Desegregation of SEC schools

Harold Franklin, Vivian Malone, James Hood and James Meredith had dreams of attending southern colleges, like Auburn University, the University of Alabama, and the University of Mississippi. For black students, this goal was made seemingly impossible until the desegregation of southern universities in the 1950s and 60s.
The University of Georgia integrated in January of 1961, but other Southeastern Conference schools were not as quick to desegregate during the shaky times of civil rights. The integration processes of other colleges compare to that of UGA in the tumultuous times of the 1960s and Jim Crow.

May 1954
With the ruling of the case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court determined that segregation is unequal.

Auburn University
At Auburn University in Auburn, Ala., integration was happening smoothly. The first black student, Harold Franklin enrolled on Jan. 4, 1964. Since the campus had been historically conservative, both politically and socially, the students were barely affected by the radical movements of the 1960s.

University of Alabama
Vivian Malone and James Hood, two black students, ventured to integrate the University of Alabama in 1963.
They were denied admission to the university by Gov. George C. Wallace, who famously vowed to protect segregation by “standing in the schoolhouse door.” President John F. Kennedy mobilized the Alabama National Guard, and Gov. Wallace was ordered to step aside as the students enrolled.
“Nowhere did the images of freedom's struggle or the faces of evil show themselves in sharper relief than in Alabama,” said civil rights historian Culpepper Clark in his book, The Schoolhouse Door. Clark, dean of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. He describes, in his book, the historic setting, people and events in the integration of the University of Alabama.

Tulane
“Tulane was desegregated in 1962,” says August Milton, Associate Director of the Office of Institutional Equity. During their integration, Tulane, in New Orleans, La., was a part of the SEC and left the conference in 1966.

University of Tennessee
In 1952, four black graduate students were admitted to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. In 1957, while the state was making the change to integration, an integrated school in Nashville was blown up with dynamite by white supremacists.
Black undergraduates were not permitted to attend the University of Tennessee until 1961.

University of Mississippi
In the fall of 1962, Gov. Ross Barnett of Mississippi said, "I hereby direct each official to uphold segregation laws enacted by the state of Mississippi, regardless of the federal courts." In September, riots broke out at the University of Mississippi when James Meredith attempted to begin classes. U.S. Marshals fought against an estimated 3,000 racists, Klan members and university students until President Kennedy sent in U.S. Army troops.
After the riots, racial issued calmed at the university and Meredith graduated in 1963 without incident.

Franklin, Malone, Hood, Meredith and countless others faced adversity in the process toward desegregation. Some of the changes were made during violence, and others during protest. Today we can thank the heros of the 1960s south for total integration in schools, cafeterias, busses, and eventually everywhere else.

Diversity welcome, prejudice not

The first person I saw at the workshop was a large black man. He was incredibly tall and broad. I was immediately intimidated.

“We all have a record playing internally,” said Shay Davis Little, a facilitator for the NCBI workshop. “It is a natural response to what we hear and see.”

My internal record was the reason why I was intimidated by a man I did not know at all.

Little said that our internal records come from the people who raised us and the communities and environments in which we grew up. Because of our internal records, we hold prejudices not only against others, but also against ourselves.

The National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) hosted a four-hour-long prejudice reduction workshop to educate University of Georgia faculty, students, and staff about our internal records and personal identities.

“Through our workshops participants are able to learn more about themselves and those with whom they interact,” according to the University of Georgia’s NCBI Team Overview handout.

During the workshop, we identified how we perpetuate stereotypes about our own identity groups. I discovered that it was easier to feel an opinion than to actually voice it. One black female student talked about her struggle for balance in her identity.

“I’m constantly balancing being black enough and not too black,” she said. “I feel like I’m either splitting a fence or on the fence between being black and too black.”

Listening and talking with others put an entirely different perspective on my ideas about prejudice. Not only did I talk to participants one-on-one, but I also had the opportunity to talk to the entire group.

“Pride can supercede all groups,” said Rick Gray, a workshop facilitator.

Once we took pride in our different identity groups, it made the workshop experience that much more powerful. We were proud to represent so many different, diverse groups.

NCBI hosts two different workshops: half-days and full days. The one I attended was the half-day, which lasts four hours. Its purpose was to open ourselves up to our identities and the identities of those around us.

The full day workshop lasts eight hours. The first four hours are the same as the half-day workshop. The last four hours allow participants to share stories.

“The second half of the full day workshop is for learning stories,” Danny Glassman, a facilitator for the workshop, said. “It’s important to share stories because one of NCBI’s sayings is, ‘To shift attitudes, hear stories.’”

The first person I saw at the workshop was a large black man. At first I only saw some parts of his identity. By the end of the workshop, I knew his name, ethnicity and sexuality. I saw someone completely different, but only because I made a change in the way I saw him.

HOPE scholarship hinders diversity

When former Georgia Gov. Zell Miller initiated the HOPE scholarship in 1993, ‘keep HOPE alive’ became a household phrase. Although the merit-based scholarship was originally created to keep Georgia’s gifted students in-state, the scholarship has also made it possible for students from diverse backgrounds—that may not have otherwise been able to afford tuition—to attend Georgia’s public colleges and universities. As UGA celebrates the 50^th anniversary of its desegregation, HOPE cuts and tuition hikes may jeopardize the University’s diverse population.

“Students right now are living in a very interesting time,” said James Mooney,

Associate Director for Operations in UGA’s Office of Student Financial Aid. “We’re going into one of the most volatile financial aid years I’ve ever seen.”

With budget cuts threatening HOPE, the opportunities for many Georgia students to go to college are dwindling. Although diversity at UGA has improved since its desegregation, Juan Carlos Cardoza-Oquendo, a junior Foundation Fellow from Decatur, Ga., believes that HOPE has since segregated the University.

“It’s facilitating higher education for upper-middle class people who on average tend to be white,” he said. “The flipside of that is it’s closing the doors to lower class people who tend to be black. There are working white folks too, but it’s mostly black.”

In “Merit-Based College Scholarships and Car Sales,” UGA Terry College of Business Economics Professors Christopher Cornwell and David Mustard confirm Cardoza-Oquendo’s suspicions that HOPE mainly benefits students from upper-middle class backgrounds. According to the study, “household income is an important determinant of a high-school student's academic achievement, [thus] scholarship funding generally flows to those who would have attended college anyway.”

According to Mustard, there are three reasons that the state implemented the scholarship: access, choice, and incentive. HOPE gives access to colleges and universities to students who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford to attend, it allows students to choose to stay in Georgia, which keeps high quality students in state, and it gives students the incentive to work hard in school. When evaluating HOPE’s affect on diversity at UGA, Mustard looks at the success of HOPE’s purposes.

“The most successful purpose is choice, and we can measure that with things like SAT scores,” he said.

Mustard argued that when it comes to creating better access to education, HOPE has had little affect on helping students that would not have gone to college otherwise.

“The idea of HOPE increasing access to education is to help kids that are academically able [to attend college], but are also financially constrained,” he said. “That’s just a really small set of people. The ability [to go to college] is a bigger problem than the financing for most kids.”

For Alexis Armand, a black, working-class lesbian and former UGA student from Atlanta, Ga., adjusting to life in Athens was difficult and heavily affected her grades.

“Having come from the inner-city of Atlanta, I was not the typical UGA student so I didn’t really fit in,” she said. “I always felt out of place and awkward in my classes so I just chose not to go.”

Armand lost HOPE at the end of her freshman year and was unable to gain it back before eventually dropping out for financial reasons. Her story reaffirms Mustard’s notion that students that apply for HOPE in order to have access to Georgia’s public colleges and universities, are not as well prepared and are more likely to lose HOPE.

Armand believes that since HOPE’s implementation, it has not helped to make UGA a more diverse campus.

“The majority of the students who take advantage of HOPE are wealthy, upper-middle class suburban white kids, not kids from rural Georgia or the actual city of Atlanta,” she said. “The sad part is most of the kids [who have HOPE] can already afford to go to UGA.”

Jane Shirra, a white, middle-class student who attended high school with Armand in Atlanta, believes that HOPE does help diversity at UGA.

“I do think HOPE helps make UGA at least a little bit more diverse because it allows some people to attend that might not otherwise be able to because of economic constraints,” Shirra said.

In Cornwell and Mustard’s “The Distributional Impacts of Lottery-Funded Aid: Evidence From Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship,” however, the professors reiterate that scholarships are more likely to be awarded to households with larger incomes and that by contrast, Georgia counties with a large black population are less likely to receive merit scholarships. The study found that black enrollment rates at four-year public schools rose 21 percent between 1993 and 1997 because of HOPE, while white enrollment rates only increased by 5 percent. Yet, since black enrollment rates were much lower from the beginning, a slight increase in enrollment causes a disproportionately high percentage change.

“Although HOPE has raised the African American share of college students enrolled in Georgia institutions, it does not follow that the scholarship has created more racial diversity at the institutional level,” Cornwell and Mustard wrote. “Because African American enrollment gains have occurred primarily at less selective institutions—like historically black colleges and universities—and not at Georgia Tech and UGA, HOPE may actually increase the stratification of Georgia colleges and universities by race.”

Cardoza-Oquendo believes that a lack of support may explain why minorities and working people do not receive the HOPE as frequently as their white middle and upper-middle class peers.

“You know, maybe their parents didn’t go to college and they couldn’t show them how to apply,” he said. “If you’re the first person in your family to go to college, there’s a lot you have to figure out on your own.”

Imella Sanchez, Administrative Associate to Dr. Jack Houston, Jr. in UGA’s African Studies Institute, believes that those from less privileged backgrounds may have more problems keeping HOPE.

“Some students who receive HOPE that are first-generation college students are sometimes unable to maintain the scholarship because they come from a low-income background that is not as privileged as some of their fellow students,” she said. “They have to take on part-time jobs which in the mean time makes their grades suffer, so they might not maintain the scholarship.”

Sanchez also believes that although HOPE may be a household term for many families in Georgia, she wonders whether or not black and Latino students know that the scholarship is available.

“Maybe the reason that the number of minorities with HOPE is so low is because their high schools didn’t get the word out,” she said.

Although Cardoza-Oquendo is thankful to receive HOPE, he worries that the scholarship takes attention away from Georgia’s need for a redistribution of wealth.

“I support HOPE in that it’s a step to free public higher education for all, but I also think it might be entrenching wealth,” he said. “It mostly serves upper-middle class students and it’s not opening UGA to poor people.”

Loving the Dream

Mary Frances Early shares a Lesson of Love

Speaking on Valentine’s Day, Mary Frances Early used love as the focus of her speech to more than 400 people at the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Freedom Breakfast celebrating the university’s 50^th anniversary of desegregation. 

Mary Frances Early, the first black student to earn a degree from the University of Georgia, spoke on the passion and courage of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life.   “Today we celebrate Valentine’s day… which is a day of sentimental or romantic love,” Early said.  “King’s life however, his entire life in words, were based on another type of love.” 

A love that was much more powerful.  This love called “Agape,” is a Greek word that means an unconditional or selfless love for others. 

Early was personally affected by the prominent preacher, teacher and man that Dr. King was.  While attending classes at UGA, she “went home as much as [she] could to hear Dr. King’s sermons.”

Mary Frances Early had to battle many tough situations while studying at UGA, but, “Dr. King’s preaching gave [her] reassurance, help and strength when [she] needed it most.” 

Martin Luther King’s philosophies of nonviolent protest “changed [Early’s] life and that of many others in this nation and around the world” Early said.  “Though Dr. King is no longer with us physically, his dream: the American dream… [will be] engraved forever on our consciousness.  His dream of justice, equality, tolerance and brotherhood for all should be our dream.  We have to complete the work that he so valiantly and courageously did.”

Early said Martin Luther King, Jr. lived his life as the ultimate example.  In the words of King his goal was to “transform the jangling discourse of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.” 

As a result, Early said, “We blacks, whites, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, agnostics, atheists- all of us are the beneficiaries of his legacy.  And it is our… responsibility to make that dream become a complete reality.”

Early quoted Langston Hughes, a black American novelist, “What happens to a dream deferred?  Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or does it explode?”

She saw to it that her dream would neither dry up nor explode, but that her dream would become a reality. 

While taking postgraduate courses at the University of Michigan, Early became fully aware of the escalating civil rights struggle and wanted desperately to participate in the struggle for equality.

A native of Atlanta, she saw the desegregation struggle that was taking Atlanta by storm.  She decided there was something she could do; she would transfer to UGA and support Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter.  They were the first black students at UGA, and had been enrolled for a year.  In Early’s first two years on campus, she earned a master of music education degree and became the first black student to graduate from the university in 1962.

After the inspiring passion and courage shown in Early’s life, one can only wonder what difference can be made now.  In the words of King, Early said, we must keep in mind that “life’s most persistent and urgent question is: what are you doing for others?”

 Early encourages us to take action by extending love.  “That’s something we can do everyday” she said.  “If we don’t have financial resources to share we can express love through a genuine smile of acknowledgement, a pat on the back for encouragement, a hug for those who need it or a visit to one who is alone and lonely.”

In his last speech, King addressed how he’d like to be remembered.  He said, “I’d like someone to mention that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others.  I tried to love and serve humanity.  That we all can do, each and every day.”

Like the popular lyrics by Hal David and Burt Bacharach, Early said, “What the world needs now is love sweet love, it’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.”

The power of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream remains strong among us now. 

“Though we as Americans have come a very long way, and here at the University of Georgia we have come a very long way since 1961, we are still not there,” Early said.  “Dr. King’s dream cannot be deferred or it will dry up, and we cannot let that happen.” 

Mary Frances Early closed with a very powerful statement. 

“I ask you to celebrate Dr. King’s courage and rich legacy by serving and loving others.  In doing so we can all help to make America what it ought to be.  We can make America a better nation.  We can help to bring Dr. King’s dream to fruition because the power of the dream will give us the courage to do so.”   

Source: Attendee