and
partners in forming a local group which
would participate in the program, as
outlined by the National Mission Women. The Inter-Racial Friendship Club of
Kokomo, now known as the Interracial
Friendship Group, held its first meeting
on Feb. 22, 1963, in Second Baptist
Church.
The group advances interracial understanding through personal contact.
Interracial Friendship
Special activities for the Interracial Friendship Group were discussed
during a planning session in the Big Wheel Restaurant this week. Shown
Membership is matched with a partner
of another race. They share the partnership for one year, during which they
dine together, shop together, attend
special programs or forms of entertainment together and visit each other's
homes.
On the fourth Tuesday Qf each month,
all of the women attend a general meeting, alternating in homes of members.
Their husbands and families are invited
to an annual summer picnic, a Christmas dinner and a basket dinner for
migrant workers each August.
New members of any race are w~lcome if they are sincerely interested in
the group's goal. There are now 37 members, and membership dues are 50 cents
per year. The group supports a special
project each year - in the past, it has
aided Kokomo Rescue Mission, Bona
Vista School and Friendship Home for
Girls. A similar project is being
planned _ year, and funds are raised
this
through an auction held annually and
through contributions from ·members
and their husbands.
Pr~grams planned this year include a
study of social problems in Kokomo, to
see how the group can channel its help
in an active manner; guest speakers
and illustrated travelogues, field trips
and visits to various area instituions.
Officers this year are Mmes. Edw~rd
Ray, leader; Paul Kellar, co-leader;
Ruth Gulliford, secretary; Jay Dimitt,
assistant secretary; Iola Oakley, treasurer; Avis Winburn, reporter, and Russell Reed. historian.
Mrs. Colleen Winburn is the representative to Women's Civic Council and
Mrs. Reed is alternate. Mrs. Charlotte
King and Mrs. Charles DeRolf are devotional leaders.
working on the year's program are (L-R) Mrs. Avis Winburn, Mrs. E. Arthur
Zellmer, Mrs. Phillip Johnston, Mrs. Paul Kellar Jr., Mrs. John Waddell,
Mrs. Russell Reed and Mrs. Russell Young. (Tribune Photo)
�KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE 17
The Negro
(Continued From Page 2)
tween the two nations. Disputes caused
by the asiento led to a renewal of war
between Britian and Spain in 1739, and
at the peace in 1748 the Spanish were
again compelled to give the asienlo _
to
the British.
As John Woolmari, a New Jersey
Quaker, wrote about the results of slavery in 1762: '' A wrong beginning leads
into many difficulties; for to support
one evil, another becomes customary;
two produces more·; and the further
men proceed in this way, the greater
their dangers, their doubts and fears,
and the more painful and perplexing
are their circumstances."
In 1776, the year of independence, the
population of the United States was _
about 2.5 million. Of this number, about
500,000 were Negroes. Since Negroes
made up one-fifth of the population, it
was obv:ious that they would be a factor
in the struggle.
As one historian has pointed out,
Negroes were receptive to ·the Revolution. Freed Negroes had little in the
way of property or land to risk in the
war. Slaves could earn-freedom by military service. Negroes had no ties of
blood or sentiment to bind them to Britain.
Negroes had roles in the events leading up to the Revolution and the early
engagements. One of the best remembered was Crispus Attucks, a Negro
killed in the so-called Boston Massacre
in 1770. Salem Poor and Peter Salem
earned high prise for their conduct at
Bunker Hill. Others served at Concord
and Lexington.
However, this early phase of using
Negroes as soldiers soon came to an
end. In October, 1775, General Washington and his officers agreed-oo-accept no
Negroes , either free or slave, as soldiers in the army.
British Not Idle
This view was adopted by Congress
and the several states, and for a time
Negro recuitment was suspended. The
Revolutionary leaders feared the army
would become a refuge for runaway
slaves, which would alienate southern
slaveholders from the cause of independence. Southerners also feared the
possible effect of arming slaves. In addition, it was thought the war would be
short and Negro manpower would not
be needed.
.
This last hope did not last long. By
1776, the New England states were en. listing Negroes to fill their quotas for
the army. Those who were slaves at the
time of enlistment were freed. Most of
the other states and Congress also
changed their minds on the need for
Negroes. Only Georgia and South Carolina ref used to the end to enlist
Negroes.
The British were not idle. In November, 1775, Lord Dunmore,--the last royal
governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation promising freedom to all slaves
who joined the armed forces of the
crown. The colonists were shocked and
horrified, and feared that slave insurrection would result. Drastic , punishment, including death, was promised to
slaves who answered Lord Dunmore's
call.
Nevertheless, within a month Lord
Dunmore enlisted 300 ex-slaves in an ''Ethiopian Regiment." They were
armed and uniformed, and across the
breast of each uniform was the slogan
"Libery to Slaves."
Regiments Integrated
Lord Dunmore was soon driven from
Virginia, but he had started something
which became . official _ British · pohcy
Throughout the war slaves attempted to
gain their freedom by reaching the
British lines. After the final American
victory, when the British forces left the
country, 14,000 Negroes who had served
with them went along. Most were settled in the West Indies arid Nova Scotia.
___
About 5,000 Negroes were in the
American forces, many of them serving
at sea. Only a few of the army units
were made up entirely: of Negroes. Most
Negro soldiers served in integrated re-
Saturday, March 15, 1969
,,,,,,.-----
••
~
J ..
-
!__ ~
5. 8%
t - '-•
•
~=u Methodist
~~~
...
Roman
. . -r-r- ~,_~ Catholic
•
_,__
-J ~
- rs
All Othe
7. 7%
2 3o/c
'
'
-
I
L
I-
·r
Baptist
63. 5%
-
., ....
n,
Estimated U.S. Negro Church Membership
giments, and many of these soldiers distinguished themselves.
Two Negroes were with Washington
when he made his famous crossing of
the Delaware on Christmas Day, 1776.
Another helped to capture the British
Gen. Richard Prescott at Newport, R.I.,
in 1777. A number of Negroes served as
spies, and provided valuable information to the American armies.
Negroes served in most of the major
battles, including Ticonderoga, Long Island,-White Plains, Trenton, Princeton,
Bennington, Brandywine, Stillwater,
Bemis Heights, Saratoga, Monmouth,
Savannah,·Stony Point, and Yorktown.
Many Freed For Service
Many Negroes received their freedom
as the result of service in the American
forces. Some slaves owned by loyalists
in the northern states were freed when
their masters' property was confiscated. But on the whole, the position of the
Negro was not greatly affected by the
Revolution.
There were some gains. The New
England states freed their slaves in the
revolutionary decade between 1774 and
1784. Pennsylvania took this action in
1780; New York in 1799, and New Jersey
in 1804.
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 forbade slavery in the western territory
north of the Ohio River, including what
became the state of Ohio.
Silent On Sia very
On the other hand, the Declaration of '
Independence was silent on slavery. A
denunciation of the slave trade written
by Thomas Jefferson was deleted from
the declaration because it •was unacceptable to the southerners.
The Constitution ·protected the slave
trade for 20 years and specified that
Congress could not prohibit it before
1808. Sia very also was protected by a
provision in the Constitution requiring
the return of fugitive slaves who escaped across state lines.
A similar fugitive slave clause was
included in the Northwest Ordinance,
even though that document banned
slavery in the territories.
Although the South refused to make
Negroes free men, it nonetheless
wished to have Negroes counted with
the population for purposes of determining the number of representatives
which the South could send to Congress.
Compromised on Count
The North opposed this demand, and
the result was one of the many compromises of the Constitution: three-fifth of
the slaves were counted and included in
determining southern representation:
The Declaration of Independence stated that ''all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights, that among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.''
But the Negrores in the new nation
founded upon this statement were well
aware that it did not apply to them.
The origins of the anti-slavery movement in the United States go back nearIr a century before the nation's independence.
In 1688, a Quaker group in Germantown, Pa., drew up the first protest
against slavery in this country. Samuel
Sewall, a Boston merchant, published a
pamphlet attacking slavery in 1700. But
the objectors were few in number.
Even in the North, slavery was widely accepted before tile Revolution. And
although the war resulted in some progress, most Negroes were unaffected by ·
the achievement of independence.
The slave trade came under attack
before the institution itself. The U.S.
and Britain abolished slave trading in
1808, and in ·the treaty which ended the
War of 1812 both nations agreed to do
everything they could to abolish the
traffic.
At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the
powers of Europe promised to end the
slave trade as soon as possible. In 1842
the U. S. and Britain agreed to station
naval vessels off the west coast of Africa to catch the slavers at the source of
supply.
But the slave trade continued. In 1858,
it was esimated that 15,000 slaves were
imported illegally ihto the U.S., and 85
ships were engaged in the trade.
The ban on the slave trade increased
the price of the slaves in the U.S. and
led to the development of a domestic
slave trade within the nation. As new
lands were cleared for plantation agriculture in the South and Southwest, particularly after the Mexican War, the demand for slaves grew. A thriving trade
developed between the states of the upper and lower South.
There was a surplus of slaves in the
northern tier ,of southern states, from
Maryland to Missouri. The life of the
slave in the border states was tolerable,
at least compared with that on the plantations in the deep South Slaves dread. ed being "sold down the river," with
the break-up of families which this often involved. But prices were high, and
it i& estimated that 80,000 slaves a year
were sold to the deep South m the decaae
of the 1850s.
Slavery did not lack for defenders in
the South. George Fitzhugh, a Virginia
lawyer, argued that slavery "Christianizes, protects, supprts,· and civilizes"
the slave. William Harper, a politician
in South Carolina, contended that slavery promoted "kindly relations" between master and slave. Owners had
the same self interest in preserving the
·health and well-being of their slaves as
they had in maintaining any other type
of property, Harper wrote.
The civilizing effect of slavery may
be gauged by the fact that the southern
states passed laws providing severe
penalties for those who taught slaves to
read. The North Carolina statute, for
instance, stated that "teaching the
slaves to read and write has a tendency
to excite dissatisfaction in their minds,
and to produce insurrection and rebellion." Fines and imprisonment were
penalties for whites who taught slaves
to read. In clddition, from 20 to 39 lashes
were provided as penalties for free
Negroes guilty of this offense·.
An English traveler, James Stirling,
commented on the supposed civilizing
effect of slavery by noting that the actual owners of the slaves, particularly
on large plantations, had little contact
with them, except for a. few house servants.
Overseers and slave drivers were in
charge of the work in the fields, and
they did not own the slaves. The overseer's interest was in a good production
record. If a slave died from mistreatment
and overwork, the actual owner usually
was in no position to challenge whatever explanation the overseer gave.
The growth of the antislavery movment, the foundation of abolition societies in Massachusetts, and the spread of
these organizations throughout the
country is a familiar story. lVlost of the
abolitionists were white: but Negroes
also worked to free their people.
One of the best-known Negro abolitionists was Frederick Douglass, who
escaped from slavery in Baltimore in
1838 and made his way to Massachusetts, where he became a leader in the
anti-slavery movement. Douglaas recruited many Negro soldiers for the Union army during the Civil War, and
lived to become U.S. minister to Haiti
after the war.
An attempt to free the slaves by force
was made in what is.called the Nat Turner Rebellion in Virginia i-n 1831. Turner, a slave and a lay preacher, led a
group of fellow slaves in a revolt during
which they killed about' 60 white persons. The revolt spread, and more than
100 slaves were killed by troops sent. to
suppress the rising. Turner and sev~ral
companions were captured and hanged.
Containment Effort
The Turner insurrection shocked the
white South, and led to repressive legislation designed to keep the slaves under
strict control. The South was roused
-again in 1859 when John Brown, with a
small party which i n c 1 u d ~ d five
Negroes, attacked the federal arsenal
at Harpers Ferry, Va. Brown's plan
was to use the weapons in the arsenal
to arm ,an army of liberation to free the
slaves.
Troops under the command of Col.
Robert E. Lee captured Brown, and he
and a number of companions were
hanged.
.
In the realm of practical politics, the
anti-slavery struggle gradually evolved
into an attempt to contain slavery in
the South and prevent its spread into
new territories as the United States expanded in the West.
A basic compromise was reached in
1820 when Missouri was admitted as a·
slave state, but slavery was excluded
from all the rest of the territory in the
Louisiana Purchase north of Missouri's
southern boundary.
The compromise was strained when
Texas, a slave state, obtained its independence from Mexico and applied for
admission to the Union. This led to the
Mexican War, and the annexation of the
Southwest and Cali(ornia.
After the admission of Texas , the
split between the sections was bridged
by a new compromise in 1850. Califor
nia was admitted as a free state, a• l
the remaining territories organi zed
(Continued on Page 18)
�18 KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE
Saturday, March 15, 1969
A Mother Wonders:
(Editor's note - The following was
written by Mrs. Sandra Clark Haggerty
and appeared in the Oakland (Calif.)
Tribune in June, 1968.)
Black children, raised in a world
bombarded by the influences (T.V.,
magazines, movies, etc.) of the white
establishment develop very early identity conflicts.
Even in families, such as my own,
where there is a conscious effort to give
our children a positive Black indoctrination (I feel an effort must be made
because the white influences ar:e absorbed regardless of what we as parents do or do not do) they come up with
questions and statements which indicate or show clearly, that already race
identity is taking place.
It has been my experience that sometimes their statements are humorous
and at other times tragically sad (at
which times I am even more fervently
in favor of the Black is Beautiful indoctrination.)
·
Teaching a child to "like" being
Black in a white society is no small task
The Negro
(Continued From Page 17)
without mention of slavery. A more
stringent fugitive slave act was balanced by the abolition of the slave trade
in the District of Columbia.
Balance Upset
~
The precarious balance of the compromises was upset by the act organizing the Kansas and Nebraska territories
in 1854. The act repealed the Missouri
Compromise and left it to the settlers to
determine whether a territory should be
free or slave. The immediate consequence was a preview of the Civil War,
as settlers from the North and Sm:1th
fought bitterly in Kansas in an attempt
to determine that territory's stand on
slavery.
The final blow to compromise came
with the Supreme Court's decision in
the Dred Scott case in 1857. Scott was a
slave in Missouri whose master took
him to live in the free territory of
Minnesota. He sued for his freedom on
this basis, but the court denied it.
The court then went beyond the Scott
case and ruled that the Missouri Compromise had been unconstitutional. Congress had no right to exclude slavery
from any territory. In effect, the decision removed what hope remained for a
peaceful solution to the slavery controversy.
When the Civil War begain in 1861 it
was not widely regarded in the North as
a crusade to end slavery. The South had
seceded to form an independent nation,
and most northerners saw the war as a
means of restoring and preserving the
Union.
But the slave was a factor in the war
from the beginning, as had been the
case during the Revolution. An attack
on slavery provided the North with one
method of weakening the power of the
South, as it had the British in 1775.
Early in 1861, slaves sought refuge in
_
Fortress Monroe in Virginia, commanded by ·the Union's Gen. Benjamin Butler. General Butler· declared them to be
contraband of war who should not be
returned to their owners. Later in 1861
Congress passed a confiscation act
which prqvided that slaves used by the
Confederacy with the consent of their
masters would be freed whenever they
fell into the hands of the Union forces.
The northern states refused to enlist
Negroes in the army at the start of the
war, just as they had done at the beginning of the Revolution. And once again,
the prolongation of the war and heavy
casualties created a manpower shortage which caused the states to change
their position.
When Do Easy Questions Come?
and has and probably will continue. to
give me, as well as other black parents,
some very tenuous moments.
Perhaps paradoxically, I believe that
this generation that is now in the preschool age group, will be great "integrationists" but my hope is that this generation of Black people will be so
proud of being black that their strength
and beauty (derived directly from this
proudness) will be coveted by both
black and white.
A recent conversation with my own
child is a case in point.
Undershirt, panties, nightgown ... I
gathered the nightly after-bath paraphernalia for my three-year-old daughter. She sat on the edge of the bed looking down at her body. Quite thoughtfully she began, "I just don't know why
"
'
"Why what, Honey ... "
Still looking down at her body, "I just
don't know why I'm this color."
"What color?" I tried to let her lead
the conversation.
"Brown," she said.
"Well, Honey, you're brown because
Reluctance to enlist Negrores was
based in part by the fear of the Lincoln
administration that such action would
alienate the border slave states and
ca use them to secede and join the Confederacy. But the war went on, and by
1863 the ·North began to recuit Negroes
in earnest.
Altogether about 185,000 Negroes
were enrolled in the Union army. Of
this total, 93,000 came from the seceded
states of the Confederacy, 40,000 from·
the border slave states and 52,000 from
the northern states.
Negro soldiers served in 499 engagements, including 39 major battles. A total of 68,178 died in the service. Most
Negroes served in segregated regiments with white officers. Few Negroes
received commissions.
The Confederacy was outraged by the
use of Negro troops and threatened to
treat Caputured Negro soldiers as rebellious slaves. A few Negro prisoners
were sold into slavery, and others were
.killed. The worst incident occurred in
1864, when Confederate troops under
Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest .captured
Fort Pillow, which was garrisoned by
Negro troops. The Negro soldiers were
not permitted to surrender and were
killed without mercy.
However, Washington demanded that
captured Negro soldiers be treated as
prisoners of war, and there were many
Confederate prisoners in the North to
give the southerners cause to reflect. In
fact, the Confederacy did hold many
Negro soldiers as prisoners of war.
Indeed, the manpower shortage eventually forced the Confederacy itself to
turn to the Negro. Negro labor was, of
course, widely employed, but this did
not fill the depleted ranks of the army.
In 1864, the Confederate Gen. Patric.k
Cleburne proposed that slaves be enlisted, with the promise of freedom at the
end of the war. Several southern governors made a similar proposal in the
same year.
Finally in March 1865, the Confederate Congress authorized the recruitment of Negroes, after the proposal was
endorsed by Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Negroes were enlisted in the Confederate army, but the end of the war was
too near for this to have any effect.
In 1862, acting on the -recommendation of Lincoln, Congress emancipated
the slaves in the District of Columbia.
Lincoln believed that the slaveowners
should be compensated for the loss of
their property, and payment was provided not to exceed $300 for each slave.
A curious feature of this measure,
which was supported by Lincoln, was
the appropriation of $100,000 to finance
the voluntary e m i g r a t i o n of free
little girls and boys are the same color
that their parents are."
"But you're not brown, Mommie."
(I'm what is called a fair skinned,
bright Negro.)
·
"Well, Honey, Daddy is Brown. Sometimes little girls look like their mommies and sometimes they look like their
daddies."
Thinking that was a pretty good explanation so far, I watched for signs of
acceptance.
"I don't want to look. like Daddy ... I
want to look like you."
"But you already look like you.
Brown. And that's the way we love you.
That's what makes you very · special.
Your Daddy and I love our little brown
girl.
"O.K., Mommie," she said. I tucked
her into bed. She was through talking
about the issue (for the moment) but I
could see she was_ through thinking
n't.
about it. ·
As r turned off the light, I couldn't
help musing, "When do the easy questions come? You know; like "where do
babies come from?" and "how can God
know everything?"
Negroes to Haiti and the republic of
Liberia in Africa. Liberia had been
founded in the 1820s by the American
Colonization Society, which settled the
country with freed Negroes from the
United States.
On Jan. 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation. It was
conceived as a war measure to weaken
the South, and freed only the slaves in
the states, or parts of states, which
were in rebellion. It did not affect about
800,000 slaves in the border states which
were loyal. And, of course, it brought
no immediate relief to the slaves in the
states still controlled by the Confederacy.
Despite the essential moderation of
the proclamation, it produced an unfavorable reaction among some northerners. White· workers feared that they
would lose their jobs to freed slaves
who would work for smaller wages.
Battles between white and Negro workers took place in m~ny nothern cities.
-In New York City in 1863 Negro workmen replaced longshoremen who were
on strike. Some of the idle longshoremen
then were drafted. The draft riots followed, and many Negro homes were
burned by the mob.
Nevertheless, despite its limited objectives, the Emancipation Proclamation meant that slavery was doomed in
the United States. Frederick Douglass
accurately described the proclamation
as "the first step on the part of the nation in its departure from the thralldom
of ages."
On Dec. 18, 1865, the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution took effect. The amendment abolished slavery,
and high hopes were held that this
would be the beginning of an accelerated program to achieve first-class citizenship for Negroes. The history of the
next 30 years was in part a record of
how those hopes were frustrated.
In the decade after the end of the Civil War, Congress a·pproved a substantial
body of legislation designed to improve
the lot of the Negro. One of the most
comprehensive of these was the Civil
Rights Act of 1866.
The act of 1866 extended citizenship to·
persons born in the United States, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of slavery. Negro citizens were
declared to have the same right "to
make and enforce contracts, to sue, be
parties, and give evidence, to inherit,
purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey
real and personal property, and to full
and equal benefit of all law and proceedings for the security of person and
property, as is enjoyed by white citizens.''
( The act of 1866 was invoked by plain-
tiffs, and sustained by the Supreme
Court in a decision in 1968. The court
then ruled that discrimination in all
housing sales or rentals is illegal.)
Congress provided additional means
to assure protection for Negroes with
the Fourteenth Amendment, which took
effect in 1868. The amendment forbade
the states to make any law to abridge
the privileges of citizenship; deprive
any person of life, liberty, or property
without due process of law; or deny any·
person the equal protection of the laws.
In 1870 the Fifteenth Amendment declared that the right of citizens to vote
should not be denied or abridged on ac_ount of race, color, or previous condic
tion of servitude.
The extension of the vote to the Negro
met with considerable opposition, even
in the North, and what happened in
Ohio illustrated this clearly.
The Ohio Constitution originaTiy limited the franchise to white citizens. The
General Assembly amended the constitution in 1867 to eliminate the word
''white,'' and submitted the amendment
to the voters. It was badly beaten.
·
After the adoption of the Fifteenth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
Negroes could vote in Ohio, regardless
of the wording in the state constitution.
But the word "white" remained as an
anachronism in the Ohio Constituion,
and attempts were made to get rid of it.
Amendments to achieve this were_submitted to the voters in 1873, and again
in 1912, and were defeated both times.
It was not until the election· of 1923
that the word "white" finally was removed from the state constitution, 53
years after it ceased to have any legal
meaning.
Opposition to the vote for Negroes of
course was much stronger in the South.
· In 1866, Confederate veterans - in
Tennessee organized the Ku Klux Klan.
Members of the organization were
masked and wore white robes, and their
purpose was to intimidate Negroes and
preserve white supremacy in the South.
Congress Responds
In response, Congress passed the
Force Act of 1871, which gave the president extraordinary powers to deal with
the Ku Klux Klan conspiracy.
However, the Supreme Court in 1882
decided that the _
Force Act was unconstitutional.
There were other more effective
ways to keep the Negro from voting.
Mississippi led the way by adopting a
literacy test, administered by whites,
which the prospective voter was required to pass before casting his ballot.
This was upheld by the Supreme
Court. This act would also eliminate
(Continued on Page 19)
�The Negro
(Continued From Page 18)
white voters, so Louisiana got around
this by enacting what was called a
grandfather clause. This excused from
taking the literacy test those who
grandfathers had vot~<l before 1867. The
Supreme Court finally threw this out in
1915.
Restricted Privacy
Still other means remained, including
the poll tax and the restrictioq of the
Democratic primary to white voters.
Nomination by the Democratic party
was the equivalent of election in the
South. The net effect of these measures
was that for all practical purposes the
Fifteenth Amendment remained a dead
letter in the South until very recent
times.
Congress passed the Civil Rights Act
of 1875, a measure which has a modern
ring.
The act stipulated that all persons, regardless of race or color, were entitled
to the equal enjoyment of accommodations and privileges of "inns, public
conveyances on land or water, theaters,
and other places of public amusement."
However, in 1883, the Supreme Court
held that the restrictions of the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbade the
abridgement of the privileges of citizens, applied only to states, and not to
individuals.
"It would be running the slavery argument into the ground to make it apply to every act of discrimination which
a person may see fit to make as to the
guests he will entertain, or as to the
people he will take into his coach or cab
or car, or admit to his concert or theater, or deal with in other matters of
intercourse or business," the court declared.
case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, the court
firmly established segregation as a legal principle.
Plessy, a mulatto, was arrested for
ref using to vacate a seat - had occuhe
pied in a coach reserved for whites on a
railroad in Louisiana. The charges
against Plessy were based on a Louisiana statute of 1890, which required the
railroads to provide separate but equal
accommodations for white and Negro
passengers. Plessy contended the Louisiana statute was fnvalid because of the
Fourteenth Amendment, and appealed
to the Supreme Court.
· Louisiana Law Upheld
On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court
upheld the Louisiana law in a decision
which said, in part:
"The object of the (Fourteenth)
Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce
the absolute equality of the two races
before the law, but in the nature of
things it could not have been intended
to abolish distinctions based upon color,
or to enforce the social, as distinguished from political equality, or a
commingling of the two races ...
"Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where
they are liable to be brought in contact
.. . have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the compe-
the recent amendments to the Constitution ... "
The justice concluded that "the thin
disguise of equal accommodations for
passengers in railroad coaches will not
mislead anyone, nor atone for the
wrong this day done."
It took exactly 58 years for the Supreme Court to come around to Harlan's opinion.
In the 20th century, the American
Negro moved from the southern farm to
the northern city.
In 1860, 4.1 million of . the 4.5 million
Negroes in the United States lived in
the South. Some moved to the North
during and after the Civil War, but the
migration did not begin in earnest until
the end of the 19th century. By 1960,
half of the 18.9 million Negroes in the
nation were living outside the statesthat had formed the Confederacy.
This migration had several causes,
one of which was growing repression of
the Negro in the South. As the Civil War
receded into history, legislation in the
southern states increasingly restricted
the Negro.
Cotton agriculture declined, and at
the same time whites obtained most of
the factory jobs which became available in southern cities. Meanwhile, the
North was experiencing a tremendous
KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE 19
Saturday, March 15; 1969
NAACP Formed
In 1910, the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) was organized, as an outgrowth of the Springfield riot two years
earlier. Mr DuBois was the editor of the
NAACP publication, and the purpose of
the organization was to fight for civil
and political liberty for Negroes.
Not long after the NAACP was
formed, the National Urban League was
organized. The Urban League soon became concerned with the problems of
housing and employment created by
Negro migration to northern cities~
Negroes served in the foreign wars of
the United States, as they had in the
Revolution and the Civil War.
In 1939, Attorney General Frank Murphy set up a civil liberties unit in the
Justice Department, and in 1841 the
president established the Committee on
Fair Employment Practices. The committee, which had limited enforcemel)t
powers, was established to eliminate
discriminatory employment pradices
among companies and unions working
on government contracts.
During World War II about one million Negro men and women served in
"To Thine Own Self Be True."
Applied To Corporations
In 1886, the Supreme Court reinterpreted the Fourteenth Amendment in a
significant manner. The word ''person,''
in the clause which forbade the states
to " deprive any person of life, liberty or
property without due process of 1a\Y"
was held to include a corporation. The
clause was successfully invoked to
prevent the states from regulating corporations.
Thus, the Fourteenth Amendment,
which was designed to protect the
rights of Negroes, was used until recent
times to keep the states from controlling corporate business.
The steam went out of the civil rights
movement with the election of 1876. It
appeared that Samuel Tilden, the Democratic candidate, had won, since he
had more popular votes than Rutherford B. Hayes, the-Republican candiate.
But the electroal votes of Louisiana ,
South Carolina, and Florida were contested, and presidents are chosen by
electoral votes.
There was widespread fraud in the
election, and Congress appointed an
electoral commission to decide who
would receive the votes of the three
states. Tension was high and there were
fears of a renewed attack of civil strife.
Eventually the commission decided that
Mr. Hayes had been elected. In return
Mr. Hayes promised to remove the federal troops from the South, where· they
had been in occupation since the end of
the Civil War.
Rights Sacrificed
Mr. Tilden acquiesced in the decision,
which has been called the Compromise
of 1877, in order to prevent another upheaval in the nation.
Mr. Hayes kept his promise, and
promptly recalled the federal troops.
With the departure the Federal Government lost its most effective means of
enforcing equality for Negroes .• Negro
civil rights in effect were sacrificed to
the cause of peace.
The Supreme Court, which has done
so much in recent years to advance the
cause of civil rights for Negroes, played
the opposite role after the Civil War.
Congress then was pushing the cause of
the Negro, and the Supreme Court
struck down some congressional enactments. In one important ruling, the
Thomas Nast Cartoon on Passage of Civil Rights Acf of 1875
tency of the state legislatures in exercise of their police power. "The most common instance of this is
connected with the establishment of
separate schools for white and colored
children, which has been held to be a
valid exercise of the legislative power
even by courts of states where the political rights of the colored race have
been the longest and most earnestly enforced.''
The Supreme Court denied that segregation "stamps the colored race with a
badge of inferiority, and added: Legis-lation is powerless to eradicate racial
instincts or to abolish distinctions based
upon physical prejudices."
Harlan Prophesy
The court voted 7 to 1 against Plessy,
and the-dissenter Justice Marshall Harlan, declared that the judgment would
' 'in time prove to be quite as prenicous
as the decision made by this tribunal in
the Dred Scott case."
.Justice Harlan said that, , despite the
constitutional amendments, "it seems
that we have yet, in some of the states,
a dominant race - a superior class of
citizens, which assumes to regulate the
enjoinment of civil rights, common to
all citizens, on the basis of race."
The Plessy decision: Justice Harlan
argued; "will not only stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal and irritating,
upon the admitted rights of colored citizens, but will encourage the belief that
it is possible, by means of state enactments, to defeat the beneficent purposes which the people of the United
States had in view when they adopted
industrial expansion. In the 20th century, Negroes from the South began to
compete with immigrants from Europe
for jobs in northern factories.
The two world wars enormously accelerated the Negro migration. About
480,000 Negroes came north between
1910 and 1920, twice as many as in the
preceding decade. The migration continued during the boom of the 1920s,
when about 800,000 Negroes left the
South. This figure was cut in half during the Depression of the 1930s, but
picked up again with the start of World
War II.
During the years between 1940 and
1960, which included World War II, the
Korean War, and a period of continuing
prosperity, about three million Negroes
left the South for the North or the west
coast.
Most of the migrants settled in • or
near the big cities, where the jobs were.
They lived in the older sections in the
downtown areas of the cities, where the
rents were cheap. Often neighboring
areas would be settled by white migrants from the South, or nationality
groups from Europe. Tensions and hostilities developed between the neighboring areas in the center city. There were
frequent acts of individual violence, and
occasionally race riots--erupted.
, There were race riots in many cities,
including: Springfield. Ill., in 1908, East
St. Louis, Ill., in 1917; Chicag9 in 1919;
Harlem in 1935; and Detroit in 1943.
Hundreds were killed and injured; and
there was extensive property loss in
these and other outbreaks.
the armed forces. Unites were segregated, as they had been in the past, and
the all-Negro 92nd Infantry Division
was reactivated.
The Committee on Fair Employment
Practices I wa/ killed by Congress in
1946, but Harry S. Truman, the new
president, took a much more forceful
position on civil rights for Negroes than
his precedecessors had taken.
Truman Orders Help
Mr. Truman put an end to segraga, tion in the armed forces by executive
order. The president also sent to Congress a civil rights program which included legislation against lynching, the
poll tax, and segregation in transportation. Mr. Truman also asked for fair
employment practices legislation.
Mr. Truman was unable to get his
civil rights program through Congress.
But he did. issue executive orders barring discrimination in federal employment, and on work done on government
contracts. He also created an advisory
Committee on Civil Rights.
The modern civil rights movement
stems from a decision of the .Supreme
Court in the case of Brown vs. Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas, on May
18, 1954. The decision reversed the
Pl3ssy vs. Ferguson ruling of 1896, and
declared that segregation in public
schools was a violation of the 14th
Amendment.
"We conclude," the court said, "that
in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no
place. Separate educational facilities ,.,
are inherently unequal."
�20 .KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE
Saturday, March 15, 1969
RUBY DEE
The Black Stars
PERRY RODRIGUEZ
Negroes have always played an important role in American entertainment, but never have they been more in.
demand than they are today.
Television is starting to recognize and
take advantage of Negro talent. This
season, there are at least 16 performers
em ployed as regulars in prime-time
television shows. Diahann Carroll, popular singer and broadway actress, is
staring in her own series, ''Julia.'' Ruby
Dee and Percy Rodriques, well-known
actors before coming to television, are
featured in "Peyton Place," and Robert ,
Hooks, actor-producer for the Negro
Ensemble Company involved in Black
Theater, is one of the stars of
"N.Y.P.D."
DIAHANN CARROLL
/;
;~ ,
1
Others seen in series this season are
Greg Morris, "Mission: Impossible";
Ivan Dixon, ,'Hogan's Heroes"; Nichelle Nichols, "Star Trek"; Gail Fisher,
"Mannix"; Don Marshall, "Land of the
Giants"; Chelsea Brown, "Rowan and
Martin's Laugh-in"; Otis Young, "The
Outcasts"; Clarence Williams, "Mod
Squad"; Marc Copage, "Julia"; Don
Pedro Colley, "Daniel Boone"; Don
Mitchell, "Ironside"; and Glynn Turman, "Peyton Place."
In other fields of entertainment, a list
of all-time great Negro performers
would ·have to include Ira Aldridge,
Buddy Bolden, Black Patti, Ernest Hogan, Bert Williams, Florence Mills and
1
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.
Others not soon to be forgotten are:
actors - Charles Gilpin, Hattie McDaniel, Rose McClendon, Paul Robeson,
Canada Lee, Claudia McNeil, Sidnev
Poitier, Ossie Davis, Daina Sands and
Cloria Foster.
Comics - Sam Lucas. Ernest Hogan, ·
Bert Williams, Billy King, Billy Higgins, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson,
Dusty Fletcher, Jackie ''Moms'' Mahley,
Pigmeat Markham, Nipsey Russell,
Godrey Cambridge and Dick Gregory.
Concert singers - Marie Selika, Eliz-abeth T. Greenfield, Sissieretta Jones,
Roland Hayes, Marian ;\nderson, Dorothy Maynor, Muriel Rahn, Camilla Williams, William Warfield, Leontyne
Price~Mattiwilda Dobbs and Adele Addison.
Popular singers - Ma Rainey, Bessie
Smith, Ella Fitzgerlad, Jimmy Rushing,
Billie Holiday, Mable Mercer, Nat
"King" Cole, Lena Horne, Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles and Nina Simone.
Gospel singers - Mahalia Jackson,
Marion Williams, Alex Bradford, Edna
Galmon Cooke, Brother John Sellers,
James Cleveland, Sister Tharpe, The
Caravans, The Ward Singers, The Nightingales, The Martin Singers, The Staples Singers.
Folk Musicians - Jelly Roll Morton,
Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leroy Carr, Pinetop Smith, Lonnie Johnson, Memphis
Slim, Bertha "Chippie" Hill, Big Bill
Broonzy, Memphis Minnie, Brownie
McGhee 1 Sonny Terry and Josh White.
Dancers - Ida Forsyne, Johnny Hug..gins, Janet Collins, Bill Bailey, Nicholas
Brothers, Katherine Dunham, Pearl
Primus, Mary Hinkson, Arthur Mitchell, Camen de Lavallade and Alvin Ailey.
Jazz personalities - King Oliver,
Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fats
Waller, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton,
Charlie Parker, Theolnious Monk, Dizzie
Gillespie, Charlie Mingus and Miles
Davis.
OTIS YOUNG
NICHELLE NICHOLS
DON MARSHALL
GAIL FISHER
.:..
CLARENCE WILLIAMS III
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Black History at IU Kokomo
Description
An account of the resource
Images and digitized records related to the history of black students, staff, and faculty in the IU Kokomo community.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1945-2020
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Newspaper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Focus on a Proud People
Description
An account of the resource
Special issue of the Kokomo Tribune published to promote IU Kokomo's "Focus: Black America" events
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Kokomo Tribune
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1969-03-15
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KA00040-007
KA00040-008
KA00040-009
KA00040-010
KA00040-011
KA00040-012
KA00040-013
KA00040-014
KA00040-015
KA00040-016
KA00040-017
KA00040-018
KA00040-019
KA00040-020
KA00040-021
KA00040-022
KA00040-023
KA00040-024
KA00040-025
KA00040-026
1960s
Black history
Campus
Community
events
Focus: Black America
Newspaper
-
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PDF Text
Text
IUK ARCHIVES
r
April 28, 1967
To:
All Resident Faculty, IoUo Kokomo Campus
From:
Victor Mo Bogle I Dean
Subject:
"Project Griddle"
This is to inform you of our plans to implem nt a proposal reoentl.7
prepared by our faculty Academic Development COJIJ?littee to solve tor all
time the alleged communications gap between stwients and faculty.
or
The proposal calls for the scheduling
"dialogue" sessions in the
student Commons on Friday afternoons to which an open invitation will be
extended to all Kokomo Campus studentso A representative group or resident
faculty will be on hand to field any questions which students Dl:lY care to
direct to them on any subject, i.e., Viet Nam, the draft., civil rip.)lts,
"black power." student uprisings, "Is God dead.," etco, etco The sessions
will be strictly informal; the idea will be to develop an effective dialogue
in which faculty and students share equall.70
Because it is anticipated that portions ot the dialogue or debates will
become quite heated, we are calling the series or Friday afternoon sessions
nProject Griddleo"
The initial session ot the series is scheduled tor Friday, May 5, from
.):00 to 5:00 pomo we will do what -we can in the meantime to publicize and
promote the effort among our student body in order that we will have a sizeable
group or students in attendanceo As a special incentive we ~ill provide
donuts and coffeeo
lthmbers or the tacu.lt7 are welcomed at all of the weekly sessions., but
in order to insure a representative segment or the faculty at every session,
Bo RI) Davidson has prepared the following ''duty- roster":
Ma.y 5
May l2
Ma,y 19
Bogle
Wmo Taylor
Davidson
Bosch
Gm7
Dave Hanig
Ro Taylor
Wilke
Jeffers
Ruth Hanig
Coughanowr
Goldstein
Hennon
Miller
Ardrey
levy
Busailah
Caudill
Boneham
Poling
May 26,
Mro Davidson hopes that we can abide closely- to this faculty distribution;
but if' you do have a time conflict, please see him abo1.1t arranging a substituteo
It carried out properly, "Project Gridd.l.e" could have some positive results tor students a.nd faculty allkeo It might even be a pleasurable experienceo I hope that you will join your colleagues in this academic experimento
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bogle, Victor M.
Title
A name given to the resource
"Project Griddle" memo
Description
An account of the resource
Memo to all resident faculty by Victor Bogle describing new "griddle" events to facilitate communication between students and faculty
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1967-04-28
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KA00067-001
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Black History at IU Kokomo
Description
An account of the resource
Images and digitized records related to the history of black students, staff, and faculty in the IU Kokomo community.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1945-2020
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
"Project Griddle" memo
Description
An account of the resource
Memo sent to all resident faculty by Victor Bogle introducing new events to facilitate dialogue sessions on campus
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1967-04-28
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KA00067-001
1960s
Black history
Campus
events
Faculty
Griddle
Students
-
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a33186f4571d82ef226eb87aba2ad875
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Black History at IU Kokomo
Description
An account of the resource
Images and digitized records related to the history of black students, staff, and faculty in the IU Kokomo community.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1945-2020
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photograph
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Herbert Miller facilitates racial diversity panel
Description
An account of the resource
Panel was part of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day events
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1993-01-11
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
image\jpeg
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KP0003034
1990s
Black history
Campus
Community
events
Herbert Miller
Students