“hag riding”

why
is what i ask myself
maybe it is the afrikan in me
still trying to get home
after all these years
but when i wake to the heat of morning
galloping down the highway of my life
something hopeful rises in me
rises and runs me out into the road
and i lob my fierce thigh high
over the rump of the day and honey
i ride i ride

–Lucille Clifton, in The Terrible Stories

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Biographical Notes: Lucille Clifton published Good Times, her first book of poetry, in 1969. Since that time she has published 30 more volumes, including several collections of poetry, two memoirs, and more than 20 children’s books. Clifton has won a number of awards including, most recently, the National Book Award for the year 2000, for Blessing the Boats. Clifton has held poet-in-residence and faculty posts at a number of colleges and universities, including Coppin State College in Baltimore, Columbia University, George Washington University, University California – Santa Cruz, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and Dartmouth College. In 1979 she was appointed Poet Laureate of Maryland. She held that post until 1985.

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Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs graduated from Dartmouth College in 1856, only 19 years after this press release was issued (below). He was Dartmouth’s third African American graduate.

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This press release from Dartmouth College was reprinted in The Colored American newspaper in 1837, along with this response from the editors of The Colored American (C. Ray, S. Cornish):

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.

The following extracts are from a letter, published in the “Herald of Freedom.”

“We are happy in being able to assure you that the Halls of Old Dartmouth are open to youth of every nation, kindred, language and people, whose moral and intellectual characters entitle them to its privileges. One of the descendants of that much injured race, whose plundered soil we occupy, is now with us, and as one of us; and the faculty have recently decided to admit a young man, whose veins are tainted with that foulest of all pollution’s, African blood.

“This young man, I am informed, has applied for admission at several of the Colleges in New England and New York, but from all of them has received a negative answer. Will Jesus Christ deem a colored complexion a sufficient excuse for excluding one of his children from the privileges of a liberal education? An enlightened community will, we trust, approve the decision of our Faculty; but should they not, the consciousness of having vindicated the cause of the oppressed, will afford them more satisfaction in that hour when men most need support, than the utmost amount of human applause.”

Remarks.

Christians in New York, contrast the liberal principles of good old Dartmouth, with the narrow, cruel practice of shutting our colored youth from schools and seminaries in this city. A short time ago, we called on the Pastor of one of our largest Presbyterian churches, a minister beloved, and with whom we have sat in Presbytery for ten years, and asked him if there were no school connected with his church, where we could send our two little boys, (whose morals are as well taken care of, as any others,) knowing, at the same time, that a number of his leading church members had united, and established just such a school as we desired for our children, and that it was taught by a minister, a member, and we think, an elder in the same church.

His reply was, you had better start a school of your own, where your colored children can be taught the higher branches, and not come in contact with the prejudices of the whites. We told the good brother – we call him good brother, because we really love him, notwithstanding his sin of prejudice, that a separate school did not meet our views. We should never engage in separate schools nor separate churches. They were more highly calculated to keep up prejudice against color, and christian caste, than anything else. – They so shackled the intellect of colored youth, that an education acquire under such circumstances, was, comparatively, of little advantage, our young men, when brought on the stage of life, from such institutions, could not draw on their resources, and consequently, were but half men. All did not avail, and we were left to return home, in mortification, sorrow, and disappointment.

The subject, however, was too momentous to be abandoned. We called on the Rev. Teacher, and made application on behalf of our boys. – This good brother, after taking a week or more to consult his patrons, most of whom were officers and members in the Presbyterian church, called on us, with the painful intelligence, that our children could not be admitted. True, his conscience afterwards smote him, and he called and said, if we would go and consult Mr. N_, Mr. S_, and Mr. M_, and get their consent, he would take them. This, true dignity of character, and independence of feeling would not admit of. Consequently, we have three children whose united ages amount to over thirty-two, out of suitable schools, and denied the privileges of this institution of the Church, in this city, and we are this year, making preparation to leave an extensive field of usefulness, and go from the city, if not from the country, that me may educate our children, and hide them from the scorching, withering prejudice against their color, which is calculated to chain down their intellect, dry up the charity of heart, and make them haters of God and of man.

Be it known, therefore, in Heaven and throughout the world, that we, a Presbyterian minister of seventeen years, standing, in the city of New York, where we have thirty-eight Presbyterian churches, with regular settled pastors, and innumerable schools and seminaries established, and supported by the ministers and members of those churches, are denied the privilege of every institution, suited to the capacity and age of our children, on the account of their color.

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2009 Pulitzer Prize winners Lynn Nottage (left) and Annette Gordon-Reed.

When I learned that law professor Annette Gordon-Reed, National Book Award winner for The Hemingses of Monticello, had been awarded a Pulitzer Prize for the same book, I cheered. I have never met Prof. Gordon-Reed (though I hope to, someday), and I am not terribly well versed in her chosen field. But as a fellow academic, I was absolutely thrilled that she was recognized by two major national awards committees for her research and writing on a subject/idea/question about which she is clearly passionate. For us professorial types, this is really the substance of our work. We research, write, and teach about whatever particular intellectual or artistic topic(s) or question(s) just really make us feel jazzed; and it is absolutely wonderful to see a Black woman academic achieve such prominent recognition for her work. Annette Gordon-Reed’s passionate inquiry into and exploration of the sexual, racial, and social complexities of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship is scholarly work at its finest. Professor Gordon-Reed is the first Black American to win the Pulitzer Prize in History.

But Annette Gordon-Reed is not the only Black academic to be recognized by the Pulitzer committee. Lynn Nottage, a visiting professor at the Yale School of Drama, won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Ruined, her play about brutality and survival against the backdrop of Congo’s civil war. New York Daily News reporter Jim Dziemianowicz describes some of the themes and influences that shape this unique theatrical work:

Inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, Nottage’s drama is set in a Congolese brothel. It tells the story of the watering hole’s wily and charismatic proprietor, Mama Nadi, and several young women who work for her who have been brutalized in the conflict.

Despite the grim subject matter, Nottage’s play is filled with humor, music and hope.

Have you ever heard of Berea College? If you’re the parent or guardian of a college-bound teen, or if you’re planning to pay your own way through college, then it might behoove you to learn about this unique institution.

You see, this small private liberal arts college, located in central Kentucky, rivals the most prestigious colleges in the country in the area of student yield (the number of accepted students who opt to attend a given institution). Last year, a full 78% percent of the students admitted to this college decided to attend. The number of Harvard admits who decided to attend that institution? “[A]round 78%,” down from 80% in 2006 (Source: The Harvard Crimson).

We can guess why Harvard has such a high yield. It is the oldest college in the United States, it has the highest endowment of any college or university in the country, and it boasts the largest academic library in the world. It also has the greatest name recognition of any college in the U.S. Throughout this country, the name Harvard has become synonymous with academic excellence and intellectual prestige.

Berea has an amazing historical legacy to recommend it. It was, after all, the first fully integrated college or university in the south. Berea is noted for its outstanding academics and its diverse student body, but these elements do not explain why this small, regional college (Berea is largely unknown outside of the mid-south and Appalachian regions) is able to enroll such a high number of its admitted students.

The key to Berea’s success? Free tuition. Time Magazine’s recent article on this unusual institution (featured on Yahoo! News) describes how a commitment to offering a tuition-free education has made Berea one of the most sought-after institutions in its region. In the article, Time Magazine reporter Laura Fitzpatrick describes how this college’s unusual financial aid program has led to consistently strong applicants and how this year — at a time when the cost of college is becoming a greater and greater concern for parents and students alike — Berea is seeing even greater interest from an increasingly competitive body of applicants:

At Berea, which was founded in 1855 as the first integrated college in the South, all 1,530 students work at least 10 hours a week in a campus or service job, earning $3.80 an hour and four years of free tuition. Eighty percent of the school’s operating costs are funded by its endowment and the rest comes from donations, a tough combination these days: the school announced on Friday that it would lay off 30 employees, or 5% of the staff. Berea did not, however, back off from its commitment to offering a free education, and this year, not surprisingly, as applications cratered at some expensive schools, Berea notched a 15% increase. And more of the students applying were of a higher academic caliber. The number who received the school’s top “four-star” academic rating jumped 10%, raising the average GPA of admitted students to 3.48. All of which might be expected after an October survey from MeritAid.com found that 57% of high school seniors were considering a less prestigious school for financial reasons. Berea is used to getting high-quality students who say affordability is a major factor, says Joe Bagnoli, associate provost for enrollment. “This year, there were just more of them.”

When it comes to choosing a college, cost matters; and if money is tight, then college costs may weigh more heavily in a student’s decision than reputation, size of the library, selectivity, or campus facilities. I can still remember being an admission officer at a private eastern university and receiving postcards from students who explained — sometimes regretfully — that as much as they loved our university and as much as they were happy to have been accepted, there was no way they could say no to a “full ride” (tuition, room, board, and stipend) from another less selective institution.

As college costs increase, I think we’ll see more and more colleges going the way of Berea. Harvard, Stanford, Brown and several other selective private institutions have already cut or eliminated college costs entirely for students from specific income levels. In the coming years, this will likely become one of the main ways for colleges to stay competitive, especially in terms of attracting the strongest applicants. I would love to see all private institutions eliminate all college expenses for any students whose families earn less than — say — five times the combined cost of tuition, room, and board.

Recently, I spoke to a private college alum who was concerned that the high cost of tuition might make it impossible for her to send her children to her own alma mater. It seems that the wide gap between the rate at which tuition has increased and the rate at which incomes have increased threatens even that most cherished source of cultural continuity and alumni fundraising dollars, the legacy tradition. Many have decried the legacy tradition as a form of “affirmative action for the rich” that favors upper-class white applicants. The face of legacy admissions, however, is changing rapidly, as the significant influx of alums of color during the late 1970s and early 1980s is being reflected in unprecedented numbers of African American, Latino, and Asian American “legacy applicants” to America’s oldest bastions of (historically white and male) privilege and power. In addition, HBCUs are depending more and more upon legacy loyalties — Morehouse men and Spelman women as well as Howard, Hampton, FAMU, Bethune-Cookman, Clark Atlanta alumni and others, wishing to see their children and grandchildren attend their beloved alma maters.

If colleges do not begin to make dramatic changes in their fee structures, many of their most treasured traditions and student populations (ranging from first-generation college students to the children of alumni) are likely to deteriorate or even disappear, and this at a time when people of color are finally being reflected in these traditions and the institutions that cherish them.

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One needs occasionally to stand aside from the hum and rush of human interests and passions to hear the voices of God.

— Anna Julia Cooper, “The Status of Woman in American” (1892).

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Anna Julia Cooper (1858 – 1964) was a scholar, writer, educator, and activist. Her mother was an enslaved Black woman named Hannah Stanley Haywood, and her father was Haywood’s owner.  In 1925, at the age of 67, Cooper became the fourth African American woman to earn a PhD., when she completed her doctorate at the University of Paris (Sorbonne).

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Tony is a student down the street from Shands at Darnell-Cookman Middle/High School, a magnet school geared toward all things medical. (Students, for example, master suturing by the eighth grade.)

At the simulation center, where medical residents and nurses practice on dummies, the normally shy student warmed up to the center’s administrative director, Bruce Nappi. In turn, Nappi, a problem-solver with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology aeronautics degree, found someone willing to learn.

One day, an obstetrics and gynecology professor asked the pair to help him figure out why no one was using a handy device that looks like a dipstick with clamps at the end, called an endo stitch, for sewing up hysterectomy patients. In other procedures, it proved its worth for its ability to grip pieces of thread and maneuverability.

What Tony did next is so complicated that the professor who suggested the project has to resort to a metaphor to explain it: “Instead of buttoning your shirt side to side, what about doing it up and down?” Brent Seibel said.

Here’s the literal explanation: The problem was that the endo stitch couldn’t clamp down properly to close the tube where the patient’s uterus had been. Tony figured that by suturing the tube vertically instead of horizontally, it could be done. And he was right.

Nappi said he came up with the idea but didn’t tell Tony, letting him come to the conclusion himself.

“It was truly independent that he figured it out,” Nappi said, adding that a representative for the device’s manufacturer told him that the endo stitch had never been used for that purpose.

Tony’s unpracticed hands were able to stitch three times faster with the endo stitch vs. the conventional needle driver. Further study may prove whether the same is true for more experienced surgeons, Seibel said.

In addition to cutting surgical time, the technique may help surgeons who don’t do many hysterectomies because it’s easier to use the endo stitch, he added.

Last week, Hansberry presented his discovery before a roomful of physicians, as part of the University of Florida’s Medical Education Week program. His presentation apparently included a demonstration of his new technique. He developed this procedure under the supervision of Dr. Bruce Nappi, the administrative director at the University of Florida’s simulation center. The simulation center is located in Jacksonville.

Hansberry, who’s mom is a registered nurse and whose dad is the pastor of an A.M.E. church, plans to become a neurosurgeon. When asked why,  he explained, “I just want to help people and be respected, knowing that I can save lives.”

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“The Graduate” by Ernie Barnes (July 15, 1938 – April 27, 2009)

From Daily News Los Angeles:

Ernest Barnes Jr. was born in Durham, N.C., on July 15, 1938, during the Jim Crow era. As a child, he would accompany his mother, Fannie Mae Geer Barnes, to her place of work, where she oversaw a prominent attorney’s household staff at a home where he was allowed to peruse an extensive collection of art books. It was then that his love of art began.

As a junior high school student, Barnes was overweight and introverted, spending time drawing in a notebook while hiding from the bullies who constantly taunted him, Rodriguez said.

But a sympathetic teacher put him on a weightlifting program, which enabled him to excel in both football and track and field once he got to high school. When he graduated, he was awarded 26 college scholarships.

Because of segregation, he could not consider the nearby University of North Carolina or Duke University, so he attended North Carolina College — now NC Central University — on a football scholarship and majored in art.

He was drafted in 1959 by the Washington Redskins, who, on discovering he was black, traded him to the then-world champion Baltimore Colts, according to Rodriguez. He later became an offensive lineman for the San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos.

In 1965, New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin recognized Barnes’ potential as an artist and paid him his salary of $13,500 for one season but freed him to devote himself exclusively to painting, according to Rodriguez.

One year later, Barnes made his debut in a critically acclaimed solo exhibition at Grand Central Art Galleries in Manhattan and officially retired from football.

Ernie Barnes’s most famous painting is “Sugar Shack,” which appeared on the cover of the 1976 Marvin Gaye album I Want You, and during the closing credits of the television series Good Times. He was appointed Official Artist of the XXIII Olympiad at Los Angeles in 1984. In 1995 Ernie Barnes published his autobiograhy, From Pads to Palette, a wonderful hardcover volume, richly illustrated with his work.

Barnes is survived by his wife, Bernie, his brother, two sons, and three daughters. Ernie Barnes was 70 years old.

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Portrait of African American education pioneer Lucy Craft Laney. This is one of a number of portraits of Black historical figures in the Capitol Collection of the State of Georgia.

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Veronia Shead (left) and N’Goundo Magassa (right)

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On Thursday, April 23, The Washington University of St. Louis Record announced the induction of two of its doctoral students into the prestigious Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. Established in 2005, with founding chapters at Yale and Howard, the Bouchet Society recognizes “outstanding scholarly achievement and promotes diversity and excellence in doctoral education and the professoriate.” The Bouchet Society is named for pioneering African American physicist Edward Bouchet, the first African American to graduate from Yale University, and the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from a U.S. institution.

This year, two graduate students at Washington University in St. Louis were inducted as Bouchet Fellows. They are N’Goundo Magassa, a doctoral student in the Molecular Microbiology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program, and Veronica Shead, a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology Program. Bouchet Fellows “exemplify academic and personal excellence, foster environments of support and serve as examples of scholarship, leadership, character, service and advocacy for students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the academy” (Source: Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Office for Diversity and Equal Opportunity).

The Washington University of St. Louis was selected to become a chapter member of the Bouchet Society in 2007.

N’Goundo Magassa graduated from Smith College in 2002, where she majored in biochemistry. She entered Washington University in St. Louis after working as a research assistant in the Boston area. Magassa is a Washington University Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow. The Washington University Record provides this brief description of her research, service, and advocacy:

Magassa’s research interests include understanding the methods used by bacterial pathogens to successfully infect human cells. Her dissertation research is focused on characterizing how the Streptococcus pyogenes pore forming protein streptolysin O translocates the S. pyogenes NAD glycohydrolase into host cells.
Magassa provides training, mentorship and guidance to graduate students who rotate through her lab. She also volunteers with the Junior Scientist Institute and helps recruit graduate students into doctoral programs at WUSTL, offering advice, support and encouragement.

Veronica Shead holds a B.S. in neuroscience from Vanderbilt University (2002), a B.A. in psychology from the University of Missouri-St. Louis (2003), and a master’s in psychology from Washington University (2006). She is a recipient of a Washington University Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship. The Washington University Record describes her research and service as follows:

Shead’s research efforts are focused on the area of hypertension and aging. Her dissertation, “Implementation of Hypertension Treatment Recommendations and Their Effect on Blood Pressure,” examines variables influencing the implementation of lifestyle change for their overall effect on blood pressure control.

Shead has been involved in outreach and service throughout her life. A member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., an organization dedicated to service, she has participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure with her family, facilitated a support group for adults with early-stage dementia, and, as a track coach at a St. Louis high school, mentored teenage girls.

Congratulations to these outstanding young scholars. Although each is already a standout in her field, there is no doubt in my mind that these achievements are only the beginning of long and distinguished careers that will have an deep and positive effect on the future of human health and healthcare.

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Pictured here in 1929, Beatrice Morrow Cannady was the first African American woman to graduate from Northwestern College of Law (now Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon). Cannady completed her legal education in 1922. In 1932, she became the first African American in the state of Oregon to run for public office.

(Source: The Oregon Historical Society)

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