New Directions

Volume 3 | Issue 4 Article 4

10-1-1976

From Revolution to Revelation: The HowardExperience 1969 - 1976Larry D. Coleman

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Recommended CitationColeman, Larry D. (1976) "From Revolution to Revelation: The Howard Experience 1969 - 1976," New Directions: Vol. 3: Iss. 4,Article 4.Available at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol3/iss4/4

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Coleman: From Revolution to Revelation: The Howard Experience 1969 - 1976

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FROMREVOLUTION

TO REVELATIONTHE HOWARDEXPERIENCE

1969-1976

ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES A DAVIS

By Larry D. Coleman

I. The Ethos and PathosThe revolution had come as sa late spring tomado in the MidvF="'>='"I"Y'Y--;ing without waming, it left ittlotrcleaving in its wake a disparate ag"",tion in quest of direction. Sorne -~'"e .the process, the student movemertHoward University had lost its d;'~".-..,:v-,--its momentum, its substance and .void rushed the charlatans,and the agents provocateurs. Thetion at Howard had peaked--around the country-and yes e a ••~==--ing oratory became today's cli

The vein from which so much ~::r,"-=and progressive gold had beenwas depleted, and those inbegan to diversify or flee orceration or extermination. Ye foG'~ "" =remained in the old mother lode:' =-it even sparkled like the real ..the jackals moved in and begup to the people this fool's gothey devoured ravenously. As aquence, the distinction be eel •....". =-and the surreal became blurreo Co-_

many innocent well-meaning peo-.a ::e-came terribly disappointed. thhands in despairing resignation. c..

ed into apathy. The Blawhose genesis originated '.. ~-'tation of Africans to Americaplateau.

No doubt such had to be . ;::;mate fateof a revol utionwhose S!li33lr:c:;:;a

was contingent upon the phil-- '-_ ==Northern liberals and the gooo ~~-=_-media king pins. When therisen, Blacks in America hadstantial strides in diverse arees _' a--deavor, but the redistributioothe sine qua non of any bonafi stion- remained a dream deferrec.: _==-the disparity between whi e i~-Black income widened.

Long before the final death -sounded on the revolution of themany people began to re-assess "-ordinates under which they na .~- 2

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10 their lives. Some tumed to Jesus; othersto drugs, Eastern religion, and so forth.Each person went his/her own way inquest of oneself. Laissez-faire and doyour own thing became the raging preoc-cupation; almost anything was "hip." Inthe wake of this revolution, a period ofintense introspection set in and con-tinues to this day unabated. The peoplehave turned inward in quest of truth, andin the process, a number of fundamentalconceptions had to be altered.

At last, it was resolved that money wasnot the antagonist, but the lack thereof.Nationally, a significant number of stu-dents changed their majors from psy-chology and sociology to business andzoology or communications. Generally,money and wealth had been viewed asdespicable evils to be avoided at allcost. So rancid was the rhetoric, in fact,that blue jeans (dungarees), bush jacketsand uncombed Afros and pious platitudesabout salvation of the people over-whelmed the inclination to seek the ma-terial comforts. Yet this curious turn inevents was especially short-lived as the"Great Society" (as envisioned by Presi-dent Lyndon Johnson) collided head-onwith the "Si lent Majority" of PresidentRichard Nixon. And the anti-poverty fundsbegan to dry up.

Moreover, the front-streetism that hadassured the demise of the Black PantherParty, students for Democratic Society,and a long list of other vanguard orientedtype of activist organizations compelledthe donning of camouflage by those whowere enamored to their tenents.

Further,the Blacker-than-thou syndromewhich evolved from this revolution hadthe effect of alienating a substantial seg-ment of the Black student body; soon suchcosmetic contests as who had the biggestAfro, or acted most belligerently, or wascapable of spouting the most Africanliberation phrases- among many otherequally insubstantial evidences of dedi-cation to the cause- became the criteriaby which Blackness was judged. Indeed,this represented al ienation at its best,

and the intransigence of its proponentsand the non-negotiability of its increas-ingly misguided principles drove manyBlacks from the struggle, leaving onlythe esoteric few who dreamed of theglorious days of the late 1960s. In time,the revolution was lost, but the casualtiesare still being counted.

The disarray in the ranks did not go un-noticed, however. Promptly, and almostmethodically, the Nixon administrationbegan to dismantle or sharply curtail sup-port from the Office of Economic Oppor-tunity, the National Defense Loan pro-gram, and a host of affirmative actionprograms that sought to knock down thebarriers of discrimination which had pre-vented Black students from higher educa-tion. Now, in 1976,we find that Blacks cangain admittance to institutions of higherlearning, provided they score on the samelevel as whites on the various entranceexaminations and turn to their own re-sources for the required tuition.

II. The Howard ExperienceSeptember 1969 was an especially hotmonth.The university was under the direc-tion of a new president. Dr. James E.Cheek; Sly Stone's "Fun" was the hottestparty record on campus, and studentsby the thousands partied on-the maincampus. It was an active month and greatexpectations poured from the lips of thefreshman duly assembled under the Ho-ward umbrella. Political rhetoric was allpervasive and the ladies-as always-were lovely. The Campus Pals- cowboyhats and all-were uniformly helpful andpleasant. but terribly unprepared to ad-dress the serious political questionswhich the newly arrived freshman soughtto have resolved about Howard.

There were those, however, who weremore than ready to launch into extendedpolitical discussions on Howard, Africa,America, or for that matter any other topicone might be inclined to raise-for inMay of 1969 Howard had undergone yetanother series of demonstrations to makeHoward a "Black University." Michael

Harris, a Chicago native, who as a fresh-man had played a singularly significantrole in the 1968 student take-over of theAdministration Building, roamed aboutthe campus in quest of the eager youngmilitants who had come to the universityso that the world might be saved. Harrisdid not have to travel very far, becausethere were those who had also come look-ing for him. But Harris was by no meansalone. Ewart Brown was in the College ofMedicine in 1969; he had earlier beeninterviewed by Playboy magazine on hispolitical views. Brother "Jomo" (Irvin Ray)was very much in evidence that year, aswas the gifted Pearl Stewart.The Iist goeson, but the important thing about thisperiod at Howard was its dynamism. Any-thing was possible, or so the student bodythought.

1969was the year of the final panty raid,also. Dubbed "The Panty Raid to End AllPanty Raids," it came- at a time whenco-ed visitation ended in the men's dormsat 11 p.m. (was non-existent in the wom-en's dorms); and when freshman malestudents were just beginning to appreciatethe bittersweet truth about freshman menbeing social misfits at Howard. Approxim-ately 1,000 men were involved as theyswept upon the Quad and Bethune HallIike a horde of locusts. Fortunately, noneof the women were hurt, although someof the men suffered injuries as a result ofleaps from third-story windows, assortedabrasions and contusions. Shortly there-after, 24-hour co-ed visitation was insti-tuted and panty raids, and to a limitedextent, the frustrations of the freshmanbecame a thing of the past. (One mightwonder just what affects the granting of24-hour visitation had on the revolutionaryfervor of Howard).

But the revolution lived. The College ofMedicine started the Howard UniversityMississippi Project (HUMP), with thepurpose of bringing needed medical careto the poverty-stricken Blacks Iiving inMississippi's Quitman County. And, thestudent government sent some 90 stu-dents to Newark, New Jersey, to help in3

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the mayoral race of Kenneth Gibson. SamWallace, Gary Ayers, Michael Harris, Pam-ela Preston and a whole host of othersconceived of the X-Party in that year.

The X-Party is significant in that itsfounders consisted of the most politicallyactive, if not astute, students at Howard.They were veterans of the various demon-strations of the past and now sought to in-stitutionalize and consolidate their gains.Thus, this entire slate ran for all the elec-

.tive offices at Howard and won practicallyeverything. They had run on a communityinvolvement program called "The D.C.Project." In the process, they had con-vinced each Howard student to pay anadditional $10 in student activities fee sothat enough funds would be available toimplement the ambitious project. Thestudents voted in favor of the proposal.As a result, the Howard University StudentAssociation (HUSA) had at its disposalsome $150,000 with which to help thepoor in the community. So far, so good.

Suddenly, in the midst of all of the jubi-lation and excitement at Howard, fourstudents at Kent State University in Ohiowere ki lied on May 4, 1970; less than twoweeks later, on May 15, 1970, two Blackstudents were killed in a hail of policegunfire at Mississippi's Jackson StateCollege. At this point, all hell broke loose.The question around campus was: Whatwas the newly elected student govern-ment going to do? Equally important,what was the university's new presidentgoing to do? The requested "honeymoon"period was over, and the stage was set forconfrontation. Dr. Cheek agreed to studentdemands that the remainder of the regularschool year be canceled, that final exami-nations be taken by those who wanted, allothers to receive "P" (passing grade) andthat in lieu of regular classes Black liber-ation survival courses be held in order toaddress to issues of Black survival. More-over, Dr. Cheek sent an urgent telegramto President Nixon, and eventually servedon the President's Commission on Cam-pus Unrest. What had promised to be a

stern test of the mettle of the new presi-dent saw him instead emerging as a hero.Later, a conference was held on campuswhich brought together student leadersfrom most predominantly Black schools inthe country. A few resolutions werepassed, and the conference ended priorto the Commencement exercises. Howardhad avoided a crisis.

The stage of the revolution, then,was offto a promising start. Unfortunately, it wasshort-lived. During the summer of 1970,the massive task of organizing the$150,000 D. C. Project and collating anddisseminating the recommendations pro-duced by the Black survival courses hadto be completed. Further, Homecomingfestivities for the upcoming school yearhad to be organized. It was here that theadministration of HUSAPresident MichaelHarris stumbled badly. The recommenda-tions from the Black survival courses werenever disseminated, at least not on thescale which had been promised. The D.C.Project on the whole was undercut byego-trips and downright ineptitude, al-though several components were highlysuccessful; the fight over the moneybecame so intense that little headwaywas made. (A mini version of the D. C.Project continues to this day).

The 1970-71 school year was hardlyunderway before the Homecoming activi-ties were hit with a scandal. Reportedly,between $8,000 and $10,000was missingwithout a trace. Soon after, the chairmanof Homecoming, Joel Mungo, pulled upon campus in a canary yellow sportsJaguar. No one knows for sure whetherMungo appropriated some of the missingfunds for personal use; it has never beenproven. Wherever the money went, HUSAwas the ultimate loser, as its credibilitytook a precipitious plunge from whichit has yet to recover. Pearl Stewart, theHilltop editor during this period, was ather satirical best in denouncing HUSA.

In November 1970, 86 students went toAlabama to campaign for Dr.John Cashinwho was running against GovernorGeorge Wallace. Their travel expenses

were taken care of by the student govern- 13

ment. The Viet Nam war was still raging;massive demonstrations became theorder of the day. And HUSA, searchingmightily for an issue that could unite thestudent body, once again chose the warto rally against. Various marches and ral-lies were held on campus and around thecity, but the inherent suspicion of the whitestudent leaders in the anti-war movementclouded the effectiveness of this device.Soon the school year came to an end.Ronald Daly, a native of Guyana, waselected president of HUSA, becomingthe first foreign student to hold such anelective position on campus.

Fall, 1971, opened with a bang. Statetroopers and National Guardsmen, underthe orders of then Governor Nelson Rock-efeller of New York, stormed the AtticaState Prison- some 32 prisoners and nineof the 32 guards who had been held ashostages in a cell block were killed dur-ing the assault. To be sure, there wasmoral outrage, but Howard students hadtrad itionally stud ied the fi rst semesterand demonstrated in the second semes-ter, so the timing of the Attica assaultwas out of sync with the Howard cycle.

The soccer team, under Coach LincolnPhillips, won the 1971 National CollegiateAthletic Association (NCAA) soccerchampionship in Miami, becoming thefirst team from a predominantly Blackinstitution to win such a trophy. (After thejubilation, NCAA took the title from How-ard because of alleged recruiting irregu-larities). The high point on the politicalbarometer came in the winter of 1972when delegates were being selected forthe National Black Political Conventionto be held in Gary, Indiana, in March ofthat year.

At the Ward I delegate selection elec-tion which was held in the Adams MorganElementary School, an unprecedentedcoal ition of Howard students submergedtheir petty differences and captured allfour seats-to the surprise and sorrow ofthe duly assembled various "grass roots"organizations. Howard had long been the

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14 whipping boy of these organizations; hadbeen forced to agonize under staggeringverbal abuse from the head of the BlackUnited Front at that time, the Rev. DouglasMoore. There were cries of fraud andgreat gnashing of teeth. But Howard laterrei inquished two of the four seats to acoalition of community organizations. Itwas significant that most student leaders,but a vociferous few, cast aside theirdifferences to work toward a commongoal. (It is noteworthy that the vociferousfew were to usurp the leadership in theyears to follow and preside over the dis-mantling of HUSA,foment unrest and con-fusion in the ranks of the student body,traumatize the campus into blissful apa-thy, organize revolution for-the-hell-of-itand from fanciful delusions of revolution-ary grandeur.) This, then, signalled theclimax of Howard's revolution of the1960s, a revolution whose origin datedback to 1967, the time when GeneralLewis Hershey, then director of the now-defunct Selective Service, came to speakat Howard and was disrupted in CramtonAuditorium by some students. Meanwhile,90 students had been sent South by thestudent government to assist in the guber-natorial campaign of Fayette(Mississippi)Mayor Charles Evers.

The 1972-73 academ ic year wasmarked by increasing Iyvituperative bom-basts directed at Dr. Cheek, primarily,and at his administration secondarily.Also, in this year, the student movementat Howard began its steep demise. Theadministration of HUSA President CharlesHall was marked by budget freezes andresignations, as had been the case withhis predecessor, Ronald Daly. Home-coming that yearwas soured by numerousdeaths and crime on campus. It was theperiod in which Rastafarians (from Ja-maica) came to Howard, the year in whichtwo students were ki lied by state troopersat Louisiana's Southern University, inBaton Rouge. Moreover, it was the year inwhich arsonists burned down temporaryBuilding B-presumably to awaken How-ard to the tragedy at Southern.

After graduation that year, most of thosepolitically active students moved on eitherto graduate school or other concerns, andthe Howard revolution began to regress inearnest. The HUSA constitution was re-written, and for a semester the studentgovernment had no president. Finally, inthe second semester of the 1973-74school year, Larry Newell was electedHUSA president.

Toward the latter part of 1974, VictorEugene Bryant became president ofHUSA, the first law student to hold suchan elective office. But Bryant's adminis-tration was characterized by intense in-fighting which undercut the vitality of hisonce promising administration. FormerHUSA President Michael Harris (1970-71),former Hilltop editor, Larry Coleman(1972-73), were on his staff, but the inde-cisiveness of Bryant made him suscepti-ble to attacks by campus opponents. Atany event, the handwriting was on thewall; this vainglorious effort to resurrectconstructive student involvement at How-ard was doomed by the opposition of theUndergraduate Student Association andthe Liberal Arts Student Council to effortsundertaken by HUSA. The biggest failureof Bryant's administration was its inabilityto have enacted a new HUSA constitution-which several studentorganizations hadcollaborated on all summer. 'This fail-ure, then, invited the entry of the Febru-ary First Movement (FFM),an organizationdevoted to the class struggle analysisproffered by Imamu Amiri Baraka andimbued with a vision of disruption andmass demonstrations as being the pana-cea for the various crises which they sawas threats.

The February First Movement was com-posed of latter day Howard activists whohad not been involved in the Howardmovement of 1968-72. Moreover, the or-ganization was composed of an interlock-ing directorate of members of the execu-tive counsels of the Liberal Arts StudentCouncil, whose president was HisaniMweuse (Marsha Lilly), and the Under-graduate Student Association, whose co-

ordinator was Donald Issac, a transferstudent from the Washington TechnicalInstitute. These two organizations had notonly undermined HUSA, but also were thegalvanizing agents behind a mass dem-onstration in April 1975-ademonstrationwhich pitted the students against theuniversity administration's effort to raisetuition. The workers of FFM were drawnfrom the ranks of freshman students whoknew nothing of the history of protest atHoward or the dynamics under which itoperated, upper classmen who had laiddormant during their matriculation atHoward, and student refugees from vari-ous community organizations who some-how saw Howard as the villain.

The 1975-76 school year was high-lighted by the election of the first Greekto the HUSA presidency since before thedays of 1967. But Earl Ferguson, a mem-ber of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, fairedno better than his predecessors with theFFM. Indeed, in November 1975, yet an-other demonstration and occupation of theAdministration Building was attempted-the rationale being a rumored tuitionincrease for the second semester. Notonly was Ferguson not consulted by theFFM, but he too was lambasted by it asbeing part of the establishment.

But the demonstration failed, becausethe student body was utterly uninformedas to its purpose. Indeed, no member ofFFM would be identified as being affili-ated with the leadership of the demon-stration, and during the occupation of theAdministration Building none were onhand to negotiate with the officials of theuniversity. In the wee hours of the night,onIy a handfu I of confused students wereseen occupying the lobby of the building.Inthe final analysis, an organization whichhad initiated a demonstration based upona rumor retreated into obscurity when thestudent body discovered the fraud whichhad been perpetrated.

III. The RevelationThis then is Howard in 1976. HUSA is stillwithout a viable constitution. The majority 7

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of the students are highly suspicious ofdemonstrations. There is a genuine lackof direction, and students are beginningto splinter into all directions.

Beyond Howard, forces are gatheringwhich could give rise to the birth of a newrevolution, a renaissance. The events inSouthern Africa-especially Angola-augur the re-ordering of African relation-ships with the outside world. The Presi-dential race, the Bicentennial celebration,the revelations about the lawlessness ofagencies like the CIA, FBI and NSA, andthe discovery of world-wide corporatecorruptions do much to accentuate thesegathering forces.

Black students at Howard and else-where in the country must, however, be-come aware of the fact that the affirmativeaction crutches which once opened doorswill invariably be snatched away.

One revelation, then, is that althoughforces beyond the realm of man may offerto the Black student the world to manageas he/she sees fit, unless Black studentshave prepared themselves to receive iteven this divine gift will revert to thosewho have the skills to receive it.

Another revelation which must be im-bibed is that the revolution did not startwith the '60s but rather dates back to thearrival of Black people on this continent.And, contrary to the popular impression atHoward, student protest and concern forAfrican liberation predates the civil rightsmovement of the '60s. In 1957, the lateDr. Kwame Nkrumah, first Prime Ministerof Ghana, was awarded the honoraryDoctor of Laws degree from Howard.Rayford Logan, author of Howard Univer-sity, ~he First Hundred Years 1867-1967and professor at the university since 1938,served as secretary and interpreter at theSecond, Third and Fourth Pan AfricanCongresses in 1921, 1923, and 1924,respectively. Also participants at theseconferences were Howard scholars, E.Franklin Frazier, and William Stuart Nel-son.

In the civil rights circle, the HowardSchool of Law stood second to none. Pro-

fessor James M. Nabrit (Howard presi-dent 1960-69) founded the first course incivi I rights in the nation in 1938,under theadministration of President MordecaiJohnson. The great constitutional casesin which this premiere advocate was ofrecord not only shook the foundation ofJim Crow, but enjoy a continuing vitalityto this day. Although space wi II not permitan in-depth enumeration of each casewith which graduates or professors of theSchool of Law were associated, it shallsuffice to say that Howard was somewhereimplicated in practically every civil rightscase ever argued before the SupremeCourt since the turn of the century.

The revolution, then, at Howard is notof recent invention, rather these latestdevelopments are but the most currentmanifestations of a phenomenon whichdates back to the founding of the univer-sity. And it is not likely that this Howardheritage of struggle and resistanceagainst racism and economic exploita-tion will end. But the challenge whichconfronts the present and future studentsof Howard, and indeed the Class of 1976,is to apply their skills and instincts to thebattle for equality in such a way as to beprepared to assume the mantle of leader-ship when inevitably it befalls them. Thisrevelation, then, is that the revolution con-tinues in spite of all that has been doneand all that has been said.

The ultimate revelation is, in additionto whatever other avenues Blacks pursue,of cardinal importance to our ultimatefreedom is the acquisition of wealth. Apeople who are dependent upon the lar-gesse of others for their very livelihoodare a people who can never be free. It iswritten: "For he that hath, to him shall begiven; and he that hath not, from him shallbe taken even that which he hath." St.Mark 4:25.

Cognizant of the fact that the complexi-ties and inner sanctuaries of Howard aremultiple, inexhaustible, no attempt hasbeen offered herein other than to paint anenlightened melange of cosmic, contem-

porary and historically contextual images 15as perceived by the author during hisseven-year matriculation. 0

The writer, a 1976 graduate of the Howard UniversitySchool of Law, is on the staff of the Regional Solici-tor's Office, Department of Labor, Kansas City, Mo.

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