Author: YSNews

When most historians have written about Harlem, they’ve focused on the hostility of early white residents when blacks began moving into their upper Manhattan neighborhood, and the area’s evolution into an African-American ghetto known for its violence and dysfunction.

But Kevin McGruder, assistant professor of history at Antioch College,  has a different, more nuanced story to tell about the neighborhood he came to love as a resident, churchgoer, business owner and historian. Specifically, he tells the story of early white Harlem residents who appeared to hold diverse views of their African-American neighbors. And he believes that Harlem was originally a place of aspiration for the blacks who moved there, who created churches, neighborhood organizations and other components of community.

“The ghetto emphasis focuses on disarray,” McGruder said in an interview last week. “I’m not saying that didn’t happen, but there hasn’t been enough emphasis on community formation. What was the goal of people moving there?”

For the past several years, McGruder has studied old newspapers and historical documents to find answers to that question. And the result of that research, Race and Real Estate: Conflict and Cooperation in Harlem, 1890 to 1920, was published last month by the Columbia University Press.

McGruder will discuss and sign copies of his recently published book Tuesday, Aug. 4 at 7 p.m. at McGregor 113 on the Antioch College campus. The book is an extension of his doctoral dissertation.

The dissertation grew out of McGruder’s longtime interests in real estate, Harlem and African-American history, he said in a recent interview. Before getting his Ph.D. from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, he had worked in community development nonprofits in Cleveland and New York City, along with serving as director of real estate of the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, of which he’s a member. He was also co-author of a previous book, Witness: Two Hundred Years of African-American Faith and Practice in the Abyssinian Baptist Church.

Research for Race and Real Estate involved combing through many historical documents in the City Registry in New York, supplemented by stories in newspapers of the time, which he found on microfilm in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library, where he was scholar in residence during 2011–2012. Not surprisingly, as a historian, having access to so many original documents “was paradise,” McGruder said.

What McGruder found in his research was that Harlem at the turn of the century was a place of some fluidity for blacks, many of whom moved there from other African-American enclaves, such as Greenwich Village and the district now known as Chelsea, formerly the Tenderloin. Harlem was at the time on the edge of developed Manhattan and was surrounded by fields, so that the neighborhood provided a more expansive, country-like atmosphere compared to the inner city.

While the conventional history of the African-American migration to Harlem is that whites responded with hostility, McGruder was surprised to find that, while there was hostility, there was also evidence of cooperation between the races. For instance, bank loans were largely unavailable to blacks, so that those seeking to buy homes depended on getting loans from the white property sellers, who apparently didn’t resist selling to blacks. The evidence of fluidity and cooperation between blacks and whites indicates a time when race relations were considerably better than they became later in the 20th century, McGruder believes.

This complex relationship between the races at that time seems to belie the assumption that difficult social problems such as race relations inevitably get better with time, McGruder said. Rather, his book shows that progress in race relations ebbs and flows over time, with more mutual understanding and cooperation evident in some periods than others.

“The notion that things get better just because time has passed — there’s no evidence of that,” he said.

In Race and Real Estate, the story of how blacks and whites interacted as neighbors and business associates in Harlem is told through the perspectives of four actual individuals. There was white businessman Henry Koch, retired white policeman John Taylor, African-American Pastor Hutchins Bishop and Phillip Payton, an African American who became a leading real estate agent catering to black families.

Telling the story through the perspectives of these actual individuals “makes the story more real,” McGruder said.

Around the time McGruder finished the book, he was hired by Antioch College. Coming to Yellow Springs, he took to heart the stories of those early African-American families establishing community in a new location. McGruder, too, sought membership in a church community, the Central Chapel A.M.E. Church, and also became a member of the World House Choir, to deepen the connection to his new home.

While McGruder is sinking roots into his new home, he will always have a soft spot for Harlem, where he maintains a membership in the Abyssinian Church. And it’s likely he’ll return often, as his next project is a biography of Phillip Payton, the realtor who made a difference to many African-American families when he helped them find homes in turn-of-the-century Harlem.

Inspiring, rousing, uplifting — each component of the Antioch College commencement fit these descriptions on Saturday, as the college celebrated its first post-revival graduating class while reaffirming its social justice legacy in the light of the recent massacre of nine African Americans.

“We will not abide people coming into a sanctuary and killing us,” shouted Dr. Clarence B. Jones, the commencement speaker, to spirited applause from the packed house at the college’s South Gym. Jones, an attorney and speechwriter for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the last-minute replacement for civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis, brought to the event both civil rights bona fides and a passionate plea for a response to last week’s tragic event that’s “commensurate with the magnitude of the injury.”

While Jones made clear that he was not calling for violence, he emphasized that this country’s current level of racism and violence demands far more massive and effective protest than has been recently seen.

“We have to creatively think of different forms of protest. We’re not going to stand by idly and carry signs. We have to end this mess,” he said, adding that “I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.”

The audience of students, parents, college leaders and staff  and Yellow Springs community members responded in kind to Dr. Jones, having been invigorated by the World House Choir both before and during the event. The local choir warmed up the audience with powerful renditions of “Glory,” with local rapper Issa Walker, “We Are Here,” “Tshotsholoza,” a South African freedom song,” and “We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For,” by Bernice Johnson Reagon.

Though audience members responded enthusiastically to Jones and the choir, the 21 Antioch College graduates, who received thunderous applause and a standing ovation as they entered the gym, were clearly the stars of the show.

“Very few will know what this class did for this college,” President Mark Roosevelt stated in his welcome. Even more important than creating new college practices and traditions and recreating old ones, the young people “allowed this college a chance. By being here, they showed this can be done …”

In his invocation, Professor Emeritus Al Denman called on the graduates to heal the ailing environment, and also to “Listen to each others’ songs, devise your own songs and sing, sing, sing!”

In their talks, the six graduates selected to speak were, in very different ways, articulate, passionate, creative and occasionally pointedly critical of their alma mater — just what you’d expect from graduates of Antioch College.

In his remarks, Guy Jack Mathews lauded his peers for their desire to do good but especially for their perseverence.

“We have proven time and time again that we can be devastatingly effective,” Mathews said, concluding that, “Together, we can change the world.”

While the official education Elijah Blanton received focused on political economy and the Spanish language, his most significant learning at Antioch involved “how to be here with each other and make things work,” he said in his speech.

And though Blanton acknowledged failures in the college community that led to the loss of a significant number of the original entering class, he also said, “I’m convinced I received the best education anyone has ever gotten.”

Speaker Nargees Jumahan, a graduate who was raised in Afghanistan, spoke of her high hopes coming to a college reputed to be a beacon of social justice. However, she said, “I’ve still been subjected to racism and classism in this institution.”

Jumahan said she felt “ostracized” for her religious practices when she took a month off to honor the Muslim holy days of Ramadan, and that “I have to constantly defend my country’s culture, religion and identity — it’s exhausting.”

Graduate Brendan Deal of Yellow Springs spoke of his search for the definition of an “Antiochian,” including “people who don’t have bags under their eyes — they have luggage,” those who “engage in passionate discussions on the future of the college at 3 a.m. every night,” and those who “can be dropped off in any city or country and within two days have a job and a place to stay.”

Deal concluded that he ended his four years at Antioch with “no idea of what an Antiochian is but I’m glad to be one,” and that he leaves the college more wise and empathetic and “more prepared to face the world.”

And graduate Seth Kaplan-Bomberg entertained the audience with an original song about his experience at the college.

In introducing Dr. Jones, the commencement speaker, Antioch College trustee David Goodman spoke of first meeting Jones during the difficult time following the disappearance of his older brother, Andrew, who was one of three civil rights workers killed in Mississippi in 1964. Goodman’s family was advised to call in Jones, who was an attorney for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Jones later became close to the family.

“I lost a brother who was my elder, but I found another one,” Goodman said.

There were several reasons why he agreed to deliver the college’s commencement address on two days’ notice, after Congressman Lewis pulled out last week following the death of a family member, Jones said.

One of those reasons was his connection to the Goodman family, according to Jones. And the second reason was “Antioch’s innovative and historical place in social justice history.”

While the civil rights movement is more than 50 years old, recent events, including the Charleston massacre, make clear that the need for social justice progress remains huge, he said.

“This nation is still infected and crippled by the twin legacies of slavery and the doctrine of white supremacy,” he said.

While most have ascribed the killing of nine African Americans to the mental illness of the shooter, the massacre was an unmistakable message of intimidation to African Americans, he believes.

“Something has to be done differently,” Jones said, to increase the effectiveness of current protests against racial violence. “We’ve got to get beyond this nonsense of racism.”

Graduates of Antioch College have a special role to play in the struggle for racial and social justice, Jones said.

“Antiochians have a sense of justice and righteousness that is different than most people,” he said.

Jones called on the graduates and the audience to join together and continue efforts to “make America what it was intended to be. Yes, we will make a difference.”

Following Jones’s speech, Roosevelt thanked everyone for their support of the revived Antioch College.

“The road ahead will not be easy, but our obligation to make it happen is deep,” he said.

To conclude the event, the World House Choir sang “I’ll Make the Difference”, including the refrain:

I had the courage to
keep goin’ on. 
I had the faith when
all hope was gone.
I had the strength to keep holding on.
I can make the difference, yes I can!

 

Pioneers. Risk takers. Antioch’s poster children. “The chosen ones.”

There are many names for the revived Antioch College’s first graduating class, and much to be said about them. They laid the foundation of the new Antioch. They were constantly under a microscope. They endlessly championed Antioch to potential donors and prospective students. They relit the flame of activism at the college. And they diminished; from the initial 35 students who entered in fall 2011 they are down to 22, 21 of whom are graduating.

Far from the typical college experience, the inaugural class of Horace Mann Fellows received an education in how to rebuild a college. It wasn’t easy, but it was formative.

“Antioch was definitely a formative experience, but in the most challenging way possible,” explained Sara Brooks, who graduates with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy. “The opportunities for student leadership, the grassroots nature of the project we stepped into, made us have to grow … We had to do things we wouldn’t have had to anywhere else.”

The first class restructured a community governance model that wasn’t working, pushed to overhaul the block course schedule, successfully lobbied for transgender bathrooms, amended family leave policies, set up recycling programs, pushed for disability services, molded majors, shaped the food offered and more — all while taking classes, working co-ops, setting up clubs and sitting on committees.

To Guy “Jack” Matthews, who studied anthropology and political economy, the Antioch experience centered around recon­ciling differing ideas for the institution. Antiochians, Matthews now believes, can change the world.

“We have seen that individual Antioch students are devastatingly effective, but when we work together we are even more effective than that,” Matthews said. “Even in the small numbers we have, we can change the world.”

The achievements of Antioch’s first class after reopening will be celebrated at a commencement ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 20, on the campus lawn between North Hall and Main Building. U.S. Congressman John Lewis will give the commencement address congruent with the theme of reunion weekend, “From Civil Rights to Social Justice.” In addition, six students in the Class of 2015 will speak to their college experience, followed by the traditional walk over the mound.

The historical moment for Antioch, which hasn’t held a commencement ceremony in seven years, is pivotal, according to Vice President of Academic Affairs Lori Collins-Hall. The first class did a lot of heavy lifting in rebuilding the college, took a risk on an unaccredited upstart institution and didn’t have many resources or facilities at their disposal, but nevertheless showed a lot of perseverance and patience, Collins-Hall said. They shaped, and were shaped by, the nascent college.

“They were a phenomenal group in the sense that they took a chance on us, they came in and invested a lot of their own time and energy to co-create a lot,” Collins-Hall said, adding, “I don’t know how empowered they felt. There was a feeling they had to fight for everything.”

When the first class arrived in 2011, there were just six tenure-track professors, one dormitory — where students slept, studied and ate — and one classroom building. For the first quarter they ate only take-out food. The class waited three years for a Wellness Center and three years for an Arts and Science Building, taking science classes out of a trailer until it opened. By the end of the first year, four students had left, and by last fall, another eight had departed.

Students graduating this year may be the only ones who will leave Antioch with a degree from an unaccredited institution. They will still receive Bachelor’s degrees in art or science. By next year’s graduation, the college will have received word about its accreditation.

Speaking of the challenges, and the Class of 2015’s ability to overcome them, Ryann Patrus, who is deaf, found some difficulties accessing her courses in the first two years.

“There were a lot of roadblocks to accessing my courses and it took a long time of me voicing that I needed certain things,” Patrus said.

But Patrus went on to pave the way for others with hearing disabilities by working with the Center for Academic Success to set up disability services for them (there is currently another hearing-impaired student). Last Thursday, a campus-wide action organized by another student to show how many buildings are not accessible to those with physical disabilities made Patrus feel like others are picking up the torch as she departs.

“I felt like I was the only one talking about these issues, so seeing other people rally around a student action was powerful,” Patrus said. “I feel comfortable leaving knowing there are people coming up behind me who are equally passionate. It gives me the warm fuzzies.”

Patrus, who is receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology, plans to go on to graduate school after a year break to further pursue disability studies.

Brooks also said Antioch influenced her life direction. She is continuing this summer as the assistant food services coordinator, and it was her time in the Antioch kitchen that made her want to be a cook. After the summer Brooks plans on looking for a cooking position, perhaps at a collectively-owned restaurant. She also wants to be involved in union organizing and admits that, as a first-generation college student, she likely wouldn’t have earned a college degree had she not attended Antioch.
At the same time, Brooks has had her share of challenges at Antioch. The initial dearth of resources for students, including health services and student success services, was frustrating.

“It was bare bones,” Brooks said.

Brooks was told that Antioch is essentially “Fight the Man 101” and indeed many students spoke of clashes with administration. While miscommunication played a role, Brooks said that the real issue between them and among students was the differences in interpreting Antioch’s history, and visions about its future.

“Everyone wants something different from Antioch now,” Brooks said. “People in my class had a vision of what to expect when they got here, and the people who were here already had their own visions.”

Brooks said she learned that it is easy to point out the negatives of an institution to improve it, but it’s more useful to do the hard work in fixing the problems. As for the legacy of the Class of 2015, Brooks believes it is in “bringing forward the history of Antiochians in activism and social justice.”

Ethan Kellaway, who is graduating with a Bachelor of Science in environmental science, found it difficult to study science at an institution without a true lab, and struggled to keep up with a year-round schedule without breaks between academic terms and co-ops, which he likened to a “slow burn down.” For Kellaway, the most enriching part of the experience was simply the conversations with other students, particularly on the issue of identity.

“The conversations I’ve had helped me think more about myself and the world,” Kellaway said. “I came from a non-racially diverse community and so I have explored how I was exposed to prejudice growing up.”

Matthews was mostly encouraged by the change in community governance the Class of 2015 enacted, which was “an enlightening experience in how a school can be run with first-year students and the administration acting on equal terms.” Matthews even went on to form his first political party at Antioch. The former chair of the Council of Conveners is looking to get a job as a paralegal for a year before going on to law school. After a co-op at a law firm specializing in labor law in New York, Matthews found the type of law he wanted to practice.

In fact, several students cited their four co-op experiences and other experiential learning as a highlight of their time at Antioch. Diana Zavala-Lopez had an “eye-opening” experience teaching English and sports in India, and she affirmed her desire to work in criminal justice as a forensic psychologist after an “Inside Out” class where Antioch students learned alongside prison inmates. Kellaway co-oped at EnviroFlight, where he will work after graduating, and also spent co-ops at a sled dog kennel and glass blowing shop after being encouraged to choose co-op jobs not just on career aspirations but to “explore a passion.” Students went on four co-ops during their time at Antioch.

According to Richard Kraince, Dean of Cooperative, Experiential, and International Education, in total there have been 540 co-op placements since the Class of 2015 arrived, including 54 international experiences. Students in the Class of 2015 went to Japan, Nicaragua, France and Mexico. Kraince is now working with graduating students to write their co-op experience on an online blog and update their résumés. Some students are staying in Yellow Springs and Antioch, working in documentary filmmaking and on the Antioch farm. Others are departing for graduate school, art school or to organize large progressive events. The Class of 2015, who Kraince said is “older, more articulate and more argumentative” than the other classes, will be missed.

“It’s a huge loss of talent,” Kraince said. “They founded this institution and whatever difficulties we’ve gone through, we’ve gone through together.”

To Dean of Admissions Micah Canal, who was among the graduates at Antioch’s last graduation in 2008, the first graduation of the reborn Antioch feels “a bit bizarre” because it doesn’t seem that long ago that he walked across the stage. In the meantime, Canal, one of the original founders of the new Antioch, has helped the college grow from a “total embryo to something graduating students and raising $20 million per year,” he said, adding, “and we’ve only just begun.” Asked to describe the Class of 2015, Canal said “they were brave,” and many were transformed by their times at Antioch, including the difficult ones.

“The skill set of facing imperfection and drawing out a more perfect solution is one that is going to serve them well for their lives, and one the world is in dire need of,” Canal said.

Students said that at times they haven’t been appreciated for their hard work in remaking the college, citing a line in an external survey report that said a few students and staff thought that the campus climate would improve with their departure. Zavala-Lopez remarked of the comment, likely made by just one or two people, “But there wouldn’t be a college without us.”

Looking at the future of the institution they invested in so heavily, and now depart, students are optimistic. Matthews said the most recent demonstration around accessibility issues showed him “this school is going to go on making the same difference it always has, both on and off campus.” Zavala-Lopez said she hopes that Antiochians remember that even though they are passionate about their beliefs, they should stay open-minded and not “bully” each other. Patrus urged future classes of Antiochians to be gentle with one another, since everyone is growing and changing so fast in their college years, and also to not get too discouraged about slow progress towards change on campus.

“It gets discouraging when you can’t mold this place to what you want it to be when you come in thinking you’re going to have all this power,” Patrus said. “But you pay attention, and work diligently your four years here, you will see the change … You’re not going to change everything, but learn to appreciate those little things you can change.”