THEWHITEST HISTORICALLY IN AMERICA - appstate.edu

THE WHITEST
HISTORICALLY
BLACK COLLEGE
BY SHEREEN MARISOL AMERICA

INMERAJI & GENE DEMBY

Although it still -XSTIRIHMRXLIPEXIXLGIRXYV]EWXLI&PYI½IPH
receives the federal Colored Institute, created to educate the children
funding that comes of black coal miners in segregated West Virginia.
with its designation Although it still receives the federal funding that
as a historically black comes with its designation as a historically black
MRWXMXYXMSRXSHE]&PYI½IPH7XEXI'SPPIKIMW
institution, today percent white.The road that separates those
&PYI½IPH7XEXI'SPPIKI realities is as rocky as any story of racial transition
is 90 percent white. in post-World War II America.
;I[IRXXSXLIGEQTYWSJ&PYI½IPH7XEXIXSWII
Click on the image to visit the what campus life was like at this unusual college.
school website.
&PYI½IPH7XEXI
'SPPIKIMWGEV ZIH
MRXSXLIWMHISJ
a hill overlooking
the train tracks
ERHXLIXS[R
below.This is
SRISJX[S
signs about the
school’s history
that sit at the
ZIV ]XSTSJ
campus.

8LIZIV]½VWXWXYHIRX[IQIX%RXSRMS&SPHIR
or Tony as he introduced himself, looked like
any other student you might see at a historically
black college or university (HBCU). He’s a laid-
back 19-year-old, stocky with shoulder-length
HVIEHPSGOWERHKVIIRI]IW&YXEX&PYI½IPH7XEXI
Tony is an outlier for several reasons. He’s a
teenager; the average age of his classmates is
27. He started college right after high school;
many of his classmates are working full-time jobs,
raising children, or both. And of course, he’s black,
whereas the student body is only historically so.

8SR]GEQIXS&PYI½IPH7XEXIXSTPE]FEWIFEPP
hoping to win the starting spot on third base. But
he was surprised by what he found when he got
XSGEQTYW±1]½VWXXLSYKLX[EW8LIVIEVIEPSXSJ
white people,” he said.

“Where all the black people at?”

WHERE
8LIWXSV]SJ&PYI½IPH7XEXI´W THE BLACK
racial transformation is wrapped PEOPLE WENT
up in many of the big political
and economic upheavals of the -RWXMXYXI&]XLIWXLIWGLSSP
PEXIXLGIRXYV]EPXLSYKL]SY was a football power among black
might not guess it from the colleges and a stepping stone for
serene setting. much of the region’s black middle
class.
The college is tucked into
the side of a hill, and folks at In 1954, just a few years
the school joke about having EJXIV&PYI½IPH7XEXIIEVRIHJYPP
to climb up and down the EGGVIHMXEXMSRXLI7YTVIQI'SYV X
campus. A lot of the folks we declared segregation illegal in
spoke to apologized for the Brown v. Board of Education,
campus’s humble surroundings, reshaping the landscape of
which seemed odd to us. It was %QIVMGE´WWGLSSPMRK7YHHIRP]FPEGO
gorgeous. students had more educational
options to choose from, in theory
When we arrived, the trees anyway. And black colleges and
in the mountains that ring the YRMZIVWMXMIWPMOI&PYI½IPH7XEXI
city were just starting to change began having to compete with
color. From the stairs of Conley better-funded predominantly white
Hall, the building at the top of schools for top black students.
the hill, you can survey the entire
campus, train tracks cutting At the same time, new
across the valley below. technology was making mining
jobs obsolete, and many black folks
This part of West Virginia was started leaving the state, heading
coal country and still is — trains North to go work in the factories.
still haul coal along those tracks White veterans started coming
hugging the college’s southern FEGOXS;IWX:MVKMRMEEJXIV½KLXMRK
edge. Many of the black folks in Korea. And with the government
who migrated to West Virginia footing their tuition costs through
to work that coal sent their the G.I. Bill, the state’s inexpensive
GLMPHVIRXSXLI&PYI½IPH'SPSVIH

“We had an out-migration of students
of color because of Board of Ed,”

b.MQ2IPWSREWTSOIWQERJSVXLIWGLSSP

black schools — the other was XLIFSSO&PYI½IPH7XEXI'SPPIKI
;IWX:MVKMRME7XEXI9RMZIVWMX] Centennial History, Hardway
— started looking more and had hired 23 new faculty
more attractive to white members — all of whom were
students. white.The book goes on to
“at roughly the same time say that the college’s dedicated
that we had an in-migration faculty, which had been all-black
of largely Caucasian students EWVIGIRXP]EW[EWSRP]
wanting to use their G.I. Bill percent black by 1967. If there
FIRI½XW7SXLEX´W[LEXEWQYGL was a tug of war over what the
EWER]XLMRKXLEX´W[LEX¾MTTIH college was going to be, many
the complexion of the school.” of the black alumni and students
JIPXXLI][IVIPSWMRK&PYI½IPH
&]XLIQMHW&PYI½IPH 7XEXI[EWUYMGOP]FIGSQMRK
7XEXI[EWSRP]EFSYXLEPJFPEGO unrecognizable.
But the college, founded and
run by black folks to serve That tug of war looked a lot
black students, was about to like battles being waged across
YRHIV XEOIEFMKYKP]½KLXSZIV the country, like the growing
its future identity. divide between black folks
who believed in nonviolence
In 1966, the state picked as an avenue to black progress
Wendell G. Hardway to lead and those who felt that
the college — the school’s method was taking too long
½VWX[LMXITVIWMHIRX(IMVHVI ERH]MIPHMRKXSSPMXXPI(YVMRK
Guyton, who runs the college’s halftime at homecoming in
alumni affairs department, said 1967, black students staged a
XLEX,EVH[E][EWXLI½VWX demonstration on the football
president to live off campus ½IPHXSTVSXIWX[LEXXLI]WE[
rather than at Hatter Hall, the as Hardway’s discrimination
house in the center of campus against black faculty and
named for the school’s black students.Things got rowdy.The
founder. By 1968, according to

TSPMGI[IVIGEPPIH7XYHIRXW the black student.This is an
were suspended. imperialistic and oppressive
W]WXIQEX&PYI½IPH²
Things got rowdier. In 1968,
the year that Martin Luther And then on Nov. 21, 1968,
King and Robert Kennedy while most of the campus was
were killed, tensions on the away for Thanksgiving, a bomb
campus were boiling over. tore through the campus gym.
Administrators started receiving
HIEXLXLVIEXW7XYHIRXWQIX Although there were several
with Hardway in a dorm, but campus employees nearby, no
that, too, went sour. Edgar James, one was injured. Newspaper
a black student and Army vet, accounts said that the explosion
tried to hand Hardway a list left a gaping hole in the side
of 35 demands, one of which of the building. Court papers
called for his resignation.That said that lots of people on
didn’t go over well. campus knew of the plot to
dynamite the gymnasium,
A group of the more radical especially students living in the
black students, including James, dorms, which those documents
held a meeting in November describe as “virtually all black.”
in the student union building. ±=SYGSYPHJSVKIXEFSYX½RHMRK
They wore matchbooks with an apartment if you were a
the letters “EOW” written on FPEGOWXYHIRXEX&PYI½IPH7XEXI²
them. Hardway translated the according to Tara Tuckwiller of
VIJIVIRGIJSVER%4VITSV XIV the Charleston Gazette.“White
“The rumor on campus is that landlords in the area wouldn’t
it means they intend to burn exactly welcome you with
down the campus by the ‘end of open arms.”) In response to the
the week.’“ bombing, Hardway shut down
the dorms.
James, speaking to the same
reporter on behalf of the radical Hardway said the bombing
students, laid out what they was the work of Northern
WE[EWXLIWXEOIW±8LI]EVI agitators who lived in those
carrying out mental genocide dorms. James was indicted for
here, trying for the educational the bombing, but the charges
extermination of the black against him were eventually
student,” he said.“There is a dropped. According to alumni
systematic weeding out of we spoke to, however, many

black students felt that it was XS&PYI½IPH7XEXI'SPPIKI
the pretext Hardway needed to Centennial History, the
turn the school all white. dedicated faculty was 6 percent
black.The school wouldn’t have
“The National Guard killed another black president until
TISTPIEX/IRX7XEXIXLI]HMHR´X
close a single dorm,” said Lois
Manns, an alumna from the But there is one group at
'PEWWSJ±7S[L]HMH]SY &PYI½IPH7XEXI'SPPIKIXLEXXS
GPSWIHSVQWEX&PYI½IPH7XEXI this day remains resolutely black.
for a bombing that didn’t injure
anybody? And basically it was THE BOMBING
just a form of protest when
militancy and protest was the AND THE
order of the times. It was the
³W '037-2+3*8,)

The bombing and the closing (36170)(83%
of the dorms led to a dramatic
WLMJXMR&PYI½IPH7XEXI´WQEOIYT (6%1%8-'7,-*8
The black students who’d come
to the college from far away -2&09)*-)0(
suddenly had no place to live.
And with black folks migrating 78%8)´71%/)94
away from the region, the
&PYI½IPH7XEXIGEQTYWFIKER
to look increasingly like the
rest of West Virginia, one of the
whitest states in the country.
;IWX:MVKMRME7XEXIXLIWXEXI´W
other black college and the
second-whitest HBCU in the
country, underwent a similar
transformation.)

In the span of about two
HIGEHIW&PYI½IPH7XEXILEH
gone from an all-black college
to a mostly white commuter
school. By 1987, according

BLUEFIELD’S

MEETSPAST
PRESENT

+PSVME4&VS[R'PEWWSJ[SVILIVWSVSVMX]GSPSVWXSELSQIGSQMRKIZIRX8LI
KYIWXWTIEOIV)6E];MPPMEQWEFPEGO;SVPH;EV--ZIXGVIHMXIHXLIPMJILI´HFIIR

i able to live to the college.

&EGOMRXLIHE]&PYI½IPH7XEXI´WEPYQRMGEQIJVSQ Click the play button
all over to descend on campus for homecoming. to listen to the story.
They partied and rooted for the football team
EWMXWUYEVIHSJJEKEMRWX;IWX:MVKMRME7XEXIXLIMV
traditional rival.

“We had football, baseball, track, tennis, the whole
thing,” said alumnus Russell Manns.“We had the
whole deal.You couldn’t move on this campus
JVSQ;IHRIWHE]XLVSYKL7EXYVHE][MXLTISTPI

coming back to be here for all the alumni well.Williams, the
the festivities.The fraternities ½VWXSJLMWJEQMP]XSKSXS
and sororities and things, they college, eventually had seven
had things going on.” children, all of whom went on
to graduate college as well.
&YX&PYI½IPH7XEXIWGYXXPIHMXW )ZIRXLSYKLLI[EWMRLMWW
JSSXFEPPTVSKVEQMRXLIW Williams sat on all sorts of
which meant homecoming community boards and was still
without the big game. active in his fraternity. And he
Nevertheless, members of the GVIHMXIH&PYI½IPH7XEXIJSVXLI
WLVMROMRK&PYI½IPH7XEXI%PYQRM big life that he’d lived. People
Association still make the nodded in assent.
sojourn back to southern West
Virginia every year, football be His fellow alumni in the
damned. audience were retired
principals and social workers
And every single member of and educators, with college-
that alumni association is black. educated children and
grandchildren of their own.
In fact, there’s never been a They were people like Gloria
white member, Guyton told us. P. Brown, whom everyone just
called Go-Go.
One of the few homecoming
events every year is a luncheon If you’ve ever seen an Alpha
to honor the college’s founders. Kappa Alpha sister, you’d know
This year’s honored speaker Go-Go was a member from
was E. Ray Williams, a black EGVSWWXLIVSSQ7LI[EW
nonagenarian World War II vet resplendent in a pink skirt suit,
[LS[IRXXS&PYI½IPH7XEXISR heels and pearls. Her nickname
the G.I. Bill. He was speaking to MWR´XEGSMRGMHIRGI7LIWTIEOW
an audience made up mostly of like someone who’s been talking
fellow alumni. at the top of her lungs for
most of her life, comfortably in
There were about seven or so GSRXVSP7LI´WMRLIVWERHLIV
current students in attendance, GYVVIRXLYWFERHMWMRLMWW
mostly from the homecoming Go-Go likes to joke that she’s a
court.They were hard to miss. cougar.
It was the table with the white
kids. Go-Go graduated from
&PYI½IPH7XEXIMRERH
It looked like the intervening
decades since their college days
EX&PYI½IPH7XEXILEHXVIEXIH

moved to California to raise her to be a majority-black college

family. Although she’s missed again, although they wanted

a few homecomings here and the school to do a better job

there, she makes it back almost recruiting black faculty members.

IZIV]]IEV7LI´WEVIXMVIHWSGMEP Instead, they worried that the

worker, although she said that school’s history was going to

really just means she works JEHIE[E]UYMIXP]ERHXLEXXLI

for free now.There’s a brick campus was no longer the kind

on campus at the University of of place that inspired much

7SYXLIVR'EPMJSVRME[MXLLIV loyalty or pride. No football

name on it, a symbol of her team. No meal plan. No dorms.

monetary contributions to the They reckoned that it didn’t

school where she received her look or feel much like a college

graduate degree. But she said at all, just a place where people

she doesn’t allocate the energy stopped to take classes on their

XSXLIHIITTSGOIXIH97' way to other things.

XLEXWLIKMZIWXS&PYI½IPH7XEXI (IWTMXIEPPXLIPSZIXLEXWLI

The reverence that Go-Go JIIPWJSV&PYI½IPH7XEXI+S+S

and her fellow alumni expressed didn’t send her own children

JSVXLI&PYI½IPH7XEXISJXLI XLIVI,IVHEYKLXIVE4L(

past is matched went to college

only by their ...they worried EX7XERJSVHSRE
concern about full-ride. Go-Go

the college today. that the school’s asks,“Why would I
Many of the send my daughter

people at the history was going all the way across
*SYRHIV´W(E] the country to a

luncheon went to to fade away place where she
the school before wouldn’t have

the 1968 bombing, anywhere to live?”

and they were quietly... Even though
vocal about the the alumni saw

ways they feel themselves as

the school has changed for the protectors of the college’s

worse. legacy, one got the sense that

They had no delusions that they didn’t think the school’s

&PYI½IPH7XEXI[EWIZIVKSMRK current student body cared too

much about it.When it was time In the early aughts, the college
to sing the alma mater at the announced that it was opening
IRHSJXLI*SYRHIV´W(E]IZIRX new buildings. But nothing came
none of the young people knew SJMX%RH.MQ2IPWSR&PYI½IPH
any of the words, a fact that did 7XEXI´WWTSOIWQERXSPHYWXLEX
not escape the notice of the in the state’s current economic
alumni in attendance. climate, an investment in on-
campus housing would be
Most of the current students impossible.
we spoke to knew about the
school’s status as a historically If there was much anxiety
black college, but treated it like about race and history among
a bit of trivia.The players on &PYI½IPH7XEXI´WGYVVIRX
the women’s basketball team, students, though, it was pretty
who were planting seeds for hard to tell. At the homecoming
a homecoming event, joked dance the night before the
casually about there not *SYRHIV´W(E]PYRGLISRFPEGO
being step shows or marching students and white students
bands or black fraternities and were all together doing the
sororities. ±'LE'LE7PMHI²ERHXLI±'YTMH
7LYJ¾I²8LILYRHVIHSVWS
And that absence of a vibrant folks getting it in on the dance
campus life was something that ¾SSVPSSOIHXSFIXVEHMXMSREPP]
XLI&PYI½IPHMERWFSXL]SYRK college-aged kids. And these kids
and old, seemed to agree on. were, essentially, the student
All the stuff that makes college life of the campus.The all-
so memorable — the late- white homecoming court did
night bull sessions and parties XLI±;SFFPI²RI\XXSEGPMUYI
and the big games and the of black women’s basketball
deep friendships with people players, who somehow managed
who aren’t like you — are all to be even taller in heels. Jerry
harder to come by when most Perdue, a gregarious white
of students’ lives take place off guy and the college’s student
campus. Both the older alumni government president, gushed
and the current students, SZIVPEWX]IEV´W1MWW&PYI½IPH
whether they were prompted 7XEXI(ERMIPPI,E]RIWEFPEGO
or not, wondered why the science and pharmaceutical
college couldn’t bring back the major who had since graduated.
dorms.

,IVQSXLIVLEHFIIR1MWW&PYI½IPH7XEXI
back in the day, too.

“I get it, we love the history here and it’s
so amazing to hear about it,” Haynes told
us later.“But my generation — we’re not so
much hardened by the fact that we don’t
look like an HBCU.We just love our school
for what it is. [The alumni] said they found
comfort here and found family here, and I did
too. And it doesn’t look exactly the same. But
I did too.”

The homecoming
dance was sparsely
attended this year.
&PYI½IPH7XEXI
'SPPIKIRSPSRKIV
has a football team
or dorms, and the
average student
age is 27 years old.

'PMGOERHHVEKMQEKI

WHAT DOES BLUEFILED

OWE IT’S HISTORY?
0IWWXLER]IEV WEJXIVXLI7YTVIQI'SYV XWIRX
Deirdre Guyton, black students to formerly all-white institutions and
XLIWGLSSP´W ZMGIZIVWEMX´WWXMPPWXVMOMRKXS½RHXLIWIZIWXMKIWSJXLEX
moment, like this mostly white, historically black college
director of alumni with its all-black alumni association. For generations of
affairs, is proud FPEGOWXYHIRXWMRWXMXYXMSRWPMOI&PYI½IPH7XEXI[IVIXLI
only option for a higher education.
SJ&PYI½IPH7XEXI
'SPPIKI´WLMWXSV] Today, of course, black students have many more
choices. But HBCUs still play an outsized role in
and wants to black education — they make up only 3 percent of
preserve it. Here, all the nation’s colleges, but produce half of all black
teachers and they award a disproportionate amount
she holds up SJFEGLIPSV´WHIKVIIWMR½IPHWPMOIFMSPSK]QEXLERH
a photo of the computer science, according to Marybeth Gasman, a
WGLSSP´WJSSXFEPP University of Pennsylvania education professor who
team from 1927 researches HBCUs.
to 1928, when it
was the best black

college team.

This record is part of the reason histories inextricably wrapped up
HBCUs receive federal and state in the politics and demographics
funding to carry out their mission of their cities and states. In fact, the
of educating underserved students. situation facing some HBCUs in
And while the students might Maryland is like a funhouse mirror
look different than they used SJ[LEX´WLETTIRIHEX&PYI½IPH
XSWEMH&PYI½IPH7XEXITVIWMHIRX 7XEXIEGGSVHMRKXSXLIVIGIRX
Marsha Krotseng, educating ½RHMRKSJEJIHIVEPNYHKI8LI
underserved students is still the institutions there are struggling, the
college’s primary mission. Its HBCU judge ruled, because their student
HIWMKREXMSRQIERWXLEX&PYI½IPH bodies are too black.While they
7XEXIVIGIMZIWQMPPMSRWMRJIHIVEP were diversely integrated in the
HSPPEVWIEGL]IEVEFSYXEXL ³WXLIWIMRWXMXYXMSRWLEZIVI
SJMXWXSXEPQMPPMSRFYHKIX-X´W segregated into predominantly
money that the school would be black places.Today, they’re forced
hard-pressed to replace. to compete with Maryland’s
traditionally white institutions (that
It’s easy to look at the parade is, colleges and universities that
of headlines about the challenges were white-only before Brown v.
,&'9WJEGIEWSRIWUYMVQMRK Board) that have deeper pockets
mass of problems. Howard and can offer far more courses,
University’s president recently advantages that stretch back to the
stepped down amid administrative days of segregation.
VERGSVERHWIVMSYW½WGEPXVSYFPIW
7XVMGXIVPIRHMRKVYPIWJSV4097 As we thought about the
loans have hampered students’ *SYRHIV´W(E]PYRGLISRMR[LMGL
abilities to pay for college, and has the current students couldn’t sing
led to lower enrollment at some XLIEPQEQEXIV[I[SRHIVIH
black colleges. A recent study what do these students owe to
found that several states were their forebears? What does this
not matching federal funding for institution, whose funding stems in
their HBCUs at the same level as part from a historical detail, owe to
their traditionally white institutions, that history? And when the slowly
a disparity amounting to tens of WLVMROMRK&PYI½IPH7XEXIEPYQRM
millions of dollars in under-funding. association is no longer, who will
be there to tell all the kids like Tony
&YX&PYI½IPH7XEXI´WLMWXSV] Bolden where all the black people
HIQSRWXVEXIWNYWXLS[YRMUYI went?
so many of these dilemmas are,
given that these institutions have BACK TO THE TOP