In Black America; The Fourth National Conference of Black Student Retention in Higher Education

You From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is In Black America. The conference will have five general sessions and with five keynote speakers, the first being this morning and then you follow through with the book, we have another one tomorrow morning,

two on Thursday and then we close out with one on Friday. In addition to that, on Wednesday, except for the general session with Dr. Reginald Wilson, the rest of the day will be spent focused on racism on campus. And you will be here in this room and for Dr. Wilson's presentation, you will remain here for a video session that we're going to have three videos from different institutions that have been produced by students and some not by students. We're on this subject of racism on campus. Dr. Kanita Ford, director of the Title III programs at Florida A&M University. Five years ago, Dr. Ford realized that historically black colleges and universities were concerned about the declining numbers of black students in higher education. That led her to conclude that although many were concerned about black student retention, she could not identify a national form specifically addressing the problem.

Finally, in 1985 under the sponsorship of her university, Florida A&M, the first national conference on black student retention was held in Lake Bunevista, Florida. Because the first retention conference was geared towards its staff at historically black colleges and universities, Dr. Ford was surprised with more than half of those in attendance were from predominantly white institutions. I'm John A. O. Hansen, Jr. This week, the fourth national conference on black student retention in higher education with Dr. Samuel D. Proctor in Black America. But those 15 years at Rutgers and the 15 years in the black colleges

in long years of other affiliation have served to give me some perspective on what this is all about. Now, this says nothing of my own experience as a graduate of a black college and then as a graduate of other kinds of institutions in the North since that time and thought for bit, getting four of my sons through college, I know something about this topic. For 15 years, Dr. Samuel D. Proctor has held the King Memorial Chair in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University. Besides being an educator, he is also a religious leader as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City since 1972. Born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, Dr. Proctor holds a Doctor of Theology degree from Boston University and a Master of Divinity degree from Crozier Theological Seminary. Dr. Samuel D. Proctor has served as a teacher and dean at his alma mater, Virginia Union University for seven years

and president for five years. In 1960, Dr. Proctor became president of North Carolina A&T University at Greensboro. Today, Dr. Proctor's life of distinguished service reflects the commitment to the intellectual development of our youth, the preservation of historically black colleges and the spiritual nurturing of our communities. Recently, Dr. Proctor addressed the fourth national conference on black student retention in higher education in New York City. Dr. Proctor's address focused on the educational obstacle course for black students. Dr. Samuel D. Proctor. I have at Rutgers right now a class in which there are 142 students enrolled. If you should walk by the door, you would think that it was a church on the campus because it's a hot time that we have in that class every Tuesday night during the first semester. I volunteer to do this class and I'm teaching more students now than I've ever taught in my life in one semester.

I've got bushels of papers and book reports to correct, but I do this voluntarily because I genuinely love to do it. If I did not do it, I would ossify. I don't know what would happen to me if I did not have this challenge of these young people age 18 through 25 every Tuesday night in the first semester. Most of them were not even born when Martin Luther King was assassinated. Most of them are not in that class. I submit to you in order to simply get three semesters of our credit and a grade. Most of them are in there because they want a place of asylum. They need a chaplaincy. They need a father figure, an older brother, an uncle. I realize that I'm the surrogate of many persons who ought to be the significant

others in their lives. And I accept this role and work through it the best I can because I repeat. I genuinely enjoy this relationship. And then I have the basketball team there. I've got a large number of the football team of Rutgers there. And I've got some white football players and basketball players because they followed their black friends into the class because they told them that they could get a good grade from an old man over there teaching this course. What a time we have. But what a learning experience for me. So I'm learning firsthand, Dr. Ford, what these young people are going through in trying to survive this obstacle course on our campuses today. So I will hasten now to the very meat of this discussion and say to you what I think

ought to happen on our campuses in order for our young people to do well. I feel so guilty because my college days were spent in an atmosphere in which my own personhood was affirmed over and over and over again. My personhood was affirmed over and over and over again. Those four years, two years at Virginia State College in Petersburg and then two years at Virginia Union were among the happiest days of my life. They passed so swiftly because we were having so much fun. On Saturday night there's going to be a concert at our church with Billy Taylor and some other musicians, a jazz, dash, gospel music concert, you know, in New York we mix all this stuff up together.

And I'm going to be sitting right there listening to Billy Taylor do his thing on the piano. You know, Billy and I had an orchestra at Virginia State. I played the jazz saxophone and clarinet. We had about 12 pieces in our band and Billy played the piano. Can you imagine that here I am out here preaching this living gospel and I started out as a jazz saxophonist with Billy Taylor with the Virginia State Trojan band. And I can't wait to see Billy on Saturday night to give him another old fashioned squeeze. And we want to hold it tightly for a while, reminiscing over our days as young fellas 16, 17, 18 years old, high above the apomattox on a lofty hill in Petersburg, Virginia. The happiest days anyone could ever live through. And then I met PhDs who had time to talk with me and to tell me that I could do the same thing.

Dr. James Hugo Johnston, PhD from the University of Chicago and Luther Porter Jackson, likewise PhD from Chicago. And then John Hunter, PhD from MIT in physics and Thomas Carter, PhD in French from Michigan, they all convinced me that I could rise above that conditioning that they did to me down in Huntersville, in Norfolk. And I could rise to these sublime heights if I tried. And then in Richmond, Mary Elizabeth Johnson, I imagine having a woman teaching you French who had just gotten a doctor's degree in French literature from the Sorbonne, while just sitting in her class made me feel like I was somebody. And by the way, she died not long ago and left Virginia in $400,000 in a brick house. Quality people. Quality people.

I loved her like I loved my own mother. Pat McGuin, PhD from McEva, right here at Columbia. Arthur Davis, Arthur Davis, the Negro Caravan. You remember that book, Arthur Paul Davis at Harvard? Still living? What a wonderful person. PhD in English Literature from Columbia. Lymas Wall, PhD in Biology from Ann Arbor and Dick McKenna, PhD in Religion and Philosopher from Yale. You didn't need but three or four professors of that quality to bring you through. All through my graduate studies, I have leaned on lessons that they taught me when I was back 17, 18, 19, 20 years old. I went to a college where I didn't have to wonder every day who I was. Didn't have to worry every day if I would be accepted. I could get involved and take for granted that the place was just pregnant with hospitality for my loneliness spirit.

And it was a great joy. Now what we've got to do is find a way to replicate that on all of our campuses. And those of you who work in personnel services, and those of you who work as assistant deans and all of that need to know that this is the goal, this is the aspiration that we should have an atmosphere in which our young people can have their personhood affirmed. Nobody can go to college, feeling like a hungrohound caught in a snowstorm all the time. Nobody can study, feeling always like he is the outlawender, the stranger on the campus, the one who's unwelcome. Who wants to feel marginal all the time? Who wants to feel like a guinea pig all the time? And so these campuses have to learn how to discover ways of making our young people feel that they are welcome on the campuses. I'll never forget the day when I needed a haircut had been there for three or four days,

went downtown into Chester, Pennsylvania to try to get a haircut. And walk all the way down third street, find a found that colored neighborhood. I can't remember whether we were then colored, Negro or black or half-American or Negroes or darkest. I'm so old, I've been all of those things. I've been black about 24 months and I've been all of those things, you know. But I got a haircut and on my way back to the seminary walking back a long way didn't even know what the distance was, didn't get a bus, just kept on walking and sweating up my shirt, you know. Finding a god to the campus, it was a long walk to the main hall. It was warm September afternoon. And all these southern white boys were standing out in front of the dining room after dinner, standing out there joking and playing. And here came the only black student in the whole school walking down that walkway toward them. The longest walk I'd ever walked in my life. There they were gazing at me and one of them stepped out in front,

and Rabin Rose, great, beautiful face, red head seller, from few quave around the North Carolina. You know what that is, right down below the rock of that. He walked toward me and pointed this thing and he said, where you've been proctor. I said, I've been downtown to get a haircut. I was scared to death. I don't know what they were going to do. He said, I want you to know one thing. No, what's that? My name is Rabin Rose. All right. I'm the Bob on this campus. I cut everybody's hair, the president's hair, the odd man's hair, but nobody else was on the campus black, but me, so there was no big deal about that. He said, and I'm going to cut your hair. Oh, I was not prepared for that. The words would not come. You want to cut my hair? A white southerner from North Carolina? And just two days after I left North, we're all the black furthest cut white people's hair. Are you going to cut my hair? I said, OK, imagine that.

My whole world had to change immediately. I went to my room, looked at my mirror and said, proctor, how are you going to feel with Rabin Rose cutting your hair? But I got used to it. We got to be friends. And after that initiation period, it was one of the happiest times in my life to be a closer seminar with those fellows and all of them were from Ferman and Mercer and Richmond and Wake Forest. But we learned how to make that a community at Crosa. It can happen. It's possible. And I'm so disappointed that in famous, outstanding institutions in America, they have not yet discovered a way to welcome our young people. We started this 20 years ago at Rutgers, we're getting ready to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Equal Opportunity Fund program. I was over in Madison when we began it there. And after all of these 20 years,

these professors who studied anthropology and psychology and sociology they have not found any kind of a way to cause young black students to feel at home in an intellectual exercise. We're not there to dance. We're not there to marry off one another. We're there to study history and physics, journalism and biology. And here these people who are devoted to abstract thinking, to the scientific method, to empiricism, with all of that exposure to excellence, they can't find a way to make young black people feel at home on these campuses. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Learning how to affirm the personhood of everyone. I remember some challenges that have come to us

while we were working. Not everybody was of the same social class. On our campuses, not everyone was alike. Sometimes we had middle class kids from educated parents. Sometimes we had kids who didn't have it at all. I remember one day young guy came to my office and said, I'm going to drop out of school for what? And in those days we knew everybody. We knew what each person's financial situation was. See, I know you're broke. I know you can't make it. But you can't drop out of school. I'll raise some money from the alumni somewhere to keep you in school. But Dr. Proctor, you don't understand. He says, the home in which I was reared is now being sold at auction down in a, sorry, account of Virginia. He's sold at auction for what? Taxes. You having narratives? No. He said, you know what I am? What are you? He's not what you call a country often. A country often. What does that mean? I'm an often on whom no one has any papers at all. I was just born and then passed around among country folk who reared me one at a time.

I've had six different people I had to call Mama and Papa. And the last ones died out. The house was left. I had no money. I'm in school. Now they're going to sell the house for taxes. What could I do? He said, the house didn't refer much, Dr. Proctor. That's a shack you wouldn't want to bring about that. But I've got a trunk in there. What's in the trunk? All some old Sunday school certificates and bells and whistles and boy scout stuff and some dishes that are rich white lady gave me, one for whom I used to work. And that's all I have. I'm here with my bag of clothes and no another thing I've got in this world is that trunk. No kinfolk, no cousins, no uncles, nobody. But that trunk in myself. I felt so terrible. I had kinfolk by the boat load, Mama and dad and brothers and sisters and all things working for me. I said, hold still. I'm going to take you down. How far is it? Well, we've got to go to Homeville. We've got to go down below Waverley. Never mind. I'll take you. I went and got my car caught up my wife and said, I'll be late for dinner.

I'm going to take Sandy down into sorry account to get a trunk. She said, you have given every excuse in the world I've ever heard. But this one is beyond all reckoning. You're going to do what? I said, just trust me one more time. I'm going down. I started off the campus and Smithy came by and said, where are you going? I'm going to take Sandy down the country to get a trunk. In that car. I just had a brand new Mercury. He said, wait a minute. Let me give you the school truck. The school truck and old, the homie surplus truck, you know. And I said, it's a trunk. That oil in it. That gasoline ties all of it. Yes, all set. Show me where first gear isn't I can find the rest. So he showed me where first gear was. And Sandy and I went on off. Roll on down the highway just singing and talking about the Lord and about life. I tell you, I learn more about social anthropology with a country often and a picked up truck going down from Richmond into sorry account. I learn all about what it meant to be a country often for Christmas to come and no Christmas cards. Thanksgiving and everybody's dead and nowhere to go

for Thanksgiving dinner. I learn all about it. And sure enough, the trunk was just filled with junk. And on the way back, driving along, he started singing. I said, Sandy, what's that you're singing? It's a nice tune. Teach it to me. He taught me how to sing. My soul looks back and I wonder how it got over. And we sang it over and over again all the way from sorry account back into Richmond. A country often. But in our colleges, we knew how to reach out for people like that and to reach out with ease, no embarrassment, no big celebration. And I want to tell you something else that happened in my lifetime. I hope you'll never forget this. When my young son, Herby, had to have an operation at Johns Hopkins for tetradica for low open heart surgery. Many of you have had people in your family to have that is not so unusual today, but then it was rare. They didn't know what it was.

Little babies just died. But he had this surgery offered to him at Johns Hopkins. And they said, we don't have any blood. You've got to get 48 pints of blood. Where am I going to get 48 pints of blood from in Richmond? Those big shots don't give away blood. They're scared. They think they're going to die. They give away blood. All of my cap of brothers and all talked about it. Well, we'll give you the blood. Come on, get the blood. But then we found out that Richmond, Virginia's Red Cross were not except colored blood. So there I was with my buddies lined up to give blood and couldn't buy blood from anybody. And the Red Cross wouldn't take it. But somebody told me that in Petersburg, they had a state chapter. And they had a mobile unit. And it was over there at Hopewell, Virginia. How can I get the hope well? And who would give me blood and hope well? I was preaching to the church in Petersburg. I mentioned it to my buddy Gilmo Williams. And he mentioned it to Coach Satterhart of Virginia State College. Satterhart called me up and said, proctor. You know I mentioned to my football team. We're going to play your team Saturday. I know that.

States are going to play union on Saturday. He said, but the team said they want to give blood to your son. Are there some ordinary dudes now going to give my boy 48 pounds of blood from the Virginia State football team and they're going to play union on Saturday. I said, who did that? He said, you know, the captain of the team stood right up. A guy named Tobias. Tobias, right from the belly of Baltimore's slums, a three-month avenue, Tobias stood up with a heavy beer and said, y'all ought to help the proctor's boy. Let's come on, y'all. Let's give him blood. He was a big hard one and full back. He ran over us anytime. He got ready. And Tobias stood up and he was the one. I mean, he was one of those hoodlum recruits that Satter had brought down there. And Tobias is the one that stood up and said it. We got the blood. The boy had the operation. He's doing fine. He's now fine, fellas. Social work over here in New Jersey. In fact, I'm thinking about sending him back to get his head

operated on. Now, but anyway, one day in the Peace Corps, I was sitting there minding my business. And somebody came to the door and said, Dr. Proctor, and Mr. Tobias wants to see you. There was my OC minus full back from Virginia State standing and they're like, oh, that dog, how are you doing? I'm fine. I want to join the Peace Corps. I said, oh, my God, now I've got to pay for the blood. Now, that's it. What I'm going to do with this now. He want to join the Peace Corps. Tobias, you know, the Peace Corps teaches science and things like that to people all over the world. And you don't feel this sports and athletics. Don't you have some kind of sports out there I can do? I call all around the Peace Corps building. One guy said that Iran had been asking for a coach of their Olympic team. There you got it. We sent him all out to Iran to help them get there. My OC minus full back, you know, from Virginia State Cottage. I'm from Union. He's from Virginia State.

And here I am shipping him out there. Next thing we knew, we had to have a training program for a group going to Iran. We could not find anyone who could speak the far sea language. No one could understand those old Persian hieroglyphics. Nobody could write it. Nobody could speak it. I sent out there. Have you got a Peace Corps volunteer out there who can speak it well enough to teach these young people at Oberlin? They said, the speaking to somebody we've got out here is Tobias. You know, see minus full back. And I had to get old to buy us to come all the way from Iran to go to Oberlin to teach the far sea language. And I said, you'd knock on here. How did you learn it? He said, Doc, I'm out there with the fellows all day long and did not go to speak English, so I had to learn how to speak their language to survive. Well, now, now let me tell you what else happened. Now, what else happened? Then, many years later, I was on an airplane going out to Nairobi in Africa with Vice President Humphrey.

He was trying to get to be the President. He didn't have much time. Lyndon Johnson told him at the last minute he wasn't going to run again. He had a rush around trying to look like a President. So he had to run to Africa to help him look like a President. He said, Sam, would you go? So send me in buckets and more of us went with him on the airplane, going to Africa. We landed in Nairobi. I looked out of the window and there was a great big dude with a beard running toward the airplane. I said, you got to be kidding. You got to be kidding. There was my old sea minus four back to bias running out there trying to. I said, man, give me a big hug. We just we cried. I was so glad to see it. He said, but you know, I didn't come to see you. You didn't? Who'd you come to see? The sergeant here come great big sergeant shaking the whole airplane so business like, you know, with that stoic look on his face, you know, clean, shaving, you know, everything in place. Sergeant, my name is Proctor. Yes, I know you've been on the plane all the time. Where have you been? I've been up front with the hot box. What's the hot box? That's the communication system that connects Vice President Humphrey with Washington, Moscow, Paris, and London.

And you do what? I sleep with it. I live with the hot box. You do? How do you guys know each other? There they were standing there looking like they were going to just tear each other apart with affection. They just looked like they were brothers and sisters. He said, we both grew up in the Sheltonham School for Boys in Maryland. We were offends there. He said, you know, they just threw us in there. Kids whose parents died of tuberculosis. Kids whose parents went to jail. Kids whose parents, you know, just threw them away. Kids whose parents were burned in a fire. Whatever. There we were. And he said, he and I were the smallest two dudes out there. We used to just run around together. He was my brother at the Sheltonham home for colored boys. Now, here they were at the Sheltonham home for colored boys. And there, one of them is coaching the Olympic team for the

Kenyan track team has just finished coaching the track team for the Iranian nation. And the other one is in charge of the secret communication system to keep our nation out of war while the vice president was a loft in Air Force One. These colleges that we have served, schools like Florida and N and the rest, have learned how to accept young people from places like the Sheltonham home for boys and then produce from that Olympic coaches and people responsible for communication systems for the capitals of the world. We don't brag about it. We don't know how to write books on it. All we know is how to do it. Dr. Samuel D. Proctor, the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor Emeritus at the State University of New Jersey,

Rutgers. I would like to thank Florida A&M University for their assistance and the reduction of this program. Remember, views and opinions expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect those of this station or the University of Texas at Austin. For in Black America's technical producer Cliff Hargrove, I'm John L. Hanson, Jr. Please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes. Longhorn radio network, communication building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's in Black America cassettes. Longhorn radio network, communication building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. From the Center for Telecommunication Services,

the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn radio network. I'm John Hanson. Join me this week on in Black America. I want to speak with you on the subject of the retention of our young people in colleges and universities. And the topic is given is the focus, the obstacle course that our young people must reckon with. Dr. Samuel D. Proctor this week on in Black America.