Eyes on the Prize II; Interview with Adrienne Manns-Israel

You look gorgeous. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. First of all, think that when you first got onto how it's campus, I give me your first impressions. You know, what were you expecting and what did you find when you got there? I came to Howard because I wanted to go to a black school and I had read about Howard and like one of the only black doctor in our town, both of them rather, had gone to Howard. And then I had read, I was at a book that Ulysses Lee and Sterling Brown and Arthur Davis had edited the Negro caravan. So I went there expecting a black environment. You know, I thought that here I would have a chance to see black people in a positive role as opposed to when I had seen in high school.

Excuse me, could that just a second? Morgan. Okay. Give me, when you first got on campus, your first impressions and what you came expecting. When I first came to Howard, I'd come there expecting a black environment. I came out of white high school and white town, we were in a minority, so I was coming to Howard because I wanted black people, black teachers and positive role models and all this. Alright, so when I got there, well first of all, I knew I was out of place because my roommates had to have an extra closet brought into the dormitory room, right? People were going to class in high heels. It was just a totally bourgeois environment, unlike the one that I'd come from and I really had never known any middle class black people except for the doctor and teacher, okay? So I was, I felt out of place. I felt alone.

I didn't have any good friends for about a year and I thought I'd meet a mistake. So I came there, Judy, really thinking that I should leave. Alright, yeah, do you remember going to know that I'm here? And what kind of courses did you come expecting to my, what did you find? I came looking for black history courses, black literature, music, it was kind of a void in my life that I wanted filled and black studies is what it's called but it was at that time for me to use black history and literature and Sterling Brown was there, which was very exciting because he was a poet that I had admired for a long time and Arthur Davis. So I was expecting to study black literature with Sterling Brown, that was my first expectation. And what I found was that he first of all told us that he could not teach black literature, that it didn't fit in the curriculum and it was not offered.

There was only one course and that was Negro history. And you had to be a history major or an upperclassman to take that. And you couldn't fit it in your schedule, you know, after you got finished with all the humanities and the Western Civ type of courses, you couldn't fit that one course now. It was very hard to get in. There was no music, you couldn't play jazz in the fine arts building. All you heard when you passed the fine arts building was opera. All day long opera opera opera opera and so-called classical music, national symphony and this kind of thing. So I was very disappointed and well, I think they said they were making it the black Harvard or something like that and it was just not what I wanted. Now, what they would say was well, but there was no color to knowledge, what would you say? Certainly. That's ridiculous. To say that there's no, all right, to say that there's no color to knowledge, it's not

true. It's so ridiculous. I really don't know. You gave me a sense of what helped me forward. Well, there were two things that got me involved politically and it helped me move out of where I was to somewhat more consciousness. One of them was when one of the students was expelled from school because she had stayed out overnight, violated the curfew regulations and for this, she was not only put out of the dorm, but they put her out of the college altogether and Jay Green, who was the law student, he started supporting her and taking up her case and he would come out at lunchtime in front of the law school and there'd be rallies. So I started coming to the rallies and I was working on the newspaper as a reporter in my freshman year and we were covering the story and the editor of the newspaper was interested and I think he was friends with Jay.

So I started following this case and Jay was saying that we had no rights as students that she should at least have a hearing that it wasn't right for her to be put out of school with no hearing and that was the first time that really I began to think that well maybe there were others who didn't like the situation and there were other people concerned and they were willing to do something and the next thing that happened was second semester, believe it was when the Selma campaign took place and we were in freshman assembly which was a mandatory gathering, all freshmen had to go to on Tuesdays, I think it was like one o'clock and it was sit there for an hour and listen to quote, quote culture and this particular day they announced that if we wanted to go to the march there was a march down the White House to protest Reverend Reeb's murder in Selma and if we wanted to go they had a bus the student government had rented a bus and we could get out of freshman assembly.

So honestly I just wanted to get out of freshman assembly. I was tired of sitting there and they said you could be excused and excuse absence and some of the other students were going that I knew so I went along and when we got down to the White House, first started out picketing and it was boring kind of talking, I didn't know much about what was happening but then across the street the Nazi counter-demonstrators and clans and when other people started counter-demonstrations and the soldiers moved in it got very tense and a couple of my friends said they were going to sneak in the White House and stay there they were later arrested I think and sent to prison and they kept saying well let's stay I said I said my feet here and I want to go and they kept saying I don't know we got to stay and before I knew it I was caught up I was listening I think I stayed there till about two in the morning and it made sense to me for once the civil rights movement never made any sense to me until then and then it really did and I said well I heard Stokely Carmichael speak in 1966 I was at Harvard for summer school and

while I was there I had met some students from south one particular student from Mississippi took a little Mississippi she and I became friends and she said oh I hear Stokely Carmichael is speaking tonight and I didn't I knew Stokely was but I didn't really think it was significant but she said let's go so I went my god there he gave one of his early black power speeches and I'll never forget it how electrifying it was because all the things I had been stored up inside I've been thinking about at Howard how disillusioned I was with Howard how tired I was of our position as people feeling that we were all on welfare it's the best way I can think of when I was at Harvard for instance there was a scholarship program for deprived minority students who otherwise could not meet the standards of Harvard and

they were allowed to come for a summer supposed to be a pre-law type program when I had come on my own merits or at least I thought I had and not in this program but they were always in the newspaper would come off anybody black all the white students assumed that that's how we got there I was angry about that and when I heard Stokely talk about black power and we need to stop apologizing for who we are and we need to stop pushing I heard Stokely Carmichael in summer of 1966 when I was at Harvard University for the summer school and went into with the friend who I met from Mississippi went into the auditorium and he started talking and it was as if I were talking he was speaking

for me things that I've been feeling and thinking about he was articulating them so well especially about the attitude that we should have as black people toward ourselves in its country and how we shouldn't be begging and pleading for our rights but we ought to get together and organize and take what we rightfully belong to us and I like that I didn't like the passive kind of beggar mentality that I thought we were into in a civil rights movement did that change you anywhere yes because I got zeal I'm sorry if you could say the speech changed me because when I when I realized that what I had been feeling and thinking was not just personal wasn't just me somebody else in fact someone of prominence and stature felt the same way and could articulate it and I really felt encouraged so I went back to Howard and I had a column that I started in the newspaper because I stayed

on the newspaper staff this point coming back I was able to do a column and I used my experience at Harvard and the ideas that Stokely had articulated in this column which I started called a Coons Corner you know it was supposed it was satire and I started comparing how we were treated at Howard with the way students were treated at Harvard that's how I started it off and I think that I got some focus from then on when they tell me you should just be careful over that thing you should just pause and I think it was 6667 because that's the year when Carolyn Carter took over his editor the newspaper

and we ran a an editorial on black power and Stokely had either spoken at Howard or he was about to come to speak at Howard and we were we were for once able to say that we weren't just isolated in our frustrations and we began to identify a lot of people with not with Stokely but with the ideas and another impact I think that year were the veterans the Vietnam veterans who had come in from just from the war coming on the GI Bill they were talking in and they were the riots and there were people coming in from Philadelphia and Detroit who been involved in the riots or at least they'd been in neighborhoods said they were involved well there was so much that year I I can't begin out there was Oran Coringa and there were there were so many speakers there's so many things happening when you talk about the Vietnam experience how did you all link the black consciousness

with the Vietnam was there some kind of connection view the link between black consciousness and Vietnam started with the notion that black soldiers were being sent to Vietnam to fight for freedom that we didn't have in America and that was the the the first objection that I heard to the war that in fact that more blacks were being sent to the front lines and they were being killed and and people felt that this was genocide then the second thing which I felt was that the war was unjust war that was being fought against people of color who were who were considered books or outside the humanity as we were considered outside humanity and the war itself to me was objectionable now others had other they said well black shouldn't be fighting until we get our freedom here and I said we weren't fighting

for freedom in Vietnam at all so for me that was the so that's why I think it's hard to say that there was one point of view there were many points of view and that was mine talk about that related to that talk about the Hershey demonstration do you remember that when General Hershey came to to Howard he came I think to support the war and the draft not quite certain because he never got to speak there were a core of young men from Philadelphia who had planted demonstration and they told me that they were going to do something they didn't say what and I should come so I came and I wouldn't have come otherwise and they stopped him from speaking they got up chanting America is the black man's battleground they had placards and Hershey stopped I remember him looking at them like a grandfather I like he understood and he just he didn't speak and Carl Anderson was dean of students

I think at that time he came over to escort him off stage like he's protecting him but there was nothing to protect him from they were they were chanting but they weren't trying to harm him they just were trying to stop the program which they did and we left that was all there was to it but a big thing was made out of it I remember that Robin Gregory was there because she and I had been talking afterward and she and a number of other students I think Tony Gittens was involved in that they were called before the judiciary to be expelled from school for disrupting this program so when they went to their judiciary hearing that's when some more students came to disrupt the hearing remember Dean Snowden I was funny I was always outside it seemed like on all these these early demonstrations and watching and they disrupted the hearing kept the hearing from being from taking place because we knew that as in past if you went to a hearing automatically that meant you

were going to be expelled I'd never known anybody to make it through the hearing called on Kangaroo Court I think something like that so that that's the Hershey incident Oh excuse me there's I forgot after after her she right after the Hershey demonstration there was a polarization I remember in among students one side of the student government leaders and fraternity leaders called a press conference to apologize for the demonstration and they angered me so I was so angry I was a managing editor of the newspaper and I said that they how dare they speak for the student body they said they were speaking for the responsible students now Gloucester current was there and some others who were who were leaders and student government and that polar I that really polarized polarizes those who supported the demonstration or at least they're right to have it those who said it

was disgrace and embarrassment to the to the university and so forth and I just made a vow after that I said well we have to get serious about this thing because the other side is serious summer of 1967 Tony getting's called me I was home for a while I planned to come back but he called me and told me that he got a letter from the school that he was being expelled from the school and he was very upset about it he said not only him but there were 18 others and when I heard I said well I'm coming back anyway to work the summer and I came back to Washington he said we have in a meeting and went to his

house and it's pretty tense time because to me to be expelled from school if you're a senior was an ultimate kind of punishment and no hearing had been held or anything and 18 of them I knew I knew several of them and after the meeting was over we talked about lawyers and all that how to deal with it and he lived near DuPont Circle so we went for a walk we were coming down 16th Street and walking around just talking about what this meant and I felt this I felt an anger that I felt Tony was a kind person very nonviolent he always supported non-violence and peace and harmony and love and I was more abrasive and here he was being expelled I felt that it was as if an innocent person whom I who I felt was innocent and motive and whom I cared about deeply was just being drummed out of school what would happen to him and I decided I said well Tony we're not going to let that happen I said

they you know they can't put all of us out of the school you know the students make the school and I decided to do something about it thank you yes he got he and I don't know if it is that word or okay if you can talk about char today and get a piece of script as if you can as if you have no footage and you're just describing it right before char today the Tony and I had gone up to see Dr. Neighbor and asked him to respond to these 16 demands that we'd drawn up a coalition of students had drawn up 16 demands and we asked him to respond to it by char today so either at char today exercises or before so we left his office I wasn't very optimistic because he talked all the time about Amsterdam and this latest trip so I really wasn't very optimistic that he would do it but anyway we had met the night before Ujama which was a coalition of protest organizations non-official groups we had met all about two days before char today and decided that if Dr. Neighbor did

not respond to those 16 demands during char today exercises that we were going to disrupt the exercises and so we went there with that in mind there were about 15 of us who said we would go up on the stage and ask him to respond to our demands and the rest would hand out leaflets to the audience to tell them why we were doing this and what this was about so we got there well we've sat in different places in the auditorium I think I sat with Tony and the guards were there security guards were there and they had just killed somebody not too long ago who was robbing the punch out which is a student hangout canteen and one of the security men had shot the man so all I could see was this gun I remember his big tall security guard he was over six feet and he had a gun and they they were all all over

the auditorium looked like they might have been five or six out of them but anyway when Dr. Neighbor had finished the preliminaries and they got into the program and Dean Gandhi got up to give the address and he gave the address and say one thing about our demands he sat down and then Dr. Neighbor got up to give the distinguished alumni their awards so I said Tony I think if we're going to I don't think he's going to say anything and the program is going to be over so we better do something and he said well okay let's get up so I said all right so I got up I was you know we walked toward the stage and all of the security guards came to the front and stood in front of us and we were standing there and well I said I said Tony I don't know whether we're going to do now you know he said let's sit up on the stage so we sat on the stage and finally I said I can't get up so I just I'm just afraid I can't get up so he said I'll get up so he got up

so when Tony got up then I said well I can't leave Tony standing there by himself and I think QT Jackson got up and some more so the rest of us got up there and we stood on the stage and Neighbor turned and Tony went over to him and he said something about Dr. Neighbor we've asked you to respond to our demands and since you're obviously not going to respond you know we feel you should relinquish the ceremonies and let us explain so it's a tense moment and I remember Neighbor said why are you doing this to me or something like that he looked at Tony and me and like as we had betrayed him and then he walked off the stage and we tried to hold our counter charter day exercises and explained to the alumni and the faculty jumped up you know they were all in their robes they fled the auditorium only about three of them stayed I think one of the alumni stayed and we tried to they turn the systems off we tried to talk we had like a rally QT Jackson but I was afraid really I really was for the first time I think through the whole thing I was afraid

okay even talk about take over and going from that rally and wonder of seeing all this people behind you well you know after charter day we got letters I got one and Tony got one and everybody involved it's about and some more people who weren't involved got letters from the administration that we were called to judiciary hearing and I said well this this was it I had for seeing that of course and we're going to be expelled so we decided to hold a coalition meeting of student government leaders and all students really who have been involved and we met and decided that we were going to have a sit-in in administration building to protest these these letters because there was no student judiciary and we

have a rally we said we have a rally in front of Douglas Hall and then after the during the rally at lunchtime we would announce the sit-in and we go into the administration building well I had estimated I said well maybe 500 people will come we can count on we didn't want to be embarrassed that we did 50 year 100 of us go into administration building so we thought 500 the most went to the rally and he would Brown was a speaker I didn't hear anything you said because all I could think of was when he's finished I've got to walk over to this administration building I promised to go up into neighbor's office right and sit down on the telling man to leave so I said all right I didn't hear anything all I heard you would say was now we're going now something and I stood back to see how many people were going then I said well I can't do this I've got to go regardless so I just walked I just walked over

there I didn't look back I said well however many come I made a commitment and it was overwhelming the whole building was full of students I went up to neighbor's office the third floor was full the second floor and his secretary all the workers were like they didn't say anything you know they just looked at us and we stayed on the floor and I kept thinking why are all these people come from now I just never realized that that many people would support us but I was afraid I was afraid all the way over there until I saw the people come and well I was afraid then because I said what would we do now with all these people now that we're over here what would we do now so I just sat there waiting finally a couple hours they closed up offices and they started leaving the workers some of them said about time you all did this I was surprised they said we were wondering how long it was going to take you to do this it's about time and they all went home

and evening started to fall and we said well we've got to do something so we formed a steering committee that came out of the student leadership and broke down into different areas communications food housing sleeping quarters for everyone I've forgotten all of the subcommittees but we had about eight to take care of them give me a sense again of the day that you take over and the rally and if you can say the expulsion the part that you had early after after child today we got letters from the administration that those of us who participated were called before the judiciary for hearings and we knew that that was the same thing as being expelled so I had expected this and we met that is the student

leaders of protest leaders we met and decided to have a sit-in in the administration building and we're going to sit there until they agreed to set up a student judiciary well the plan was that you were brown was going to speak he was president of the student government association he would speak and no long speeches we said no speeches just tell people what happened the reason we're having a sit-in and we're all going to go over there and we estimated that maybe 500 would join us well the day came I remember it was very bright day beautiful day and I went out after lunch and I told one of my teachers that I liked what was going to happen I told him to stay I didn't tell him everything I said stay away from the administration building and I went over to the rally and when I couldn't hear what you were saying I was afraid really I said what are we going to do we've got to really do this once you say you're going to do this then you got to do it so I remember you had said let's go and I turned and I was staring at the building I said I've got

to do this and I walked started walking toward it I was I wasn't sure how many were coming I said it doesn't matter you know I've got to do I've got to go ahead with it and I thought just the fuel come I was so afraid that we were going to be embarrassed and I went on in anyway and look behind me and there were all these students coming the the place was filling up first for a second floor I got in the elevator I went on up to the third floor and went into Dr. neighbor's office right behind me there were enough students to fill the whole floor of the third floor which is a big area and there about 10 of us that went into his office he wasn't there and we sat down and decided to wait to see what they did next well a lot of the students who were inside the administration building were talking about

the fact that there was no problem that we had nothing to worry about that they wouldn't do anything to us there was nothing to fear from the police or from the army and and it frightened me because they seemed so naive you know and and they didn't really understand how serious the authorities were and I had been at an October 67 at the Pentagon for the big piece March I had gone to that and I seen how they had beat those people at the Pentagon you know young white people and I said they'll do that to them I know what they'll do to us and Orangeburg had taken place but it seemed like our students thought and they said they thought that we're Howard and we're different that Howard is different and they won't treat us the way they treat other students and it scared me well there were four of us that were chosen out of the negotiating team and the first problem

that we had was that to be chosen it had to be done by consensus and there were maybe a thousand students whose opinions had to be had agreed and there was a steering committee of about 11 who made the nominations to the students they agreed but they said whatever we did we couldn't do anything without bringing it back to them so whatever points that that the administration would agree to at this point the Board of Trustees would agree to we had to then tell them we'll take this back to campus and so we're going back and forth back and forth on a lot of issues and came down to two that were a problem first was neighbors resignation and the trustees told us that he planned to retire the next year so that they felt there was no need to to ask him to resign and secondly was on the matter of black the word black we wanted Howard to make a statement about its commitment

to the black community to the welfare of the black community and the trustees said no they couldn't do that I think it was Kenneth Clark yeah Kenneth Clark who who explained to us that because Howard got so much money from the federal government that they couldn't afford to make an over commitment to any one group because that would put them in violation of civil rights laws or fairness or whatever but they could make a statement saying that they were committed to general welfare of humanity and so forth so we got everything agreed to everything except those two it took us maybe two days I guess of talking going back and forth from the hotel back to the administration building and now those two points is where we where we stopped so what happened when you went back I mean the point of view like you couldn't go any further when you brought it back to the student body

how did you try and deal with that well the student body told us their their sense was that we we were threatening to betray them I had I remember one night the night before we left they were very angry because they said we it was the first time they seen us vacillating that we weren't united some of the steering committee was in favor of accepting the trustees offer some said no so the students finally told us to work it out among them ourselves the 11 of us they ended up an all night marathon and it got down to the word black because Tony said we should have mercy on Dr. neighbor that we should give him some respect because I said no we should make the Mary's eye Tony kept saying no we shouldn't do that so I said all right but then we got down to the black issue then I said well maybe we can trust them we can accept this argument

but others said no and we stayed up there was a core of people that really felt this was a central issue and that it broke us it broke the coalition down that issue well specifically the black issue was that Howard should exist for the benefit of the black community that it it ought to be involved in economic change and political change that it had a mission to say or or a purpose a goal that didn't didn't allow it just to be a place where you came and got a liberal education and became a member of the middle class and went on with no consciousness I think we call it relevance all right relevant to the black community and that was the point that we could not win we did not win some felt we could have won it I felt that we couldn't so what was it like that you're going

back in you've decided that you have to end the takeover what is you feeling at this point I felt I felt let down at the end of the takeover I felt I let down because at the end of the takeover I felt a let down at the end of the takeover I felt a let down at the end of the takeover I felt a let down because first of all our unity had been broken heart ill ill ill will surface conflicts, surfaced, people began to accuse others of selling out. The students, I think, some of them felt we had sold them out because we wouldn't stay on and on about this one point. And I told them that the police and the army, the first 82nd Airborne, whomever, were coming out of the Pentagon and people that we had stationed downtown had called us and said that they're bringing up

the army and the police said on 14th Street or Georgia Avenue, whatever. See we're in this building, they can't see what's going on out there. And it's surrounded the area. And when they, you know, when the cameraman and all this pull out, they're going to come and take the building. And I knew to me that those students were not prepared to to die. They were saying they were prepared, but they weren't. I didn't believe it. And I said, well, if you all prepared to stay here and die, I remember I said, I'll stay and die. But in my heart, I really caught a type of person I was. I couldn't lie about something like that. I said, okay, I'll stay here and die. I don't think we ought to, but I'll do it. And the rest of them were saying, well, we're saying this, but we don't really think they're going to come. And so at that point, I felt, oh, I felt that maybe I had gone a little too far. Maybe I had pushed things farther than people really should have gone because they really didn't understand. And they went

out with this we're a winner music, the impressions. I didn't feel that way about it at all. I felt that to win something you needed to have a sense of what you had done and what you had not done. And we had not done two-thirds of what we said we were going to do because the consciousness of the students, to me had not been raised significantly from where they were when they came in to where they were when they left. I had to quickly put the change clearly. I'm going to ask you to talk about, you had a sense. You said it won't. You didn't notice how long it was going to take to really accomplish what you want. And can you give me a sense that as a student, you said as a 21-year-old student, I didn't realize how much time it would take to do that. And that was a sense that you left the ability. I'm going to ask you, when you left the ability, what did you personally feel? When we left the ability, I felt

that we had not done things the way we should have done. And at some point we should have cut off, left the building and just said we will not have classes for a while until we could get ourselves together. I also felt that Tony had been right when he told me he said revolution takes a long time. And we can't expect to accomplish everything with a sit-in or with one demonstration. I think he was a more of a student of revolution than I was. And I realized he was right. And at night, I stayed up almost all night. People were calling me and I just didn't want to talk to anybody because he was right. And I felt that opportunism was about to take over. I could see people coming, making friends with this trustee and that trustee. And that I felt that was not going to be what I had wanted it to be. I was tired from lack of sleep. And I just wanted to withdraw.

Well, it wouldn't have became clear during the charter day, so ceremonies, that Dr. Neighborhood was not going to respond to our demands, was about the end of the program, he was about to give out the awards. I remember turning I said, I think we need to go up now because he's not going to say anything. And so he said, all right, well, you get up. I was sitting in the aisle. So I got up. That was the cue for everyone to get up. So we got up and we started toward the stage. And the security guards moved quickly and got in front of us. They were standing there all of them were armed. And I remember the fear because I said, if we step past them, maybe they'll hurt us. I didn't know what they do. So I said, Tony, well, we do now. And he said, well, let's sit on the stage. We just sit on the stage. So that way we don't have to push past them. So we sat up on the stage. And well, Tony said, I think we're going to have to get up. You know,

this wasn't working. They were going on like we weren't there. So Tony got up. And I thought, well, if he got up, I have to get up with him. I promised that I do this. So I stood up. And we stood there and I kind of inch my way toward the podium. And behind Tony and QT Jackson was on the other side. And they told our neighbor that here were our demands again. And we're asking you to respond to them. Will you respond to them this time at this time? And he's he just turned away from us and walked away. He looked at us. He's like, how could you do this to me? And he just walked away. Well, Howard was to me at least a place that yeah, what to me Howard was living on on past reputation that I really cut off in a

50s. They were not addressing current issues, current problems. It just wasn't there. And in fact, the the things they had addressed only affected a small minority of black people. But for concern for the masses, it wasn't there. Concern for for for real change wasn't there that they were concerned with getting something for a few black people that talented 10th of the boys. So they could become rich and wealthy and powerful. But they were not concerned with the rest of us.