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| a:african_american_students [2021/09/03 12:47] – created - external edit 127.0.0.1 | a:african_american_students [2024/06/05 13:47] (current) – kkay |
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| Whether reprising the affirmative side of this debate or weighing in on its own, the student newspaper //Aggie Life// weighed in on the [[https://archive.org/stream/aggielife06mass#page/66/mode/1up|"Negro Question"]] with an unsigned article advocating for disfranchising African Americans until they can prove their ability to wield the vote responsibly. "Southern negroes," the article insisted, were "content to live in squalor, ignorance, and immorality" and were "improvident, depraved, and strenuously resist any attempts at education." The author asked rhetorically, "Is it any wonder that they often incur the wrath of their white neighbors, when they commit such horrible outrages as our daily papers recount? With all of our New England conservatism, I believe that there is not one of us that would not be among the first to avenge such crimes." Nor was the author impressed with the fact that African Americans had fought for their own independence during the Civil War, turning instead to the years of Reconstruction when: | Whether reprising the affirmative side of this debate or weighing in on its own, the student newspaper //Aggie Life// weighed in on the [[https://archive.org/stream/aggielife06mass#page/66/mode/1up|"Negro Question"]] with an unsigned article advocating for disfranchising African Americans until they can prove their ability to wield the vote responsibly. "Southern negroes," the article insisted, were "content to live in squalor, ignorance, and immorality" and were "improvident, depraved, and strenuously resist any attempts at education." The author asked rhetorically, "Is it any wonder that they often incur the wrath of their white neighbors, when they commit such horrible outrages as our daily papers recount? With all of our New England conservatism, I believe that there is not one of us that would not be among the first to avenge such crimes." Nor was the author impressed with the fact that African Americans had fought for their own independence during the Civil War, turning instead to the years of Reconstruction when: |
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| <html><blockquote><p>"there was introduced this new and perplexing element; a great body of non-producers, non-tax-payers, possessing the right to vote, and whose rights the various commonwealth must protect. To add to the difficulties of the day was the negro's attitude toward the ballot. He regarded it as a pledge of property from the government, sufficient to yield him a scanty living for the rest of his life. This could not but make him lazy, and the thought of owning property filled him with visionary aspirations for office. The negro also regarded the ballot as giving him the right to tread upon his old masters. Holding this opinion he became a dangerous element in society... Let us not suffer the ballot, that safe-guard of a republican government, to remain longer in the hands of a people who are but half Christianized and half civilized!" (5)</p></blockquote></html> | >>"there was introduced this new and perplexing element; a great body of non-producers, non-tax-payers, possessing the right to vote, and whose rights the various commonwealth must protect. To add to the difficulties of the day was the negro's attitude toward the ballot. He regarded it as a pledge of property from the government, sufficient to yield him a scanty living for the rest of his life. This could not but make him lazy, and the thought of owning property filled him with visionary aspirations for office. The negro also regarded the ballot as giving him the right to tread upon his old masters. Holding this opinion he became a dangerous element in society... Let us not suffer the ballot, that safe-guard of a republican government, to remain longer in the hands of a people who are but half Christianized and half civilized!" (5) |
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| Two years later, the College admitted its first African American student. | Two years later, the College admitted its first African American student. |
| ==== Early years at MAC ==== | ==== Early years at MAC ==== |
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| <a href="http://scua.library.umass.edu/images/youmass/murg130-i0013624-001.jpg"><img src="http://scua.library.umass.edu/images/youmass/murg130-i0013624-001.jpg" alt="Class of 1905, upon arrival in 1901" class="youmassimage" /></a> | {{http://scua.library.umass.edu/images/youmass/murg130-i0013624-001.jpg?350}} |
| <div class="caption">Class of 1905, including Bill Craighead and the first two women graduates of MAC</div> | Class of 1905 upon arrival in 1901, including Bill Craighead and the first two women graduates of MAC |
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| During the administration of President [[g:goodell_henry_h|Henry Hill Goodell]], the student body began slowly to change from its all-white, all-male origins. Most writers credit Goodell's successor, [[b:butterfield_kenyon_l|Kenyon L. Butterfield]], with firmly establishing coeducation at MAC, yet much of Butterfield's innovation and success came on a foundation laid by Goodell. During his twenty year administration, Goodell initiated significant changes in the curriculum, introducing electives, graduate study, and an array of short courses, winter programs, and special classes to suit a student body that was recognized as having varied preparation and diverse needs. Although the total numbers of women and African Americans remained small, even given the small size of MAC classes, the evidence from the latter years of Goodell's tenure suggests that the college administration made at least an informal decision to accept African Americans, if not to recruit them, more or less coincident in time with their decision to attract women to campus. | During the administration of President [[g:goodell_henry_h|Henry Hill Goodell]], the student body began slowly to change from its all-white, all-male origins. Most writers credit Goodell's successor, [[b:butterfield_kenyon_l|Kenyon L. Butterfield]], with firmly establishing coeducation at MAC, yet much of Butterfield's innovation and success came on a foundation laid by Goodell. During his twenty year administration, Goodell initiated significant changes in the curriculum, introducing electives, graduate study, and an array of short courses, winter programs, and special classes to suit a student body that was recognized as having varied preparation and diverse needs. Although the total numbers of women and African Americans remained small, even given the small size of MAC classes, the evidence from the latter years of Goodell's tenure suggests that the college administration made at least an informal decision to accept African Americans, if not to recruit them, more or less coincident in time with their decision to attract women to campus. |
