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Accross the street again as you come from downtown Auburn were Jesse Blayton Enterprises; T.M. Alexanders Real Estate; Calloway Construction Co., Chief Aikens Construction, the North Carolina Life Insurance Office.

My days at Morehouse were nothing but happiness. Here I was a son of a naturalized West Indian who had been educated in the public school system of New York and given a scholarship to get a college education at a small Southern school in Atlanta.

The scholarship opened new vistas to me and although I suffered a psychological trauma of having to confront a dual standard of race-it took me about all of one week to adjust to Morehouse College and from those 57 guys and the teachers I came in contact with, I was on my way.

As I recall those years in Atlanta, I must speak glowingly of them from the eyes of a student just embarking on the horizon of life. Until I got to Morehouse and Atlanta I had gone no further South in Manhattan than South Ferry. I did get to Staten Island once and that was to attend the wedding of a boyhood friend and I left Harlem periodically to visit with my cousins, the Atwells on Chaucey Street in Brooklyn.

Incidentally, all the Atwell boys got college education and went to Lincoln University in Chester, Pennsylvania. I was the only one in the family who elected to go so far away from the streets of New York Harlem in the early thirties.

Atlanta was the gateway to the South and my eyes were opened there—by such men as Sam Archer, Charles Hubert, Dr. Richard A Billings, R.A. Johnson, Skipper Gassett, L.D. Bussey, my best friend, Forrester B. Washington and Walter Chivers and Lucious Jones and Cliff Makay.

My days at the house began with the teachers wanting to know where to place me. I way this with much humility because in those days, there were so few of us at the school that our teachers had a chance to really study our potentials and tried to tailor a course of endeavors which would best suit our potentials.

I came to Morehouse on an Athletic scholarship-I was supposed to be a basketball player, but when I got there the Morehouse basketball team was set with some guys from Chicago and Gary, Indiana, so I decided to look elsewhere. I was saved because Morehouse had student government and the officers in the government were divided up between fraternities. Because of my gregariousness and representing Phi Beta Sigma, it was easy for me to win the office of Student Manager of Athletics and this office plus a 14 dollar amount stipend from Mary McCloud Berthum's NYA.

The year swiftly passed but not without some memorable incidents. I wanted to study Sociology because I believed I was impressed with the work of Ira Reid, and two, I wanted to study Sociology so I could return home and get a job at the Welfare Center.

I was entered in the Sociology department and Walter Chivers was my main teacher and advisor. Walter used to eat every day at a small restaurant in front of Harry Murphy house on West Fair and I believe he held as many clases from his table at this restaurant as he did in Sale Hall.

I recall Mr. Gresham and Mr. Lewis who taught "Life and Teachings of Jesus" and I remember them because, we had to go to the Chapel every morning before going to class at Morehouse and these two gentlemen ran the Chapel. This was very important to us because chapel cuts could keep you from graduating and the real reason Skippers Gassett budget depended on our attendance for the State of Georgia.

Classes, I recall were held in Sale Hall, that was for us liberal arts guys. The Bachelor of Science students lived in the Science Building and were moulded by B.T. Harvey, McBay and the Eagleson brothers.

The teachers I especially remember include Frank Forbes our coach who was a real quiet guy but who instilled a love for sports in all of us and especially those of us who went out for his football and basketball teams. Moss Kendrix with his one golf club was our golf team, and a guy with his own tennis racquet from Florida played for Morehouse in S.I.A.C.

It was my job as student manager of Athletics to see the wares of our athletes and this I did relish around the city of Atlanta.

I also recall those debates, Morehouse debating team held against Oxford University from England—One day while walking down a street in Picadilly Circus in London, I ran into an English Lord, who had debated against us at Morehouse, and who like me, was in the Arm forces of our respective countries.

My inroads to Spelman Campus were made every Sunday where I would go to the Spelman College Music room to listen to Classical music and debate with William Stanley Braithewrite their professor of literature.

This was incongruous because the guys at Morehouse could not see me as any classical music lover. I was not a member of the orchestra or sung in the Morehouse Glee Club. I went to Spelman to figure out how to talk to Florence Reid, their president who considered Spelman as a finishing school for ladies and she was not too anxious for us Morehouse men to get too close to her girls.

An incident I recall which had a two year span occurred when we wanted to move the Annual Morehouse-Spelman dance off Spelman Campus to the Dawn Casino on Auburn Avenue-In planning the dance, I argued for bringing the girls cross town to the Dawn Casino—we settled for moving them to Atlanta University dormitory on Chestnut Street. The senior prom of my senior year was, after much haggling with Florence Reid, held at the Dawn Casino and the girls were bussed cross town with the teachers at Spelman acting as their chaperones.

Among the Atlanta business men I remember were Menelick Jackson who came down from Detroit to open a General Electric franchise in house utilities on Auburn Avenue. Menelick and his wife also bought a house a block away up Hunter Street from the Scott home. Hunter Street is now called Martin Luther King Drive and Menelick house was so far out bordering on the white neighborhood that the white folks began to grumble.

Then there was Jesse Blayton who operated a soft drink business; kept books for numerous businesses, and taught Bookkeeping and Business at Morehouse.

T.M. Alexander was the big real estate operator as was Chief Aiken and Calloway. The Bronners ran paper routes around town and later went into cosmetic distributing in Atlanta—The Ivy's were the big undertakers while I was in Atlanta.

John Wesley Dobbs the Grand Master of Masons while I was at Morehouse was the big republican politician. Mr. Dobbs had several daughters attending Spelman College and he was always on that Campus and Morehouse looking out for student progress.

Among Mr. Dobbs girls was the mother of Maynard Jackson, the Mayor of Atlanta and Maturlda Dobbs, The opera singer. Another of Mr. Dobbs girls married the head of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company.

The Waldens were the lawyer family. Mr Walden was too, a republican and way up in Georgia politics. One of his daughters taught my Ann at Spelman.

The Blaytons were all impressive. The Paschal Brothers got their start in business on Mason & Turner off Hunter Street cooking in a People drugstore window.

R.O. Sutton became the head of the Citizens Bank; The Yates and the Miltons, two families of business men, taught at the colleges and ran a chain of drugstores as well as the bank.

The Murphys were the printers of Atlanta. Mr. Murphy and Mrs. Murphy were very jealous of their interests in students going to Spelman & Morehouse. The Murphys were parents of Harry a printing executive in New York and Sarah, a department store executive in Conn., and Mabel who married an Ambassador of the United States and she too, served as an Ambassador to a Middle East nation.

The Westmoreland was the Walter White family people. The Bronners ran paper routes when I was a student but who today are cosmetics executives in Atlanta.

The Wrights worked at Clarke College and then came to work in a Wall Street firm and the Railroad in New York. The Scotts ran the newspaper starting with W.A. Scott, the founder—a couple of brothers, a mother, with two Scott girls, one who married Russell Simmons, an Atlanta business man, C.A. the Editor of the paper now W.A. III and Stanley Scott a brother's son who is a Phillip Morris Company Executive in New York.

Then there were the Asa Yancys, the Davises, the William Reed, the Carters, the Billings and Higtowe, all Atlanta Medical men. These were the folks I knew in Atlanta some forty years ago.

I remember Nipsey Russell and Baron Wilson who attended Morris Brown College and worked on the Soda Counter at the Yates and Milton Store at Chestnut and West Fair. Nipsey Russell always sought me out to question me about New York. It was his ambition to come to New York and go into show business and photography which he did. Nipsey made it in Vaudville at the Baby Grand on 125th Street for years. Baron Wilson worked at Smalls Paradise for year. Then Nipsey went into television and Movies.

The Malcolm family, spawned Benjamin who became head of Department of Correction of New York and is now a Federal Correction man. Bens' pretty sister Ann, who married Ric Roberts, the Clarke Football immortal and great Sports writer of the Atlanta World and the Pittsburgh Courier. Then there were the Wardlaws a group of sisters and borthers who lived right across the street from Morehouse on West Fair. The Wardlaws came to New York and worked in Correction and the federal government.

MEL PATRICK CLASS OF 1939

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