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THOSE GUYS WERE ALREADY THERE WHEN I GOT THERE

All 57 of them were already in the class of 39 and I almost did not join them because I wanted to return to New York and not even see Morehouse.

I had been given a scholarship to come to Morehouse—arrangements had been made for me to go to Atlanta by Hamel C. Joscelyn, a Morehouse graduate and a fraternity brother who talked my father and mother into allowing me to leave 480 Convent Avenue, up there on Sugar Hill in Harlem. 

The family consented and I was placed in a group of Athletes from the Harlem Branch YMCA who were going on athletic scholarships to other Atlanta Schools. All of us were following in the footsteps of Joe Johnson, a New York basketball great who preceeded us a couple of years before to go to Clarke College. 

I was all hipped up to going to Atlanta because I had some contact with some bright young men from the South who came North to work on the 1935 Training & Employment of skilled Negro workers survey which professor Ira Dea Reid was conducting for the federal government. 

I was given one of the interviewers job for the survey by Mr. De Suze, the democratic district Captain of my neighborhood. I was given the job because I could read and write and a Dewitt Clinton High School graduate and one of the few so called educated Blacks on my block.

I was impressed with fellows like Bill Trent whose father was a college President; Robert Weaver, who was later to be in President Johnson Cabinet; Johnny Ashmore, a noted scholar; Fred Morrow, who was later to work in the white house for President Eisenhower and a host of other young black college men whom Dr. Reid brought North to supervise the survey.

I was wild eye looking at these young men, many of whom were just a year or two older than me, but who had already gone to college and finished while I and my buddies were delivering telephone books by the day from 135th Street.

And when those guys took to talking to me at 486 Park Avenue about going to college because I had shown some aptitude on doing the survey. I was anxious to go to a Southern school.

I had never been further South than South Ferry and was not prepared for the shock of finding out that I was black and the way it was done when I got off the Southern Railroad train in Atlanta Union Station.

When the wooden car in which I was riding up front under the coal burning engine rolled into the Atlanta terminal I was anxious to get off it and out in the open. I started walking towards the main gate of the station when I was abruptly stopped by a big railroad detective who bellowed "Nigger you can't go in there—Now get back where you belong and go out the Nigger Entrance."

Well, I was shocked and did not know what to do. But I made up my mind quickly, I was getting back on the train and coming right back to New York. 

The only reason why I did not do this was because I did not have the money to buy a return ticket, then could not return until the next day. A Black Cab Driver in the station waiting for some students who were going to Morris Brown College heard the man and came up and rescued me. 

"Your first trip South", he asked, "Yes," I said, "It's not so bad you come with me, I am waiting for two students and will be going your way. I will see to it that you get to Morehouse Campus safely" which he did. And that was how I came to join those 57 guys that Sunday afternoon in September 1936 in Atlanta.

The Driver did as he said, he delivered his two students to Morris Brown, then drove down Hunter Street to turn at Chestnut to come to Morehouse College and as we rode along he gave me some fatherly advice.

When we reached the President's house, he delivered me to Mrs. Stewart and told her about my experience at the Station and how I wanted to return to New York the following day.

Mrs. Stewart and some Morehouse teachers took turns in welcoming me and assuring me that everything was going to be all right but it was Mrs. Eichkelberger, the lady who ran the laundry in the basement of Graves Hall who really got to me. After listening to her I decided to stay that night in Graves Hall in a room at the top of the building in "Beaver slide" the freshmen section of Graves Hall.

By the time they got my trunk, my violin, a typewriter and my fathers derby upstairs I was too worn out to protest.

Being the last student in the room I was given a bed near one of the windows of the building. I was kept awake by a pugent odor coming from a magnolia tree underneath my window. It was strange and offensive to me—a boy from the sidewalk of New York who had never seen grass or trees in his life.

Those guys, all 57 of them were already there when I arrived at Morehouse. And for the next five years my life was changed. I was molded into the caste of a Morehouse man which embodied race and from the teachings of Walter Chivers, my major professor in Sociology; Nathaniel Tillman, who taught me English; William Dean, a 24 year old Economics Ph.D.; Jesse Blayton, who taught business; Tom Curry who spouted History and baseball; Floyd Dansby, who knew more math than any computer; Dean Brageal, Sam Archer and Charles Hubert our presidents, who protected us like a mother hen, hovering over her brood; Frank Forbes, our coach; B.T. Harvey who taught chemistry and life; The Reverend W. Holmes Boardens who taught us religion; E.A. Jones and Billy Jeter, who taught French; Kemper Harrold who instructed us in Music; W.E.B.D. DuBois, who taught us Sociology; William Stanley Braithwaite, the poet; G. Lewis Chandler, who was our advisor on the Maron Tiger, the college newspaper; Skipper Gassett, our Bursar, God Bless him, he kept us all in school; And Forrester B. Washington, our favorite Mr. Chips, who rescued me and gave me a scholarship to come to the Atlanta School of Social Work, on graduation from Morehouse.

But it was Skipper Gassett our Bursar who really took charge.

My first lesson in Civil Rights and struggle for same came one evening in Graves Hall dormitory when I found out that Moss Kendrix was involved in an incident with the Klu Klux Klan.

Moss and Benjamin Davis, a friend of his, were campaigning for voters registration in Athens, Georgia in 1935 and the Klan ran them out of town.

Ben came North to New York and became a maverick Politician and won a seat on the New York City Council under proportional representation.

Moss Kendrick enrolled at Morehouse College, where he was the golf team; founder of the non fraternity movement, a founding father of Delta Phi Delta, the first Negro Journalistic Society among Negro college newspapers. On graduation Moss was set up in business as a consultant to Coco-Cola Company by one of the provisions in the Candler will.

The second time I heard about Negro rights came out of an incident when the Klan decided to march up Fair Street to put those uppity "Niggers" in their place. This incident was highlighted in the Atlanta Constitution by its fighting Editor Ralph McGill, who laughed the boys out of town with some blistering editorials. The Klan then threatened to march around the Atlanta Constitution but for some reason, the march did not materialize.

Morehouse of the late thirties was situated in South West Atlanta from Fair Street to Green Ferry and from Chestnut to Ashby Street.

There were six buildings that made Morehouse Campus, two dormitories, Robert and Graves Hall, Sale Hall, one classroom building, a Science building, a president's house, the Dansforth Chapel and the Atlanta University Administration building.

Other buildings on the Campus while I was there included the Atlanta School of Social Work and the Atlanta University Library. Oh yeah we had a match box gym at the corner of Ashby and Fair and in back of Graves Hall was the president's home.

There were 372 students in all four years of Morehouse and my class of 57 was the largest class to graduate up until that time. We were the last of the great depression classes and we were considered something special—and we were.

Anyone who could attend a college in those days was something special and the same went for students attending Spelman, Morris Brown, Clarke College and Atlanta University. And we were kept in school by the wizarding of Skipper Gassett, the most compassionate person I have ever met in my life.

It was Skipper's job as our Bursar to fight to keep all of us in school and he did just that.

During those days because of dual system whites and blacks could not go to the same school, so the State of Georgia paid tuition for all Blacks who wanted to get an education at a Black school in the State or any school outside the State.

In Georgia the system paid tuition for preachers and teachers. All of us were registered by Skippers in the School of religion. We had to take a year of "Life and teaching of Jessus," taught by Mr. Greshom, so that Morehouse would receive the tuition money of 40 dollars per semester from the State of Georgia.

Once you got to "red hill" "Skipper" kept you there. And while we were there especially the boarding students, Samuel Howard Archer and Charles Hubert saw to it that no one, no one molested us. Those two guys, besides seeing to it that we got our lessons, also saw to it that our morals were in good shape. No one could come up on Campus and accuse a Morehouse man of an indiscretion. And Big Boy Archer bristled anytime the police came on campus for any reason what so ever.

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