Celebrating Courage Cover

I am a sucker for old black and white photographs and nostalgia, in general. That is the reason why I felt compelled to utilize all of the photographs at our disposal. The photos can speak for themselves outside of my limited InDesign abilities. When Hunter and holmes first came to the campus, everything was kind of overwhelming for them, so it seemed like a very "busy" photo collage was a good route to go. That's about as deep as I'm going to get. The bottom line is that I like old photographs and that's why I used all of them. Cheers.

Desegregation: Trial Re-enactment

For about an hour in the Hatton Lovejoy Courtroom, it was once again Jan. 6, 1961 and Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes were once again fighting for admission into the University of Georgia.

On Feb. 25, the Davenport-Benham Black Law Students Association and the UGA school of law performed a reenactment of the fateful trial that eventually lead to the admission of UGA’s first black students: Hunter and Holmes.

After the fictitious Judge Bootle, played by Ronald L. Carlson (Fuller E. Callaway Chair of Law Emeritus), welcomed the audience to the year 1961 with some historical background, the “trial” began.

The actors were accurately dressed in 60s garb and performed their roles quite well, considering all of the participants were law students.

There was a general shudder amongst the spectators when the word “negro” made its first appearance in the dialogue, but after that, the rest of the “trial” carried on smoothly.

All of the members involved in the reenactment have been working on this project for quite a while. “We came up with the idea for the event last semester and it’s kind of been rolling from fall until now,” said Sherida Jones, who portrayed Hunter in the “trial.”

They somehow managed to cram the original trial, which was four and a half days long, into just under an hour.

“To do it with the punch and conciseness that we did, we had to take a lot of the testimony out,” said Carlson. “This is the first time that anyone has gone to the original trial records in the case and extracted testimony.”

When the trial reenactment concluded, there was a panel discussion featuring some distinguished UGA graduates, a reporter from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Horace T. Ward.

Ward, who was denied admission to UGA’s law school in 1950, played a crucial role in the university’s desegregation.

He reflected on his memories from the trial and said that the whole process was “very tense.”

In 1961, after the actual trial was over, the judge ordered that both students be admitted right at that instant. Ward said, “I was a little afraid for Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes to come down here so quickly.”

Other various members of the panel also offered recollections of their past experiences involving desegregation and discussed about the racial issues that are still going on today.

The general consensus of the discussions as well as the event itself can best be summed up with a quote from Ward. "Things are looking up, but there is still a lot to be done."

Story 2

For two hours in the Hatton Lovejoy Courtroom, it was once again January 6, 1961 and Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes were once again fighting for admission into the University of Georgia.

On February 25, the Davenport-Benham Black Law Students Association and the UGA school of aw performed a reenactment of the fateful trial that eventually lead to the admission of UGA’s first black students; Hunter and Holmes.

After the fictitious Judge Bootle, played by Ronald L. Carlson (Fuller E. Callaway Chair of Law Emeritus), welcomed the audience to the year 1961 with some historical background, the “trial” began.

The actors were accurately dressed in 60s garb and performed their roles quite well, considering all of the participants were law students.

There was a general shudder amongst the spectators when the word “negro” made its first appearance in the dialogue, but after that, the rest of the “trial” carried on smoothly.

All of the members involved in the reenactment have been working on this project for quite a while. “We came up with the idea for the event last semester and it’s kind of been rolling from fall until now,” said Sherida Jones, who portrayed Hunter in the “trial.”

They somehow managed to cram the original trial, which was four and a half days long, into just under an hour.

“To do it with the punch and conciseness that we did, we had to take a lot of the testimony out,” said Carlson. “This is the first time that anyone has gone to the original trial records in the case and extracted testimony.”

When the trial reenactment concluded, there was panel discussion featuring some distinguished UGA graduates, a reporter from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Horace T. Ward. Ward was denied from UGA’s law school in 1950 and played a crucial role in the university’s desegregation.

Ward reflected on his memories from the trial and said that the whole process was “very tense.”

In 1961, after the actual trial was over, the judge ordered that both students be admitted right at that instant. Ward said that “I was a little afraid for Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes to come down here so quickly.”

Other various members of the panel also offered recollections of their past involving desegregation and discussed about the racial issues that are still going on today.

The general consensus of the discussions as well as the event itself can best be summed up with a quite from Ward. “Things are looking up, but there is still a lot to be done.”

Ethical Issue

The story I found is of a similar nature to the one that Drew discussed. It is also a story about a professor sexually harassing both students and teachers. This would be a perfectly newsworthy story, if the case hadn't been resolved in 2004.

"Sexual harassment allegation's don't hinder professor's career" was a piece written in 2008 about the fact that a Professor Blount was still able to gain employment at another university while his sexual harassment investigation was still going on. The main issue is that Blount found employment at the University in Texas back in 2004, four years prior to the publication of this article. The case, itself, was resolved on May 7, 2004. So why is this pertinent information in 2008?

It seems that the author of this story was just hoping to ride the buzz of "sexual harassment," regardless of the timeliness of the story. Obviously, Professor Blount was in the wrong, but it occurred four years ago. There's no need to bring up his name again, especially when he doesn't even work for the University of Georgia anymore. There's an issue of ethics as well as common sense in this case. Unless something has changed in an old case, or somehow it has become newsworthy four years after it occurred; don't publish a story about it.

Edited Desegregation Story

It took more than a year and a half to get the University of Georgia to accept two black applicants. It took less than a week to suspend those same applicants from the school that they had worked so hard to attend.

Luckily for Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes, the courts made sure that the suspension (that was administered “for their own safety”) did not last long. A new court order swiftly brought them back onto campus, where they would leave their mark on the university and their individual colleges for years to come.

Hunter graduated third in her class at Turner High School and showed promise as a journalist early on while serving as the editor of the high school newspaper. Initially she spent the first year and a half of her college career at Wayne University in Detroit, lying in wait until UGA granted her admission.

She applied to UGA, specifically to study journalism at the Grady College. “We are very fortunate that she wanted to come here,” said Dr. E. Culpepper Clark, current dean of Grady. “Journalism cannot be practiced in an undemocratic society,” and the desegregation of the University with the admittance of Hunter into Grady was a form of “liberation for journalism.”

Currently, according to Clark, Grady is “very active in the promotion of diversity and is willing to do all it can do to increase diversity.” The numbers agree with him. Since the fall of 2005 the number of minority students enrolled in the Grady college has risen from 10 to 14 percent,

In addition to racial and cultural diversity, Grady still faces challenges with attracting a demographic that they have always been fighting for: males. Clark said that “more [males] need to be attracted to Grady degrees,” and admitted that they “have not succeeded in making it as attractive as it should be to guys.”

As Grady continues to grow and evolve, Clark has hopes that it “remains committed to democracy, civic virtue, and is engaging as it is today on a new frontier.”

Hamilton Holmes was the valedictorian of Turner High School and graduated the same year as Hunter. He, like Hunter, also came to the UGA as a transfer student, only he initially attended Morehouse College in Atlanta. Holmes would later go on to be the first black medical student admitted to Emory University, but not before leaving his mark in the Franklin College.

Holmes had wanted to be a doctor since he was a young child and has a long line of integrationists in his family, so being the first black male student at the University of Georgia held a lot of appeal for him.

It is “very significant” for Franklin that Holmes decided to come to Franklin at the University of Georgia, said Dr. Kecia Thomas, Senior Advisor to the Dean of Franklin.

It is also very fitting since Franklin is the “college that attracts the most racial diversity” in regards to its students. As of 2010, Franklin boasts a minority population of 23 percent.

Franklin currently has an office solely devoted to diversity as well as a program that Thomas heads up called RED. RED stands for Research and Engagement in Diversity and was launched in the fall of 2005. Thomas said that the ultimate goal of this program is to “promote value for diversity-based scholarship in college.” RED has a grant program for graduate students as well as an outreach program that sponsors community improvement projects throughout Athens and the surrounding areas

Thomas hopes that Franklin will continue to “lead the university” and provide “greater outreach to the state community” in the years to come.

The University of Georgia and its colleges have come a long way since Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes were brave enough to fight for their education. Just in the last ten years, UGA has increased its percentage of minority students from 13 percent in the fall of 2000 to 21 percent in the fall of 2010.

With a total population of 33,660, the aforementioned 21 percent comes out to more than 7,000 students who would not have been admitted to the university if it were not for Hunter, Holmes, and all the others who gave their effort to the desegregation of UGA.

Sources:

“An Education in Georgia” by Calvin Trillin

The University of Georgia Office of Institutional Research FACTS database

Dream Job

Ideally, my dream job would consist of a combination of dream jobs. I want to be involved in the music industry in three ways: as a recording artist, a songwriter and an A&R guy at a record label. The great thing about the music industry is that if one of these things works for me, then the chances of attaining another one of my goals improve. The bad part of the music industry is that few people buys cds anymore. Though it is looking a bit grim for the future, there is still money to be made. The best way to get "in" is to get signed as a recording artist, which I've discovered is really fucking hard (can I swear on here?). Though one's career as a recording artist may not last long, that brief period when executives are actually paying attention is the time to network and build relationships. In my case, either to come work at the label as an A&R guy or work as a songwriter.

There are many people who had a brief career as a recording artist, but are very successful songwriters. People like Butch Walker (pictured above) - who has written and produced for Pink, Weezer, Katy Perry, and countless others - and Linda Perry, who has an equally impressive resume, both started out in bands that fizzled out (Marvelous 3 and 4 Non Blondes, respectively).

In addition to professional songwriting, many people that were in bands decide to call it quits and use their experiences to help nurture new bands at record labels. These people are called Artist and Repertoire, A&R for short. They work with bands in the studio, help promote, them, set them up on tours and just do everything they can to "break" them.

The best example of someone who has managed to pull of all three of these careers in one time is none other than William "Smokey" Robinson (pictured above) who served as an executive/A&R, a songwriter and a successful recording artist at the same time for Motown Records. Smokey broke the mold and was phenomenal at all his professions at - in my opinion, the greatest label of all time - Motown. Here is one of Smokey's finest pop masterpieces that he wrote for The Temptations. "My Girl."

Granted, nobody can do it like Smokey did, but I would like to at least have a fractino of the impact that he had on the music world. Honestly, I would be ecstatic about attaining any of the three positions I have mentioned, they all are my "dream jobs."

I almost forgot, working for a magazine would be cool too.

Also, I want to have a hot wife to come home to after a hard day's work at my dream job.

Ok, I'm done.

Desegregation Story

Cory Jasin

50^th Anniversary of Desgregation

JOUR 3150

On January 9, 1961, two future UGA graduates, one planning to study journalism at the Grady College, and a pre-med hopeful with the intention of studying science at the Franklin College, began their first week of classes surrounded by escorts because they just happened to be the first two black students at the newly desegregated University of Georgia.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Hamilton Holmes, respectively, both received suspensions “for their own safety” after only attending classes for a few days. The suspension did not last long, a new court order swiftly brought them back onto campus, where they would leave this mark on this university and their individual colleges for years to come.

Hunter-Gault applied to the University of Georgia, specifically to study journalism at the Grady College. “We are very fortunate that she wanted to come here,” said Dr. E. Cullpepper Clark, current Dean of Grady. “Journalism can not be practiced in an undemocratic society,” and the desegregation of the University and the admittance of Hunter-Gault into Grady was a form of ”liberation for journalism.”

Currently, according to Dr. Clark, Grady is “very active in the promotion of diversity” though they, as well as all other academic colleges at the University of Georgia, can only have a student body as diverse as what the University will allow as far as admissions. In addition to racial and cultural diversity, Grady still faces challenges with attracting a demographic that they have always been fighting for: males. Dr. Clark said that “more [males] need to be attracted to Grady degrees,” and admitted that they “have not succeeded in making it as attractive as it should be to guys.”

Looking to the future, Grady hopes to evolve with the campus and to become ever more diverse with each passing year. No matter what changes occur, Dr. Clark has hopes that it “remains committed to democracy, civic virtue, and engaging as it is today on a new frontier.”

Hamilton Holmes came to the University of Georgia as a transfer student from Morehouse College in Atlanta. A former valedictorian at Turner High School, Holmes would go on to be the first black medical student admitted to Emory University, but not before leaving his mark at the Franklin College here at UGA.

Holmes had wanted to be a doctor since he was a young child and has a long line of integrationists in his family, so being the first black male student at the University of Georgia held a lot of appeal for him.

It is “very significant” for Franklin that Holmes decided to come to Franklin at the University of Georgia, said Dr. Kecia Thomas, Senior Advisor to the Dean of Franklin. It is also very fitting since Franklin is the “college that attracts the most racial diversity” in regards to its students.

Franklin currently has an office solely devoted to diversity and leadership and Dr. Thomas heads up R.E.D., a diversity promotion program at Franklin. R.E.D. stands for “Research and engagement in diversity,” and, according to Dr. Thomas, strives to “promote value for diversity-based scholarship in college.” There is also an outreach program within R.E.D. that sponsors projects throughout Athens and the surrounding areas.

Dr. Thomas hopes that Franklin will continue to “lead the university” and provide greater outreach to the state community” in the years to come.

The University of Georgia and its colleges have come a long way since Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Hamilton Holmes were brave enough to fight for their education, but there is still much work to be done in order to further our diversity and create a fully united campus.

Sources: “An Education in Georgia” by Calvin Trillin

Photo

This picture is of Drew trying her best to recreate Joe's facial expression in the photo next to her. I am not a very good photographer, so luckily her facial expression is strong enough to still make this photo look cool. I also had to borrow the camera I used to take this photo, so props to my group for lending me their cameras during the photo session.

Photos

This first image I chose is a visual that often pops up in many of the music magazines I read. The man in the bubble is Wayne Coyne, the lead singer of psychedelic rock group The Flaming Lips. Coyne is notorious for pulling this stunt at all of the band's shows and The Flaming Lips are best known for their on-of-a-kind live show that is done on such a grand scale that they rarely play concerts that aren't part of a music festival. This particular photo was taken at the Treasure Island Music Festival in San Francisco last fall. I have never seen them play live, but whenever I see pictures of him rolling in a plastic ball through a massive sea of outstretched hands it makes me want to catch one of their shows. Photo: Fader Magazine

The second photo I chose was a picture of James Dean from the 1955 film "Rebel Without A Cause." I've been a big fan of James Dean ever since I discovered that he is from my home state of Indiana. He was one of the original badasses. He epitomized the ideal of live fast, die young. This picture depicts the look he was known for, most notably the D.A. hair and the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. It also is one of the few photos of Dean where there is even a trace of a smile on his face. He was one of those "tortured souls" so he seldom would smile in pictures. He also is a great actor. I am not really someone who likes old movies, but I genuinely enjoyed "Rebel Without A Cause." Photo: theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com.

This last photo requires a little explanation. When I was little, having a Supersoaker meant that you were just a little bit cooler than everyone else on the block. The bigger the better, and if it had two spray nozzles, you were set for life. That is the reason why my inner 8-year-old went nuts when I found out that my brother (the picture above) was going to be "the guy on the Supersoaker boxes." I just bought the gun with his face on it at Target and, no lie, it's probably going to be mounted proudly on a wall in my apartment somewhere. Photo: homebase.co.uk

Story Ideas

1. It would be interesting to talk look into the very first group of African-Americans that came to UGA and what they are up to in present day.

2. A story called "What Would Never Would Have Been" that highlights achievements of various African American graduates from UGA that would not have lived up to their full potential if UGA had not been desegregated and they would not have been allowed to attend here.

3. An inside look at who were the actual driving forces who had to work to achieve desegregation. Whether it was an activist group or politicians, it would be interesting to see who was behind it.

4. Coverage of some of the 5oth anniversary events would be necessary to feature in our publication.

5. Horace Ward: The Man That Ignited The Spark. A piece about Horace Ward, who tried to enroll in law school here at UGA a decade before desegregation, initiated the legal battle over desegregation.

6. Talking to various students of different cultures now about how they feel about having a culturally diverse campus is an essential for our publication.

7. We should look at how the desegregation of UGA affected other universities in the South and whether there was a domino effect, causing them to desegregate as well.

8. We also should look at how the desegregation of UGA aided the civiil rights movement that was going on, and what role the desegregation of a state university in the South played in that fight.

9. Not to play the blame game, but an inside look at the powers who were strongly opposed to desegregation might be an intriguing story.

10. A discussion with President Michael Adams about how crucial a culturally diverse campus is to the college experience here at UGA could be effective.

11. It is essential to talk about other things that were going on in 1961, so as to paint a better picture of the world that those three brave students were living in when they set foot on the UGA campus for the first time. Everything involving, pop culture, politics, and other important information.

12. A point of conflict could be effective. Something to the tune of, even 50 years later, are there still racist sentiments on campus that African Americans have to deal with everyday? Desegregation doesn't mean that racism is eliminated.

Cory Jasin's Story

My name is Cory Jasin. I was born and raised in a town outside of Indianapolis called Carmel, Indiana. I moved down to Georgia when I was 12. It was quite a culture shock and I cried a lot at first (I was kind of soft in my youth), but I have come to appreciate the South and all it has to offer. I have two brothers. Patrick, 26, lives in New York and is a graphic designer at Bergdorf Goodman, and Blair, 24, who lives in Atlanta and is a working actor. My parents, Mark and Karen, live just north of Atlanta in Forsyth County and have coped with the departure of their three sons by replacing us, one by one, with our Cat, Gordon, and two dogs, Sampson and Bunnie.

I got my start in Journalism in High School when I served as Opinion Editor and later Editor-In-Chief of my high school’s newspaper. I am really attracted to Journalism because of my love of all things music and pop culture. I spend a lot of time studying Billboard charts and reading Rolling Stone and Spin. My love of pop culture stems from my mother’s subscription to People Magazine, which, I must admit, I read quite often. I like journalism that isn’t too serious. I hate politics, and current events become boring to me after the front page, so pop culture/music journalism is the field I am most interested in.

Without trying to sound like a total douche, I am, in fact, in a band called The Desarios and it has been a big part of my life ever since we started out in high school. We play around Atlanta and Athens a lot and just recently went out to L.A. to record a few songs. That is my plan A right now, but if it doesn’t work out, I would be very content being a music journalist. Cheers.