Transcript Examining Our History: “There is no truth that speaks so clearly to me as the truth of my own experience.” John O’Neal, Director.

Examining Our History:
“There is no truth that speaks so clearly to me as the truth of my
own experience.”
John O’Neal, Director of the Free Southern Theater
… for the “Advanced Education of
Females”
Joseph Taylor directed in his will that his money
be used to erect buildings “for the comfort
and advanced education and care of young
women, or girls of the higher classes of
society.”
Founded in 1885, Bryn Mawr was the first
college in the country to grant a Ph.D. degree
to a woman.
Jessie Redmon Fauset (BMC 1901 > ) –
Cornell ‘04
Enid Cook (The first Black student to graduate from Bryn
Mawr) – ‘31
Sister Alfred Marie Russell, OSF
(Lillian Russell ’34)
 Lillian Russell came to Bryn Mawr from
Boston’s Girl’s Latin School in 1930. She
was the second Black candidate for the Bryn
Mawr A.B. Restrictions against Blacks in the
Charter of the College prevented her from
taking up residence in the dormitories, so
Lillian spent her first weeks with President
Marion Park before settling into quarters off
campus. Lillian majored in chemistry and
philosophy. She earned graduate degrees at
Howard University and at MIT.
Mary Huff Diggs (The first Black Ph.D. to graduate
from Bryn Mawr) – Ph.D. Social Work - ‘45
Gloria Millicent White ( The first residential
Black undergraduate)– ‘48
Evelyn Jones Rich ‘54
“I eagerly accepted the offer of admission to
Bryn Mawr because I felt that it could prepare
me to fulfill my role in promoting fundamental
changes in our society. I was one of the first
poor, black, full-time resident students to
enter.
I played pinochle with the maids and porters in
Taylor’s basement and bridge with the girls
with whom I lived on campus.”
Evelyn Jones Rich
(cont’d)
“In the spring of my senior year at Bryn Mawr (1954) the
College rallied to my support when a local restaurant
which I had patronized for four years refused to serve
me and a Negro male escort. Miss McBride believed
that the college’s responsibility to me extended
beyond the campus and embraced the community at
large. In the following months after we won a change
in policy there, teams of Bryn Mawr and Haverford
students tested restaurants along the entire Main
Line without encountering discrimination. This
experience is memorable because the College came
through when the chips were down – quietly, firmly,
successfully. “
Christine Philpot Clark ‘60
“For everyone, I suppose, college is the best and worst
of times. Discovery and challenge, unknown in such
sweet peaks before, certainly characterized my Bryn
Mawr years; but so, too, did the culling and sorting
through whitenesses that I did unconsciously. . . .
Intelligent women in a male-run world make their
confrontations, discardings, choices, and
adaptations. At each stage there is that internal
questioning: is this the issue in which to invest my
energy? What will happen to me, that soft, quiet self I
like, if I constantly rant? . . . Black people simply have
to pose these questions more often.”
Chandlee Lewis Murphy ‘63
“The national climate and attitudes were different in
1963, so that my classmates and I experienced
problems on an individual level and felt no particular
unity because of our blackness. It was the era of
integration and we were intent on finding a niche in
the college community. The fact that there was only
one Negro per class (we often joked about being
“THE Freshman, THE Sophomore, etc.”) aided this
search for absorption. I personally had trouble
adjusting to the system of maids and porters. They
were older people who addressed me by the title
“Miss”, and whom I called by their first names. Until
then the contrary had been true.”
Dolores Miller ‘70
“Bryn Mawr has certainly affected my life and I am truly a Mawrtyr,
lantern, owls and all. But there is one thing the “Bryn Mawr
experience” will not change, the fact that as long as my skin is
black, the value of a Bryn Mawr education will not be the same
for me as for a white student. . . .
The important thing for the black Mawrtyr is to keep the “Bryn
Mawr experience” in perspective. One must remember that this
is four years out of a life time, one episode in the lifelong
process of learning and adjusting; the people and situations
encountered here are definitely not a representative sample of
what awaits beyond.
SO, with reality lurking in the far reaches of my mind, I enjoy the
“Bryn Mawr experience” . . . Lanterns, owls and all. It’s
interesting while I’m here . . . But I won’t be here forever.”
Joanne L. Doddy ‘72
“There is no stereotype black student at Bryn Mawr. . . I
represented one of the more moderate elements among black
students. The black “conservative” student – whether a
member of a silent minority or majority, I’m not sure – often
must withstand criticism from fellow black students which ranges
from being called a black bourgeoisie to a white nigger. . . .”
“As a black “conservative” student, I find myself more useful in the
background. . . . Those white students who marched with blacks,
worked and lived in schools with blacks, and tried to find out
their own line of thinking in reference to blacks are part of the
hope for the future. There are many white college students who
never know blacks in their youth and whose first exposure to
blacks has come with college. For this reason, I see my part of
the black battle as educating and directing the line of thinking of
those whites who are sincerely trying to understand the way
things are.”
Perry House – circa 1972
Perry House - 1985
Perry House Living Room - circa 1985
Mzimeli Moikemisetsi Morris - 2008
“The goal of this institution is to challenge
women intellectually and socially. It is Bryn
Mawr’s responsibility to provide access to an
education that is progressive; that not only
gets us in the room together . . . But also
helps us interact and learn from one another.
Bryn Mawr is definitely a work in progress
and I feel that with more involvement among
students, faculty, staff, and administrators,
Bryn Mawr can meet its potential as a truly
diverse institution.”
“ A Work in Progress”
“Because we are committed to diversity in its fullest sense, we are
responsible as individuals and as a community to identify and
confront the aspects of our character, our culture, and the ways
in which we function, which may reflect unconscious remnants
of prejudice. Discussing these complex issues is challenging
work because they involve each of us at a personal, human
level. They demand more than our intellectual, political or
ideological engagement. Conversations of this kind require all
of us to be especially responsible in how we speak, and to keep
ourselves open to learning from one another. But they also
require us to take risks, to share what we are thinking even
when we worry we may be judged for it, and to plow through
anger and confusion in search of understanding. The chance to
make a difference here and now on these questions is a goal
worthy of women who will become the change agents of
tomorrow and of the staff and faculty who support their
education.”
Nancy Vickers
IN CONTEXT
The war years had helped to sharpen Quaker consciences on
matters of race. The relocation of Japanese-Americans from the
West Coast, in response to racial hysteria, and their placement
in virtual concentration camps had led the AFSC [American
Friends Service Council] to enter a protest and to launch a
program of trying to place the students in colleges and others in
jobs in less prejudiced areas. AFSC staff work in finding homes
and jobs for refugees from Germany had also taught them
lessons in anti-Semitism, and the movement of blacks into
northern cities was making it clear that patterns of discrimination
had to be ended in jobs and housing. How, then, could Quakers
continue to justify having all white student bodies in some of
their schools?
IN CONTEXT (cont’d)
Henry Cadbury had been asking this question for many
years, and slowly change had begun to take place.
Bryn Mawr College had admitted its first black in
1927, and she had lived with the Cadburys when
there was question about her acceptance in the
dorms. The Oakwood School had followed in 1933,
Media Friends School in 1937, and both Haverford
and Swarthmore in 1943. These were still the
exceptions, however. It was only after the April 1944
conference, led by Henry Cadbury, that the two
bastions of Philadelphia Quakerism, Westtown and
George School, were ready to move, in 1945 and
1946 respectively. After that, changes came rapidly.
From Let This Life Speak: The Legacy of Henry Joel Cadbury by Margaret Hope Bacon., U of PA Press., 1987