When Grinnell College Collaborated With A Black College...

Perhaps nothing was so evil in America's ugly history of racial hatred as the 1955 murder of Emmett Till and the long history of lynching, but the 1960s witnessed its own explosive series of high-profile crimes based on race. Among the most well-known moments of this grim history are the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth-Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama; the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers, an NAACP field worker in Jackson, Mississippi; and the 1968 Memphis murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The 1965 Selma to Montgomery March, including the bloody confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, along with riots in Watts that same year and the 1967 Detroit riot, highlighted the violent divide between America's Black and white communities.

1966 Participants of Grinnell-LeMoyne College Student Exchange
(Grinnell College Libraries Special Collections, RG-R, Ser. 6, Box 25; printed in Des Moines Tribune, March 9, 1966).

Written into this history in a small font was a Grinnell College plan which, like its predecessor with Hampton Institute, aimed to collaborate with a Black college. The scale and aims of the program were modest, particularly when seen against the persistent racism of Jim Crow and the growing public demands among African Americans for Black Power. Indeed, so far as the documents can prove, Grinnell's interest in the program did not concentrate upon improving inter-racial relations; initially, at least, the college seems to have conceived of the arrangement as a means to attract Black students to Grinnell and perhaps increase the attraction of the college to Black faculty. However, for the Grinnell students who took part in the exchange that was a part of the collaboration, concerns about racism—their own and their country's—were primary. Today's post examines the Grinnell arrangement with LeMoyne (later, LeMoyne-Owen) College and how the plan played out in a tumultuous era of American history.

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In October 1963, Howard Bowen (1908-1989), then approaching the end of his Grinnell College presidency (1955-1964), circulated to college trustees some comments headlined in trustee minutes as being devoted to "Negro education." In order to "give greater attention to the place of Negroes in our student body," Bowen proposed that Grinnell consider two strategies: 

(1) to establish a relationship with a Negro college involving various exchanges and mutual assistance; and (2) to join with several liberal arts colleges...in a joint program involving Negro student recruitment, financial aid, and special educational assistance (Minutes of Executive Committee, Grinnell College Board of Trustees, October 16, 1963, Grinnell College Libraries, Special Collections, US US-IaGG Archives/RG-TR).

Undated Photograph of Howard R. Bowen
(https://economics.Illinois.edu/spotlight/historical-faculty/bowen-howard-r)

When the full board of trustees gathered two weeks later Bowen rehearsed the options, again entered in trustee minutes beneath the heading "Negro Education." But now Bowen proved to be more specific about a Negro college with which Grinnell might work: "Among the possibilities the President mentioned," trustee minutes report, "would be an arrangement between Grinnell and LeMoyne College, a Negro liberal arts institution located in Memphis, Tennessee" (ibid., October 30, 1963).

Postcard Photograph of LeMoyne College (before 1968)
(https://www.historic-memphis.com/memphis-historic/lemoyne/lemoyne.html)
 

Exactly how LeMoyne had emerged so quickly as the focus of Grinnell's attention the surviving records do not say. It seems likely, however, that Bowen, who assumed the presidency of the University of Iowa in 1965, was central to the decision, because soon after Bowen arrived in Iowa City the University of Iowa also established a formal connection with LeMoyne (and nearby Rust College). Moreover, Bowen's published resume identifies (without specifying dates) LeMoyne College among the organizations for which Bowen served either as a director or trustee (Howard Bowen, Academic Recollections [Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education and American Council on Education, 1988], pp. 97, 152). These coincidences suggest that Bowen himself was behind the original Grinnell plan to partner with LeMoyne. Bowen had trained as an economist, and economics was also the specialty of Hollis F. Price (1904-1982), the first African American president of LeMoyne (1943-1970) who headed LeMoyne when Bowen proposed collaboration. It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that Bowen approached Price with the idea, and the two men together worked out the plan between their respective institutions.

Undated Photograph of Hollis F. Price (1904-1982)
(https://www.historic-memphis.com/memphis-historic/lemoyne/lemoyne.html)

LeMoyne-Owen College, as it is known today, grew out of the ashes of America's Civil War. Founded as LeMoyne Normal and Commercial School by the American Missionary Association when Federal troops occupied Memphis in 1862, the new institution suffered several tragedies, including being burned to the ground by whites immediately after the Civil War. The 1870 cash gift of the Pennsylvania abolitionist Francis Julius LeMoyne gave the school a name, and, like other Historically Black Colleges and Universities, for many years white men ran the institution. Having occupied several sites around Memphis in its early history, in 1914 LeMoyne moved to its present location on Walker Avenue in south Memphis. Ten years later it became a junior college, and in 1930 a four-year college which, without dormitories, served mostly local Memphis Blacks. In 1968 LeMoyne merged with Owen Junior College (founded by Baptists in 1947) to create LeMoyne-Owen College on the Walker Street site on which LeMoyne had stood since 1914.

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An anonymous Grinnell memo dated October 30, 1963, the same day that college trustees embraced Bowen's plan, reported that LeMoyne and Grinnell "have agreed to associate in various activities for the mutual benefit of the two institutions." "Our purpose," the memo continued,

is to extend educational opportunity, to strengthen both institutions, to broaden the experiences and horizons of our students and faculty, and to achieve better understanding between two sections of the country and two racial groups ("Proposed Association of LeMoyne College and Grinnell College," Grinnell College Libraries, Special Collections, US-IaGG Archives/RG-D-2-2, Box 1963-1973).

This list of goals barely mentions inter-racial understanding, emphasizing instead vague expressions of regional understanding along with institutional and personal betterment. Even the May 29, 1964 letter that Bowen distributed to students to announce the program could offer nothing more encouraging than to applaud the "significant educational opportunity" which would "enable a student to express his concern for racial integration and equality" [emphasis mine—DK] (Grinnell College Libraries, Special Collections and Archives, RG-A2-RG-A Misc-3-7. Box 1955-1972). LeMoyne's own description of the arrangement's attractions to students is equally general, making no mention at all of race.

The LeMoynite (May 1967)

As later parts of Grinnell's October 30 memo confirm, however, Grinnell's ambitions for the program definitely included recruitment of Black students, a point made clear in Bowen's presentation to college trustees. Articulating programs for which it sought funding—an exchange of students; exchange of faculty members; joint conferences; joint research, etc.—the memo solicited support for the  "preparation and recruitment [emphasis mine—DK] of gifted Negro high school students." Allotting about one-third of the proposed budget to this goal, the document imagined a series of special Saturday classes at LeMoyne for gifted Black high school sophomores in Memphis.

Those who showed promise in their Saturday work...would be chosen to attend without cost a special summer academy of 6 weeks to be offered on the LeMoyne campus and to be staffed by LeMoyne and Grinnell faculty members...Those who succeeded in this summer program would be selected for a second special summer academy of 6 weeks at Grinnell to be given in the summer following their junior year...Those students who completed the second summer with a satisfactory record would be assisted in gaining entrance to the colleges of their choice...Those who were admitted to college would then attend a third summer academy of 6 weeks at Grinnell at the end of the senior year. After this, they would enter college...well-prepared and highly-motivated (ibid.).

Although the memo specified that "Those completing the program would not be limited to LeMoyne or Grinnell [in their choice of college]," the repeated experience on the two campuses—including two summers at Grinnell—clearly intended to influence the academy students to choose one of the host institutions.

The multi-year project of special education for Memphis teenagers laid out in the 1963 memo seems not to have materialized. Whether this failure was the result of unsuccessful fundraising or derived from some other issue I do not know. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1964 Grinnell and LeMoyne established an initial humanities academy on the LeMoyne campus for Memphis high school juniors. Rather than college faculty (as the funding proposal had imagined), two rising Grinnell seniors, Dodi Holcher and Kristi Williams (1944-2013) along with three Yale graduate students spent five weeks at LeMoyne teaching history, speech and philosophy to about eighty Black high school juniors. 

Dodi Holcher '65 and Kristi Williams '65
(Scarlet and Black, October 23, 1964)

Holcher and Williams reported that the students whom they taught worked hard and enthusiastically ("Practice Teacher for Negro Youths," Hennepin County Review: Hopkins Edition [1965?]; thanks to Dorothy Swanberg for providing me with this article); the leadership of LeMoyne's Professor Clifton H. Johnson (1921-2008), who went on to establish the African American archive at the Amistad Research Center, helped the summer academy succeed (The LeMoynite, September 1964). Nevertheless, so far as Grinnell records can confirm, there was never any follow-up summer study at LeMoyne or at Grinnell as the 1963 memo had imagined. As a result, Grinnell's hope that the program might increase Black enrollment evaporated. Similarly, the proposal's plan for faculty exchanges and conferences also foundered. What remained and prospered over the next several years was the exchange of undergraduates between LeMoyne and Grinnell.

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Between 1964 and 1972 a total of 26 Grinnell students and 24 LeMoyne students (an undated, typed list from the Grinnell Registrar's office mistakenly identifies only 19 LeMoyne participants) took part in the exchange, each spending one semester at the partner institution. As had been true of the Hampton exchange, women predominated: about two-thirds of the Grinnell students who studied at LeMoyne were women and a similar ratio prevailed among the LeMoyne students at Grinnell.  Most of the LeMoyne participants hailed from Memphis, but a few had grown up elsewhere and had come to Memphis to attend LeMoyne. Myron Lowery, for instance, had grown up in public housing in Columbus, Ohio, but upon graduation from high school had moved to Memphis in order to enroll at LeMoyne. Something similar could be said about Clarence Christian, who was born in Horn Lake, Mississippi, but who moved to Memphis to attend LeMoyne.

Exchange Participants, Spring 1965 (Afro-American, March 27, 1965)
L-R, Front Row: Margaret Bluhm (Grinnell), Dorothy Harris (LeMoyne); 2nd row: Lois McGowan (LeMoyne), Cynthia Brust (Grinnell); standing: Michael Fort (Grinnell), Lou Harvey (LeMoyne), James Stephens (Grinnell), and Frank Patterson III (LeMoyne)

The exchange started with a burst of enthusiasm, with eight LeMoyne students at Grinnell during the first year (1964-65), four in the fall and four in the spring. Subsequently LeMoyne sent four students to Grinnell each spring semester until 1969, when only two students studied at Grinnell. No one from either school took part in 1970, and when the exchange resumed in 1971 only one LeMoyne woman came to Grinnell; again in 1972, the last year of the program, just one LeMoyne student studied at Grinnell.

LeMoyne Students En Route to Grinnell College (January 1966)
(The LeMoynite, April 1966)

Grinnell's participation followed a similar curve. The first Grinnell exchangees—two men and two women—arrived in Memphis in January 1965. The following year saw Grinnell send five students to study at LeMoyne; in addition, that autumn six students took their spring semester play, "Slow Dance on the Killing Ground," to LeMoyne where they put on three performances to large and enthusiastic audiences. 

Photograph from "Slow Dance on the Killing Ground" at LeMoyne College
(Scarlet and Black, November 9, 1966)

In 1967 another five Grinnell students traveled to LeMoyne, but only two took advantage of the opportunity the following year, perhaps a reflection of the growing public rage around race. In 1969 Grinnell sent six students to Memphis, but this seems to have marked the high-water point. With the Vietnam war agitating the country, Grinnell College closed abruptly in 1970 and no Grinnell student studied at LeMoyne that year. In 1971, only three Grinnell women enrolled at LeMoyne, and in 1972 Shirley Johnson became the last Grinnell student to spend a semester at LeMoyne.

Why did Grinnell students apply to the program?

Letters explaining the applicants' reasons for wanting to study at LeMoyne survive only for about half the Grinnell students who spent a semester in Memphis (Grinnell College Libraries, Special Collections and Archives, Dean's Office Records, Box 1963-1973); additional insight into the exchange experience comes from press reports about participants. Although applicants identified a wide range of motives for applying, almost all of them—coming of age in an America riven by racial antagonism—expressed the hope that their LeMoyne semester would enable them to contribute to a better understanding between Black and white America. In this way, the ambitions of Grinnell student participants deviated from the inflated diction of institutional benefit that had characterized the original proposal. 

Sheena Brown, 1967 Ottumwa High School Yearbook

Sheena Brown '71, for instance, who came to Grinnell from nearby Ottumwa, hoped that by living in a minority community she could improve her understanding of Black and white cultures. "If mutual understanding cannot be reached to a large extent in this experience," she wrote, "can we ever hope to reach an understanding and tolerance among peoples of the world?" Tish Lower '73, who grew up in tiny, all-white Parnell, Iowa, used her application to confess to holding unconscious racism, although "to no greater extent than the average white American." Hoping to exorcise the racist assumptions she acknowledged, Lower argued that "only...if I can understand [Blacks] personally will I be able to understand how they feel...about things that concern all of us." In a similar vein, Terry Poland '69 told the application committee that he had never experienced "severe segregation comparable to that in Memphis," and that he hoped that experiencing that world would "have a pronounced effect on my attitudes and [would] enable me to better combat racism...." 

Mary (Tish) Lower, 1970 Williamsburg High School Yearbook

Mary Gleysteen '69 began her application by emphasizing the virtues of living off campus in a large city in the South, circumstances bound to contrast with her Grinnell experience. Moreover, she continued, instead of the limited connections she had previously had with Blacks, "At LeMoyne I would not only be spending class hours with my contemporaries, but I would also be able to share their experiences, thoughts, ambitions, and burdens" out of class. Carol Moulder '73 (1951-1980), who came from the Chicago suburb of Park Forest, imagined that "living in Memphis and...getting to know people who are not white, middle-class students...will broaden my ability to communicate with different peoples...[and] give me...insight into the theme of race." 

In her 1968 application, Diane Alters '71 remarked upon the transition she had perceived between efforts of the early 1960s aimed at integration and the more strident ambitions of the late 1960s. "White America," she wrote, "must exert itself to...understand the jump from 'integration' to Black Power...." 

Kay Sophar, 1969 Potomoc, Maryland High School Yearbook

Like many other applicants, Kay Sophar '73 admitted to "a White, middle or upper-middle class life and White upper-middle class attitudes." Noting that integration and assimilation had lost their appeal to Black activists who emphasized instead the embrace of Blacks' own culture, Sophar confessed to an "appalling" ignorance of that culture. A semester at LeMoyne, she wrote, was essential to understanding the Black community and to making her a "mature, responsive member of the human race." 

1971 Photograph of Shirley M. Johnson '73 in Grinnell College Mail  Room
(https://digital.grinnell.edu/islandora/object/grinnell%3A3465)

Shirley Johnson '73 (1951-2012), the sole Grinnell College Black to participate in the program, offered a different perspective, pointing out how poorly Grinnell served its Black students. "Grinnell [College] does not offer a Black student much of a representation or a reading library of Blacks," Johnson wrote. "I find it almost impossible to attempt research [on Blacks] here in Grinnell...." "If I am accepted to go on the LeMoyne-Owen exchange program," she continued, "I would be able to take courses...[that are] Black oriented [and] geared toward culturing young Blacks."

Application files indicate that most of the Grinnell participants intended to enroll in courses that would focus upon Black history and the Black experience in America. Mary Gleysteen, for instance, told Grinnell administrators that she planned to enroll in "The Negro in American Life," "Race Relations," and "20th-Century English and American Literature." Grant Crandall '68 proposed to take "The Negro in American Life" and "Race Relations" as well as "Social Problems" and "Contemporary History." Terry Poland also planned to enroll in the first two of these courses along with "Introduction to Sociology" and "Social Problems." Mary Brooner thought she would enroll in "Civil War and Reconstruction" along with "Social Problems."

What Did Participants Take Away from the Exchange Experience?

Like many other Grinnell students who went to LeMoyne, James Stephens '67 embarked upon the semester's study in hopes of improving race relations. Stephens told a reporter for the Des Moines Tribune that "I went to LeMoyne...because I wanted to get acquainted with the racial problem, but when I got there and started attending classes the problem seemed to vanish" (Des Moines Tribune, March 9, 1966). Something similar emerged in the recollections of Meg (Bluhm) Carey '67. Having come to Grinnell from New Haven where she had attended independent schools, she looked forward to an opportunity to expand her experience with Blacks. Dancing at LeMoyne to "My Girl" and other Motown hits, she assembled a group of Black friends with whom she would hang out. "At some point I looked down and was shocked to see my white hands among the brown ones...I had lost an awareness of color for the first time" (email communication, January 3, 2023). Cynthia Brust '66 (1944-2017), who grew up in a Trotskyist family in St. Paul, told a reporter that "at LeMoyne we discussed such things as religion, politics and race, and there was a real  desire on the part of both groups to get to know each other" (Des Moines Tribune, March 9, 1966). Amy Rossman '68 told readers on campus, "I'd never been anywhere where Black people lived." After being challenged to define her identity, Rossman admitted that she had not previously given her race much thought. "White doesn't figure in when you're in the majority"(Scarlet and Black, February 22, 2002). At the same time, Rossman, like several other Grinnell women at LeMoyne, had a Black boyfriend, and she "took great pleasure in walking around town hand in hand, trying to shock people" (personal email, January 5, 2023).

Amy Rossman '68
(1964 Portland, OR High School Yearbook)

But white Grinnell students recognized that the differences between them and their LeMoyne parallels were not only racial. Commenting upon the audience she saw at LeMoyne's 1966 commencement, Janet Poland noticed that "a large number of the parents were wearing uniforms...These were not military uniforms. They were maids' uniforms [and] janitors' uniforms," reflecting the occupational and class differences intimately connected to racial difference (Scarlet and Black, February 22, 2002). Another participant wrote, "[At LeMoyne] My eyes were opened to the many differences between being black in the South and white in the Midwest. I learned firsthand that the levels of fear, violence, and opportunity were in stark contrast..." (email communication, January 17, 2023). Students reported being refused service at restaurants when they were in the company of Black friends; mixed-race couples endured the jeers of white passers-by; and students who joined in Black protests found themselves in jail. In 1960s Memphis, like elsewhere in America, race mattered.

Mary Brooner '71
(1967 Summit, New Jersey High School Yearbook)

Indeed, because of the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., Memphis put a microscope on race. In a 2015 interview Mary Brooner '71 remembered 1969 Memphis as "a town that was raw, having gone through the Garbage Strike and then the assassination of Dr. King." Valerie Budig '70, who was studying at LeMoyne when King was shot, told S&B readers of having heard King speak at Mason Temple the day before his death. In his sermon King had acknowledged that his life had been threatened. "Well, I don't know what will happen now," King said.

We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now...I'm not fearing any man (Simon Seabag Montefiore, Speeches that Changed the World [London: Quercus, 2007], p. 155).

A few days later, when Memphis and much of the United States erupted on the heels of King's murder, Budig joined some 42,000 people—the great majority of them Black—in a march to Memphis City Hall, carrying banners that read: "Honor King: End Racism Now!" (Scarlet and Black, April 12, 1968). Budig's experience was powerful and rare, connected to an iconic moment in American history. But other Grinnell students who studied at LeMoyne, both before Budig and afterward, took home the same message, even if they were not in Memphis to march in King's wake. 

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Although Howard Bowen had initiated Grinnell's participation in the exchange with LeMoyne College, he was gone by the time students from the two institutions took up residence at their opposite college. Bowen's successor, Glenn Leggett (1918-2003), had the unenviable job of presiding over the campus in the late 1960s when racial tension was most acute. As the title of his academic memoir indicates (Years of Turmoil, Years of Change), he found the duties challenging. Nevertheless, whether because of initiatives all his own or because of other forces that were driving social change, Leggett did see increased numbers both of Black faculty and Black students at Grinnell. 

Photograph of Glenn Leggett, Grinnell College President 1965-1975
(https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/45128)

These modest gains did not blind Leggett to the fact that much remained to be done, as he admitted in a 1971 report:

We have not...had much success with a faculty or student exchange with black colleges; our admissions and counseling efforts for more black students have not been so successful as we would like; and the energies we have put into the recruitment of more black faculty and staff have not been sufficient to the task... (Glenn Leggett, Years of Turmoil, Years of Change: Selected Papers of a  College President 1965-1975 [Danville, IL: The Interstate Printers and Publishers, 1978], 170-71).

Viewed primarily as an attempt to increase Black enrollment at Grinnell, the arrangement with LeMoyne might be thought a failure, which may explain why the LeMoyne exchange ended soon after Leggett made these remarks. Like Bowen before him, however, Leggett overlooked the reasons that impelled Grinnell students to participate in the program. 

Most Grinnell applicants looked to their time at LeMoyne not as a lever by which to increase Black enrollment at Grinnell, but rather as a means to help them personally understand and improve race relations in America. Most thought that their experience at LeMoyne had been successful in this respect and had deeply altered their views on race in America. More than that, the semester at LeMoyne had cemented their intention to root out their own racism and to work hard to erase it in the communities they inhabited.

And that was no small achievement.