Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

down the auditorium ; LeRoi Jones
in a reading, to frequent applause,
of some of his cathartic poetry on
the steps of the School of Religion ;
the breaking up of a hearing in
which natural-look Homecoming
Queen Robin Gregory was being
tried ostensibly because she had
helped me and student Huey La-
Brie read the Black Power Committee's
manifesto ; and the interruption
of Selective Service boss
General Hershey's speech . Eventually,
students hanged Hershey, Nabrit
and Dean Frank Snowden in
effigy, and followed this with a successful
boycott of classes, curiously
planned for one day only and ~reportedly
representing efforts on the
part of moderate student leaders to
grab the protest ball from the Black
Power Committee .
By now we were nearing final
exams and it was decided to wrap
up protest until the following fall,
although a series of six mysterious
fires (which may or may not have
been connected with student activities
) broke out on campus during
the last week or so of school, one
of them causing "a general emptying
of the Administration building
."~
School closed, and in the dead of
early summer about 20 students
and six professors received registered
letters of dismissal . The manner
of selecting the victims was
indicative of the general confusion,
hysteria and inefficiency of the
adminstrators, who held several
46
private meetings with student spies
and faculty informants . There were
no hearings for dismissed faculty
members or students, amounting
to a direct denial of due process
and the chance to confront accusers,
violating the First and Fifth
Amendments of the Constitution of
the United States .P
True, some middle-level administrators,
including Clyde Ferguson,
dean of the Law School, and Frank
Snowden, dean of the College of
Liberal Arts, went on record as
opposing the dismissals . Dean
Snowden, who reluctantly signed
the letters dismissing the professors
and who, up to that time, had risen
from one of the favorite Howard
professors of the late Forties to the
most hated administrator, wrote
two letters, both prior to the close
of school, opposing the dismissals .
One of Dean Snowden's letters to
Acting President Wormley pleaded
in part :
. . . serious anxiety will arise
among other faculty members as
to the good faith of the university
. . . I believe that the whole
matter should be reconsidered
before any announcements are
made . . . because there seems to
me to be a strong possibility that
the contemplated action may result
not only in serious harm to
the University's position in the
academic community but also in
creating obstacles for our recruitment
of faculty in the future .'
More obnoxious by anybody's
(Continued on page 70)
March 1968 NEGRO DIGEST