Search
Loading
February 9th, 2021
To commemorate Black History Month, Purdue University Press is featuring excerpts of notable moments in black history at Purdue.
In this post we’re featuring a few excerpts and pictures from Purdue at 150: A Visual History of Student Life by David M. Hovde, Adriana Harmeyer, Neal Harmeyer and Sammie L. Morris.
On an overcast morning in May 1968, 129 students from the Black Student Union assembled at the steps of the Administration Building, nonviolently protesting discrimination on campus by symbolically placing bricks on the steps of Hovde Hall. The students delivered a petition to the University listing specific demands for change. It stated:
We demand that the University pressure its departments to recruit qualified black professors for the 1968–1969 school year.
We demand that the professors of the History Department integrate their segregated, bigoted, and insulting U.S. history courses.
We demand the immediate integration of student organizations.
We demand courses dealing with black culture.
We demand that the black arts be incorporated into the music and art appreciation courses.
We demand that the University compile a list of discriminatory housing and make this list public.
We demand more than a token integration of the administration.
We demand that the University see to it that black professors do not meet discrimination in procuring housing.
We demand that a course dealing with distortion be instituted as a general core requirement for all students.
“The day of the march we had already been told that we needed to get a brown paper bag and find a red brick. . . . (Purdue had red brick buildings everywhere). So, we each got our brick, put it in our little paper bag. . . . We assembled in Stewart Center, and we got in a single line, with our bricks in our paper bags, and one by one we marched to Hovde Hall. . . . Single file. Quietly. . . . We took our red bricks out of our brown paper bags and one by one we walked up the steps, and put a brick on the steps.”
— Marion Blalock, BS 1969, director of the Minority Engineering Program, 1973–2008
After decades of fighting for rights and representation, African American students began gaining new opportunities in academic and cultural programs. The Black Cultural Center (BCC), dedicated in the fall of 1970, offered a location for both learning and community building. Professor Singer Buchanan was hired as Purdue’s first coordinator of Black Student Programs in 1970. He articulated a vision for the BCC as an educational and social center, a place for people of different races and backgrounds to discuss issues, exchange feelings, and “emerge hopefully on the other side with a greater understanding of what each thinks, and feels, and believes. Graduate student John Houston became the first director of the BCC in 1972. He was succeeded by Antonio Zamora in 1973.
The Interdisciplinary Afro-American Studies Program at Purdue was approved in 1970. The option for students to major or minor in African American studies became available in the fall of 1971. The College of Engineering’s Minority Engineering Program was established in 1974, with alumna Marion Blalock serving as its inaugural director. The BCC brought Muhammad Ali to campus in 1976, sponsoring a lecture he gave on the topic of friendship.
Two undergraduate students, Edward Barnette and Fred Cooper, established the Black Society of Engineers (BSE) in 1971 as a means of improving black engineering student retention and recruitment. Barnette served as the first president of the new student organization. The society’s president, Anthony Harris, contacted students at universities across the country and, on April 10–12, 1975, hosted the first meeting of what would become known as the National Society of Black Engineers.
By the 1970s, students were increasingly taking advantage of the press to make their voices heard. The Black Hurricane newspaper, a publication of the Black Student Union, published its first issue in 1970. It advocated for total freedom for African American people, with a sphere “like a hurricane” that “knows no boundaries to its destination.” Several other independent student newspapers, such as Red Brick, made their debuts during the decade.
As a sophomore in the fall of 1978, Kassandra Agee Chandler was elected Purdue’s Homecoming queen, the first African American Homecoming queen in Purdue’s history. A representative of Meredith Residence Halls, she competed against twenty-three other competitors to win her title. When reflecting upon the nomination and campaign experience, she remembered hearing, “They’ll never let you win this.” But Agee Chandler drew upon the strength of her family, friends, and dorm mates, as well as her own tenacity. She worked tirelessly on her campaign, going door-to-door and hanging posters. She remembered, “I didn’t let it get to me. I never let anyone talk me down. . . . In the end, I was able to make my family and sisterhood proud.”
In addition to her roles as Homecoming queen and leader for African American students on campus, Agee Chandler was active in extracurricular activities. She was a member of Alpha Lambda Delta freshman honor society, Purdue Pals, and the Black Voices of Inspiration Choir. Agee Chandler was also a president and founding member of Purdue’s Society of Minority Managers. In addition, she served as a social counselor for the Business Opportunity Program in the School of Management and was a member of the Mortar Board senior honor society. Her involvement reflected her role as a leader on campus as well as her excellent academic record.
In 1890 George W. Lacy, or Lacey, completed a degree in pharmacy, becoming the first African American graduate of Purdue. At the time, Pharmacy was an academic organization separate from the university, and as a result, Lacy’s success is sometimes overlooked. In 1894 David Robert Lewis of Greensburg, Indiana, completed his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, becoming the first African American graduate of a traditional four-year program at Purdue.
Purdue at 150 is available for 30% off on the Purdue University Press website when you use the code PURDUE30.
Filed under: PurduePressFebruary 4th, 2021
To commemorate Black History Month, Purdue University Press is featuring excerpts of notable moments in black history at Purdue.
In this post, we’re featuring a chapter from John Norberg’s Ever True: 150 Years of Giant Leaps at Purdue University on the desegregation of Purdue University’s Residence Halls.
In the summer of 1946 Winifred and Frieda Parker, two sisters from Indianapolis, prepared for their freshman year at Purdue University. They were excited and nervous like all freshmen.
Excellent students, after being admitted to Purdue they applied for a room in a residence hall where all freshmen women were required to live. But Winifred and Frieda were denied.
They were African Americans.
During World War II, by federal mandate, African American male military personnel had been housed in Cary Hall — something that had not occurred throughout all the previous years of the University’s existence.
But when the war ended and military personnel left, Purdue continued its practice of refusing African American students housing in residence halls. Some men were placed in a converted home that was occupied by international students. The rest, including women, had to find housing with families across the river in a segregated Lafayette neighborhood around the Lincoln School at Fourteenth and Salem Streets. African American children attended that segregated school through eighth grade and then went to the integrated Jefferson High School. All Lafayette school grade levels were not integrated until 1951. In West Lafayette there were written restrictions in neighborhoods against renting or selling property to people who were not “pure white.”
One African American student denied access to a Purdue residence hall went on to become chief justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia — one step below the U.S. Supreme Court. During his long, successful career, Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. recounted his experiences at Purdue and credited them with convincing him to become an attorney and civil rights advocate.
“In a career of energetic accomplishments and unambiguous liberalism, Judge Higginbotham received much recognition as a legal scholar and civil rights advocate, including the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” the New York Times said in his December 1998 obituary. “Some historians say Judge Higginbotham was one of a handful of black jurists President Lyndon B. Johnson considered as candidates to integrate the Supreme Court before he named Thurgood Marshall in 1967.”
Higginbotham enrolled at Purdue to study engineering and was placed in International House, where students slept together in a top-floor room with open windows. The room was very cold in winter. It was believed that open-air circulation helped stop the spread of viruses, and cold dorms were common in fraternities and sororities. Some students liked them. Others, including Higginbotham, did not.
In 1944 Edward Elliott was president of Purdue, and his office was always open to students. Elliott had met Higginbotham previously. Higginbotham and another student protested that the Union barbershop would not cut the hair of African American students. Elliott told them he would buy clippers to be kept in the barbershop so they could cut each other’s hair.
Now Higginbotham was entering Elliott’s office with another request. He asked to be placed in a Purdue residence hall where students slept in warm rooms.
What happened next was retold many times by Higginbotham but was never mentioned by Elliott. “In emotional speeches, the judge . . . described how a white college president at Purdue University had flatly told him when he was a college freshman in 1944 that the school was not required under law to provide black students with heated dormitories and, therefore, never would,” the New York Times stated.
According to Higginbotham, Elliott told him he would never be allowed to live in the residence hall, and if he didn’t like it, he should leave Purdue. Higginbotham did leave. In the fall of 1945 he entered Antioch College in Ohio and in 1949 was admitted to Yale Law School.
It’s not known how many African Americans were enrolled at Purdue in the mid-1940s, because the University did not then keep records of students by race. African Americans who attended Purdue at the time estimated there were not more than twenty-five.
In a paper titled “Evolution of the Black Presence at Purdue University,” Alexandra Cornelius said, “Between 1940 and 1951, African Americans began attending Purdue in increasing numbers. Despite their proven abilities, African American students in every college in the state were discriminated against both on and off campus. . . . West Lafayette restaurants did not admit African Americans. Blacks were only allowed to eat in the Union Building or the cafeteria during lunch time.”
Nationally, The Negro Motorist Green Book, published from about 1936 to 1966, was a guide to African Americans as they traveled through the country. Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation were in effect not only in the South but in many parts of the country. In their hometowns, minorities knew where they were welcome and unwelcome. But they did not know this when they were on the road. So the Green Book was their guide, listing hotels, restaurants, taverns, gas stations, and all manner of businesses where they would be welcome and safe. The 1949 guide lists only one business open to African Americans in Lafayette — the Pekin Café at Seventeenth and Hartford Streets. That was in the heart of the segregated African American neighborhood. There were other establishments in Lafayette open to minorities that didn’t make the Green Book. But discrimination was the norm of the day.
A Social Action Committee at the Purdue Methodist Church Wesley Foundation was opposed to segregation and sent African Americans to various businesses in Lafayette and West Lafayette to see what would happen. In February 1947 the committee reported that of nineteen restaurants investigated, five refused to serve African Americans, six did serve them but were rude and hesitant about it, and some of the employees who did serve blacks were not aware they were breaking management policy. Three movie theaters would only permit African Americans to sit in the balconies. No barbershop in Lafayette, West Lafayette, or Purdue would cut the hair of African Americans.
Winifred, the younger of the two Parker sisters, had graduated number one in her high school class in May 1946. Frieda was second in her class and had graduated five months earlier in January. She completed a semester at West Virginia State College but decided to transfer. In early July 1946 both young women were admitted to Purdue. Their father, Frederick Parker, was a graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts who had done graduate work at Harvard and Indiana Universities. He was the former head of mathematics at the African American Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis and had moved on to become a consultant to the Indianapolis Public Schools system. Their mother, Frieda Parker, was a graduate of Butler University in Indianapolis.
Immediately upon their being accepted, Mrs. Parker took her daughters to Purdue to meet with administrators. According to a statement written and signed by the Parkers in September 1946, they met with the registrar, who told them that while admissions had been closed prior to July, Winifred and Frieda were accepted “as a special case” because of their outstanding personal and academic records.
The Parkers next went to Clare Coolidge, acting dean of women, to obtain student housing in a residence hall. Coolidge gave them residence hall applications and told them to complete and mail them as soon as possible. The applications from the Parkers were rejected with a statement that the number of students seeking housing exceeded the spaces available.
The following day the Parkers received a letter from Coolidge. Parker said Coolidge was “gracious” to the family throughout the experience, but her letter was blunt. It stated: “I was informed by the [Purdue] President’s Office yesterday that at its last meeting the Board of Trustees of the University had discussed the question of housing negro students in the residence halls and felt it was not feasible for the present. Had I known of this action, I would, of course, have saved you and the girls the embarrassment of making an application which can only be refused.”
The most recent meeting of the board of trustees had been on June 22, 1946. The written minutes of that meeting make no mention of a discussion concerning African American students in the residence halls. However, at a meeting of the board on April 17 and 18, 1946, the topic did come up, without any official decision being recorded. Minutes of the meeting state: “[Board] Secretary [and University vice president Frank] Hockema presented an application for admission to Men’s Residence Halls from a negro student in the University. After discussion and by consent, the foregoing report was received as information.” A newspaper reporter was at the meeting but he did not write about the discussion.
Parker contacted Faburn DeFrantz, director of the African American Senate Avenue YMCA in Indianapolis. DeFrantz was a civil rights leader in the state who had worked on integrating housing at Indiana University. DeFrantz told the Parkers they should all meet with Hovde. “Our hope was that we could show President Hovde that it was an injustice for our own state college to discriminate against its own supporters, the citizens and taxpayers of Indiana, regardless of their color or their religion,” Parker said. “We had heard that this new president was fair and just and therein lay our hope and prospects.”
They were unable to arrange an appointment with Hovde and instead met with Hockema, who told them the residence halls were full. Asked if the University had a policy that prohibited African Americans in the residence halls, Hockema said no. But “he admitted that such might be the case from ‘custom and usage.’”
Taking part in the conversation was one man who was Caucasian. After the meeting with Hockema he went to the office of the director of residence halls and said his two nieces were enrolling as freshmen in the fall. He was told there were several rooms available for them.
Parker and DeFrantz returned to Hockema. “We pleaded and we begged,” Parker wrote. “We insisted a man in so esteemed a position must be able to make the decision even if he had no precedent.”
Hockema said he could not go against the position of the trustees, who had told him to hold off on admitting African Americans to the residence halls.
Following their meetings at Purdue, Parker and DeFrantz contacted Indiana governor Ralph Gates, who was “sympathetic” to their position. Gates contacted one or more of the trustees and probably Hovde.
On December 16, 1946, Parker received a five-page letter from Hovde, who went into great detail, stating that he opposed discrimination in any form, but societal change would take many years and “will not be completed in your lifetime or mine.”
The University had no written policy excluding African Americans from the residence halls, Hovde said. But he also noted that over the years three or four African American women had applied to be admitted and had been rejected. “These have been refused,” he wrote, “not because we wished to discriminate, but because the administration did not think it wise to jeopardize the successful operation of the halls, jeopardize our incoming number of women enrollees in the halls; because administrative officers and faculty felt that neither our women students nor their parents were ready yet for true social democracy in living. The situation, therefore, exists, not because we of Purdue believe in discrimination of any kind, but because the decision was thought to be in the best interests of the University and its welfare.” They were afraid students would refuse to live in a residence hall with African Americans, placing a financial strain on the University’s ability to retire construction bonds.
In his letter to Parker, Hovde concluded, “You realize and understand, I am sure, the difficulties I have in persuading and influencing others to my point of view in these matters. . . . I must use my own method of accomplishing my aims. I am personally sure they are right and will produce results more quickly than other methods. Otherwise I would act differently.” Frustrated, Frieda and Winifred attended classes at Purdue in the fall of 1946 and lived in a home in the segregated Lafayette community. They took buses to and from campus. But change came. Hovde ended discrimination at the Union barbershop, and in January 1947 the Parkers were admitted to Bunker Hill Residence Hall.
Soon after the Parkers moved in, the students voted on leadership for their residence hall.
Winifred Parker was elected president of Bunker Hill.
Ever True is available for 30% off on the Purdue University Press website when you use the code PURDUE30.
Filed under: PurduePressFebruary 22nd, 2018
Throughout history, libraries have often provided a way for historically disenfranchised individuals and groups to gain access to knowledge and information.
“So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you’re not really any different from everyone else,” noted the poet and author Maya Angelou in the 2014 “American Libraries” article “Remembering Maya Angelou.” In it, the author of the piece, Mariam Pera, looks back at how Angelou valued and spoke about libraries and education during her life.
A unique part of the overall Purdue Libraries’ collections at Purdue University are the materials in the Black Cultural Center Library, located on the second floor of the Black Cultural Center on campus. With more than 7,000 books, journals, and media, the BCC Library includes materials and information dedicated to African-American culture and experiences and his managed by BCC Librarian E. Nikki Johnson, who came to Purdue last November.
According to Johnson, in addition to a slate of events commemorating Black History Month (held throughout February), the BCC also has an exhibit of banned books written by African-American authors. Incidentally, Pera’s “American Libraries” article notes that Angelou has been “one of the most frequently challenged authors (and authors of color) of the 20th and 21st centuries,” per the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.
“The goal [of this exhibit] is to stimulate discussion about the content of these literary works and why they were considered for censorship,” explained Johnson.
With the BCC’s 50th anniversary falling in 2019, Johnson has arrived at Purdue in time to help plan this important milestone celebration for the Black Cultural Center. Below is a brief Q&A with Johnson, in which she shares a bit about her background and her interest in library and information science and African-American collections and studies and, briefly, plans for the Golden Anniversary milestone the Purdue community will commemorate next year.
Q. Tell me a little bit about your background and how you came to serve in your current position at Purdue.
Johnson: I have always been very strongly attached to the discipline of African-American history, culture, and social impact. As an undergraduate student, I declared a double major in political science and African and African-American studies. This decision caused me to fully appreciate and embrace my academic journey, and it helped me to define my professional goals.
Upon completion of my degree, I became both familiar with and fond of the authentic academic research process, which led me to my interest in library and information science. I was encouraged by my undergraduate professor and mentor to consider a career as an academic librarian, as she recognized my desire to cultivate a professional presence within a scholarly environment. I was grateful for her direction because it provided me with purpose for my goals, and I gladly accepted her guidance and completed my graduate degree in library and information science.
Considering how these experiences and ambitions culminated, pursuing the position of librarian at Purdue’s Black Cultural Center felt incredibly consistent with my academic and professional journey, and I am privileged to serve and develop within this role.
Q. What are some of your favorite materials in the BCC Library’s collections?
Johnson: I am still in the preliminary stage of exploring our collection, but at this time I am most fond of our assortment of vinyl records. I have a collection very similar to it at home, and I closely identify with the genre of music within it.
Q. What is information about the BCC Library you would like to impart to the Purdue campus, perhaps information that may not be widely known?
Johnson: The BCC Library has a collection of “Debris” yearbooks that are available for circulation. The issues that we have available to patrons date back to 1955.
Q. In 2019, the BCC will have reached an important milestone at Purdue. What are the plans to celebrate the BCC and BCC Library?
Johnson: Next year, the BCC will celebrate its 50th Anniversary as a vital resource to Purdue University. We are working to create a calendar of events that will commemorate the existence and contributions of the Black Cultural Center and how it has served and will continue to impact this campus and community.
Editor’s Note: Another interesting exhibit to check out at the BCC is “We Wear the Mask: The Black Heroes and Sheroes of the Comic Book Universe.” The exhibit includes comic books and action figures of popular and lesser known comic book heroes and sheroes. Some of the items in the exhibit are featured in the photos below.
January 25th, 2018
In early February, Purdue University alumna Kassandra Agee Chandler will be back on the West Lafayette campus to present “My Pieces of History: A Queen’s Journey to Archival Peace (and Release).” Agee Chandler — who was crowned Purdue University’s first (and currently only) African-American Homecoming Queen in 1978 — will deliver her lecture as part of a lecture and presentation program to begin at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 6, in the Krannert Auditorium (Krannert Building, Room 140).
Sponsored by the Zeta Theta Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Agee Chandler’s visit to her alma mater will also include the presentation of her papers to the Purdue University Archives and Special Collections (a division of Purdue University Libraries). A reception in the Krannert Drawing Room will follow the formal lecture and presentation program. The event is free and open to the public.
“I’m honored to have the opportunity to return to my alma mater and share my experience as Purdue’s first African-American homecoming queen,” said Agee Chandler. “During this critical time of divisiveness in our nation, I hope that revisiting this significant milestone in Purdue history inspires students to engage in an enlightened dialogue on race, class, gender equality, and other relevant issues facing us today.”
Agee Chandler, who earned her Bachelor of Science in Management in 1980, is the founder and principal consultant at Systematic Design Consultants, a boutique information-technology consulting firm based in the Houston, Texas area.
While at Purdue, Agee Chandler distinguished herself academically and as a student leader, serving as a counselor for the Business Opportunity Program (BOP), member of Mortar Board, and a founding member of the Society of Minority Managers.
After earning her degree from Purdue, Agee Chandler worked in the private sector for such companies as Proctor & Gamble, Dow Chemical, and Exxon. Additionally, she served as Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s Chief Information Officer, as well as Director of Computing Services at the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station.
In July 2015, she and two other Purdue alumni formed the Dr. Cornell A. Bell Business Opportunity Program (BOP) Alumni Network, a Purdue alumni group “committed to continuing the legacy and vision of Dr. Cornell A. Bell” (see http://bopalumni.org/about/ and www.krannert.purdue.edu/centers/bop/about-us/dr-cornell-a-bell.php).
Agee Chandler’s visit is co-sponsored by the Black Cultural Center (BCC) and the Purdue Archives and Special Collections.
For more information about Agee Chandler’s lecture, contact BCC Director Renee Thomas at rathomas@purdue.edu or Emma Noelke (Delta Sigma Theta) at enoelke@purdue.edu.
For inquiries regarding Agee Chandler’s gift of her papers, contact University Archivist/Head, Archives and Special Collections Sammie Morris at morris18@purdue.edu.
Filed under: general