Morehouse Magazine Spring/Summer 2008

SPRING/SUMMER 2008

MOREHOUSE M A G A Z I N E

VISION Renaissance OF OF A A

A GOOD NEIGHBOR • LOSING MARTIN • COMMENCEMENT 2008 THELIKE GOOD NEIGHBOR • LOSING MARTIN • COMMENCEMENT 2008

Michael Lindsay ’75 and Lorna Douglass Lindsay

Profession The Luella Klein Associate Professor and Director of Maternal-Fetal Medicine Division, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia; Full-time faculty member, Emory University, OB/GYN

Education Bachelor of Science, Morehouse College, 1975; Medical Degree, Yale Medical School, 1979; Master of Public Health, Emory University, 1991

Passions Married to Lorna Douglass for 28 years Sons, Jonathon, 24, a 2006 Morehouse graduate, and Kenneth, 20, a senior at Emory University

Mark of Distinction Largest donor to the Morehouse Annual Fund in 2006.

For 22 years; Michael Lindsay ‘75 has given to the Annual Fund to help a man of Morehouse realize his dream of becoming a Morehouse Man.

Why does he give?

“I went to Morehouse on a scholarship— otherwise, I would not have been able to get a Morehouse education. I am repaying the anonymous people who funded my education.”

www.morehousealumniandfriends.com • (404) 215-2658

features 28

38

THE GOOD NEIGHBOR Like many HBCUs, Morehouse is situated in the heart of an impoverished, urban community. But just as any good neighbors would share their bounty with those less fortunate around them, Morehouse has an initiative to share what she has in abundance: intellectual capital and a cadre of student volunteers.

32

LOSING MARTIN Forty years after his assassination, those who knew Martin Luther King Jr. ’48 best remember the brother, the friend, the father behind the legend.

38

BATTLING THE FIERY SERPENT Donald Hopkins ’62, brandishing his shiny armor of scientific research and knowledge, has set out to eradicate the “fiery serpent” from the face of the earth.

46

INSIDE THE HOUSE HOMECOMING IN THE NEWS ON THE FIELD AND COURT ON THE SHELF DEVELOPMENT NEWS BROTHER TO BROTHER ALUMNI NEWS CLASS NOTES THE ROAD TAKEN

ON THE COVER: President Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75 (Photo by Philip McCollum)

2 0 0 8

VISION OF A RENAISSANCE As Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75 takes the helm of the College as its 10th president, he looks toward his grandmother’s courage, her willingness to be a change agent, as he shares his vision for a Renaissance for not just Morehouse, but for a community in crisis.

6 16 18 20 24 26 59 60 63 70

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

COMMENCEMENT 2008: LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE The College seal features the sun and its emanating rays rising above a mass of billowy clouds. So, too, must the new class of Morehouse Men rise above clouds of struggle and challenge to emerge as rays of hope and enlightenment.

departments

I

51

CELEBRATING THE 141ST FOUNDER’S DAY OBSERVANCE The Morehouse community not only celebrated its 141-year history, but also its future with the inauguration of it’s 10th president.

51

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

42

32

contents

46

MOREHOUSE COLLEGE NATIONAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 2006-2008 OFFICERS

Phillip H. McCall Jr. ’69 President goldiemccall@aol.com Lonnie C. Johnson ’58 Vice President-at-Large lcjohns58@verizon.net Collie Burnett Jr. ’72 Executive Director cburnett@aibtv.com Guy B. Richardson ’79 Secretary gbrichardson@woh.rr.com Marvin C Mangham ’69 Financial Secretary mcmangham@bellsouth.net James D. Henry ’61 General Counsel jamesdhenry@msn.com Calvin H. Harris ’92 Treasurer calvin_harris@hotmail.com Jeffrey L. Riddle ’90 Parliamentarian Office: 404-541-2325 jlriddle@riddleschwartz.com Harold O. Braithwaite ’77 Faculty Representative hbraithw@morehouse.edu Henry M. Goodgame, Jr. ’84 Director, Alumni Affairs hgoodgame@morehouse.edu BOARD MEMBERS REGION I-IX VICE PRESIDENTS – 2008-2010 Kevin R. McGee ’93 Vice President, Region I kevinmcgee@hop-hospitality.com Kenneth J. Thompson ’82 Vice President, Region II Kennyt76@aol.com James M. Boykin II ’81 Vice President, Region III jMBoykinII@aol.com Mark W. Hill ’67 Vice President, Region IV hillm@peercpc.com Charles H. Neal ’64 Vice President, Region V charlesneal101@AOL.com George W. Thompson ’66 Vice President, Region VI Jags597@aol.com Kevin V. Riles ’95 Vice President, Region VII kevin@remaxupscale.com Donald E. Long ’64 Vice President, Region VIII dlong@sdccd.edu Nashon Hornsby ’93 Vice President, Region IX nashon.hornsby@doh.state.nj.us

p r e s i d e n t ’s m e s s a g e We stand firm

W

hen the last Morehouse Magazine went to press, I had recently assumed the post as president of Morehouse and was settling into my new role.

Now—a full year into my administration—I have crafted a vision for Morehouse College and work vigorously alongside a community of faculty, staff and friends who share my desire to see the College produce graduates who are academically competent, ethical and poised to become leaders of the global community.

I have had the opportunity to study, teach and administer at some of the country’s most esteemed educational institutions. Those colleges and universities have extraordinary curricula, celebrated faculty and far-flung reputations for being the best.

Morehouse possesses all of these admirable qualities, which often are what bring students to her arms. But what Morehouse has that some of her counterparts do not— and what keeps her close to the hearts of alumni and friends—is her ongoing commitment to the ethos of change and liberation upon which the College was founded.

As I reflect on the illustrious presidents who have led Morehouse to this point in history, I am astounded by what their leadership has produced. Often with few resources, nine men of perseverance and valor led Morehouse through the 19th century—plagued by worldwide warfare and the enslavement of people of color—and the 20th century—which is characterized by immense technological advancement, but paired with institutionalized racism and more warfare.

We find ourselves in the 21st century making advancements that the founders may not have been able to fathom, still experiencing world and economic conflicts and seeking equality for all people. But to the credit of those who support the ideal of education and those who love what Morehouse gives its students, we stand firm. We stand for knowledge. We stand for ethics. We stand for leadership. We stand for and by black men who seek to advance the quality of life of those who dwell in their global communities.

Our respected alumnus Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ’48 said, “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.” It is my good fortune to be at Morehouse College as we carry out his challenge, shaping our students for the proverbial struggle that is leadership and the discipline to withstand the journey.

”...What keeps [Morehouse] close to the hearts of alumni and friends is her ongoing commitment to the ethos of change and liberation...”

Sincerely,

Robert M. Franklin ’75

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

3

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

Morehouse College is the Tom Joyner Foundation School of the Month for November.

Official campaign: July 1 - November 30, 2008 Your donation will support the scholarship component of the Morehouse Annual Fund.

For more information, please contact Julie Tongue at jtongue@morehouse.edu

Spring/Summer 2008

MOREHOUSE

e d i t o r ’s n o t e s

MAGAZINE

God, give us men! A time like this demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and, ready hands; men whom the lust for office does not kill; men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; men who possess opinions and a will; men who have honor; men who will not lie; men who can stand before a demagogue and damn his treacherous flatteries without winking; tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog in public duty and private thinking.

— J. G. Holland

Morehouse Men... Renaissance Men

Dr. Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75 President Dr. Willis B. Sheftall ’64 Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Phillip Howard ’87 Vice President for Institutional Advancement

Dear Friends: eveloping “renaissance men with a social conscience” is the vision that Robert Michael Franklin ’75 lifted before us during his inauguration this February as Morehouse College’s 10th president (see cover story on page 51). It is, in its purest form, a challenge to us as individuals and as an institution to revitalize our historic mission of preparing young men to go out into the world with a thorough understanding of the classics, as well as a commitment to social justice and a desire to transform the community, locally and globally. Educating young men and preparing them for roles of leadership is what we do at Morehouse. And, in May, Morehouse proved once again that she is living out her mission when more than 520 young men – mostly African American men — walked across the stage on the Morehouse Century Campus, ready to begin the next phase of their journey (see page 46).

Some say that’s enough. But is it?

The answer is found not in the graduation numbers, but in the consistent and undeniable way in which alumni embody the Morehouse ideal.

During his lifetime, Martin Luther King Jr. ’48 exemplified the ideal throughout his purposefilled life up to his untimely death in April 1968. In “Losing Martin,” (page 32), we begin at the end – covering the ceremonial reenactment of his funeral march through the streets of Atlanta. For the first time, Morehouse commemorated King’s life and legacy beginning in January with the annual King Celebration Concert and continuing through April when the Martin Luther King Jr. Collection and the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences sponsored the College’s first global webcast that reintroduced King’s concept of a World House.

Epidemiologist Donald Hopkins ’62 has devoted his research to eradicating the “fiery serpent” (page 38), a deadly parasite that has infested millions living in remote African and Asian villages.

Pediatrician Corey Hebert ’92 has raised national awareness of the plight of children whose health has been compromised by the effects of Hurricane Katrina (see page 66).

Also in this issue, Harvard professor Charles Vert Willie ’48, King’s classmate, talks about the transformative nature of love and challenges the Episcopal Church to live out its covenant to be a church of inclusiveness, particularly as it relates to issues of sexual identity (page 59). Frank Peterman Jr. ’85, secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, advocates for the rights of young people (Alumni News, page 61). And in “The Road Taken,” Donald Washington ’06 shows us what “so to bind each son the other into ties more brotherly” really means as he accompanies wheel-chair bound senior David Munoz on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land seeking spiritual healing (page 70).

Morehouse Men…Renaissance Men.

D

Keep reading!

STAFF Executive Editor Toni O’Neal Mosley Editor Vickie G. Hampton Writer Add Seymour Jr. In the News Editor Elise Durham Contributing Editor Henry M. Goodgame Jr. ’84 Contributing Writers Rori F. Blakeney Kai Jackson Issa Peter Scott Donald Winbush Class Notes Julie Pinkney Tongue Contributing Photographers Philip McCollum Wilford Harewood Scott King ’91 James Robinson Proofreader Kai Jackson Issa Graphic Design Glennon Design Group Administrative Assistant Minnie Jackson

Morehouse Magazine is published by Morehouse College, Office of Communications, Division of Institutional Advancement. Opinions expressed in Morehouse Magazine are those of the authors, not necessarily of the College.

Letters and Comments: Letters must be one typed page in length and signed. Please include complete contact information.

Send to: Morehouse Magazine Editor, Morehouse College, Office of Communications, 830 Westview Dr., S.W., Atlanta, GA 30314.

E-mail: morehousemageditor@morehouse.edu Fax: 404-215-2729 Change of Address and Class Notes: www.morehousealumniandfriends.com

Morehouse College is the nation’s largest liberal arts college for men. The College is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Atlanta University Center consortium of five schools.

Morehouse does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, handicap, or national or ethnic origin in the recruitment and admission of its students, in the administration of its educational policies and programs, or in its staff, as specified by federal laws and regulations.

Toni O’Neal Mosley Executive Editor S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

5

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

insidethehouse Science and Spiritual Awareness Week Commemorates 40th Anniversary of MLK’s Death While Calling for Leadership

By Add Seymour Jr.

S

cience and Spiritual Awareness Week, usually devoted to examining the intersection of science and spirituality in the quest for human understanding, this year focused on the commemoration of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. ’48.

King’s dream of living in racial and global harmony is just as relevant and alive now as it was when he first spoke of such timeless concepts as characterbased judgment, the beloved community and a World House.

At the dawn of the Morehouse renaissance, King’s wisdom spans the divides of time and space as the College cultivates socially conscience leadership and ignites a global conversation on what is required for global citizens to learn to live as brothers.

On April 4, 2008, exactly 40 years to the day of King’s assassination, Keith Wyche sat looking at historic pictures of the civil rights icon in the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel library. Forty years ago, he was watching his mother weep over the news of King’s assassination.

“Being here kind of brings all that back,” Wyche said. “It also puts this into perspective, too – that we’ve come a long way, but still have a long way to go.”

Wyche and nine others who have made marks in their various fields – business, real estate, politics and entertainment – have all pledged to do their part as inaugural members of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Board of Renaissance Leaders. Lawrence E. Carter, dean of King Chapel, said the 10 were chosen because they excel through leadership, vision, communitybuilding efforts and the opportunities

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

6

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

they’ve created for others in the spirit of King’s non-violent civil and human rights movements.

“The world is starving and hungry for leadership that relates to what Dr. King stood for,” Wyche said. “So I think in times like these, it’s good to have men – African American men – who represent what he believed in and then can take that and move from what I call success to significance.”

The group will serve as advisers to President Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75 as he

continues to lead the charge of building renaissance men with a social conscience.

“From this day forth, you will be a representative of Dr. King’s ideals and our vision of Morehouse—that it will provide intellectual and moral leadership for a 21st century global renaissance of civility, of character and of community,” said Franklin.

“You will stand with all other Morehouse men as renaissance men with a social conscience, committed to championing the causes of equality, justice and peace.” ■

Lawrence E. Carter Sr. (standing), dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel, addresses the inaugural members of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Board of Renaissance Leaders.

Inaugural Members of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Board of Renaissance Leaders • • • • •

Kent Amos, founder, Urban Family Institute Bill Duffy, sports agent Philip Emeagwali, Internet pioneer William “Billy” Martin, attorney Raymond McGuire, co-head, Citigroup Global Investment Banking • R. Donahue Peebles, president and CEO, The Peebles Corporation

• U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) • Michael V. Roberts, chairman and CEO, The Roberts Company • Blair Underwood, actor, author and producer • Keith Wyche, president, Pitney Bowes North American Operations Management

insidethehouse Morehouse Community Leads by Example with Breast Cancer Awareness Walk “MOREHOUSE IS THE ONLY college in the city of Atlanta that sponsors a breast cancer awareness walk,” said Sandra Walker, co-founder and organizer of the Morehouse College Breast Cancer Awareness Walk. Now in its eighth year, the walk was held on Sept.12, 2007, on the King Chapel plaza.

Every year, the walk gains more and more support from the students, as well as the members of the surrounding community, said Walker.

This year was no exception—Walker estimated that about 400 people were in attendance.

Franklin Mills, a sophomore biology major and president of Kilgore Dormitory, said that “the walk was a great cause for me and the Homecoming court of Kilgore to be a part of as representatives of Kilgore Dormitory.” Mills feels a special attachment to the cause because one of his aunts was diagnosed with breast cancer during his senior year of high school.

Sandra Walker (fourth from right), and Mary Peaks (second from right), lead the Morehouse College Breast Cancer Awareness Walk, which the two co-founded seven years ago. Since its inception, the walk has raised nearly $110,000 for breast cancer education and research.

Although the walk has raised nearly $110,000 for education and research over the past seven years, it is more than a mere fundraiser, said Walker. The walk promotes awareness and understanding about a disease that affects communities all around the world. In America, more than

Parking Deck

180,000 women and men were diagnosed with breast cancer last year.

While women continue to hold a majority of the cases, the number of new cases among men continues to rise each year. ■ —Hardy Faison, Sophomore sociology major

BY T H E N U M B E R S

156, 434– The Parking Deck addition will take up a total of 156, 434 square feet.

423– In need of a place to park? The new parking deck will help the campus parking situation by adding an additional 423 spaces.

150– A large multi-purpose room inside the Welcome Center will be able to seat up to 150 people.

3– Archive space for storage will take up three percent of the Welcome Center’s square footage.

1– Though there is already one existing parking deck, the new deck will be merged into the existing structure, creating one large parking area.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

7

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

insidethehouse going

global

College Focuses on Internationalization for SACS Reaccreditation

By Kai Jackson Issa

P

lanning for the College’s reaccreditation by its regional accrediting agency, the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), has shifted into high gear this year. In a rigorous process that occurs once every 10 years, Morehouse’s reaccreditation will focus on ways to enhance the development of young men into educated, global citizens for the new millennium and will advance President Robert M. Franklin’s new vision for Morehouse as “a global resource for educated and ethical leaders.”

“Accreditation is an institution’s currency,” explained Ron Sheehy ’65, assistant vice president for Academic Affairs and chair of the Morehouse SACS review committee. “It ensures that an institution is in compliance with the highest standards of excellence in education.” Achieving reaccreditation also ensures that an institution will continue to receive federal funding, including financial aid.

Morehouse’s reaccreditation process will be completed in 2009, but planning began in 2005 with the formation of the Morehouse SACS review committee, composed of faculty and staff from all areas of the College.

“There are twin goals of the SACS process. We want not only to be found in compliance, but we want to use the process to improve Morehouse,” Sheehy said.

This year, the College will finalize two major components of the SACS review: the completion of a compliance audit and the creation of a quality enhancement plan (QEP).

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

8

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

“Accreditation is an institution’s currency.

It ensures that an institution is in compliance with the highest standards of excellence in education.”

-Ron Sheehy ‘65 assistant vice president for Academic Affairs and chair of the Morehouse SACS review committee A compliance audit committee is charged with finding the documentation showing that the College is in compliance with SACS core requirements of quality education.

In September 2008, Morehouse will submit its QEP, a document that focuses on one theme related to excellence in undergraduate learning.

Through surveys and discussions, faculty, staff and administrators have identified leadership, internationalization and scholarship as critical

principles for student learning at the College. Given the College’s emphasis on producing students with global competency, the chosen QEP theme has a strong international component that will be rooted in Morehouse’s tradition of leadership with a social conscience.

“The concern and regard for other human beings has to be at the heart of internationalization, and internationalization without regard to other human beings has no heart,” said Sheehy. ■

TIMELINE September 2008 College submits QEP October 2008 SACS committee conducts on-site review of the College, looking specifically for evidence that the QEP theme is successfully implemented Fall 2009 Formal reaccreditation granted

insidethehouse going

global

GLOBAL LIVING

New Dorm Furthers Internationalization at Morehouse WHEN FANUEL MUINDI ‘08 was a Morehouse senior studying biology, he lived in the W.E.B. Du Bois International House, a new international dorm on campus.

“It’s a great idea,” Muindi said of the new international dorm. ”Students who are looking to study abroad are living and talking with students who actually live abroad and can tell them about their experiences. For example, we actually have a student from Japan and he was telling other students about misconceptions of Japan.”

Anthony Pinder, the executive director of the Andrew Young Center for International Affairs, is pleased with such comments. He helped spearhead the international house idea. While it is a pilot program, the benefits of housing international students with U.S. students who plan to travel abroad are already apparent.

The international living concept is much larger than just the 121 students – 15 international students – living at Du Bois, said Pinder.

Morehouse officials are preparing for a re-accreditation visit by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) in October 2008. The College will focus its accreditation efforts on internationalization.

While Morehouse has long had a strong international reputation, Pinder said school officials want to take the internationalization concept much further, encompassing all facets of campus life. “[The internationalization thrust] makes sense with the global trends, and what’s happening in the academy and throughout the country,” Pinder said. ■

Austria Trip Sheds Light on Global Citizenship JUST WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A GLOBAL CITIZEN? During a January 2008 trip to Salzburg, Austria, it was a question pondered by Terry Mills, dean of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences; Walter E. Fluker, executive director of the Leadership Center at Morehouse, and Ceci Haydel, a modern foreign languages instructor.

“I don’t think we (as Americans) are walking around thinking about our global identity that way,”Mills said. “Travel and study abroad is a component of global citizenship. But we can’t be a global citizen until we understand the way the world perceives us.”

The three took part in the Salzburg Global Seminar, which gathered faculty and staff from historically black colleges and universities along with schools from the Appalachian area for a sixday discussion on what it truly means to be a global citizen.The goal was to give participants a chance to get a glimpse of the world and global issues outside of their Americanized lenses.

“This seminar was on global citizenship,which has a great affinity with what we’re doing at the Leadership Center and at the College with internationalization,” said Fluker, who is also interim director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Collection.“And leaders in the new century must be leaders who are globally conscious and interconnected.”

Terry Mills, dean of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (left), talked with Walter E. Fluker, executive director of the Leadership Center at Morehouse College (right), during their trip to Salzburg, Austria, for a conference on global citizenship.

Participants spent much of their time listening to speakers, participating in seminars and trading ideas. Each school also had to bring its own proposed project that in some way promoted global awareness and global citizenship.

The Morehouse group will spend 2008-09 working on the Morehouse Pan African Global Experience,which will allow students to visit several African countries during a six-week period. ■ S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

9

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

insidethehouse going

global

Students Travel the World in Quest to Become Global Citizens hile many American college students make spring treks to sandy U.S. beaches, three groups of Morehouse students and faculty grabbed their passports and made their vacations international experiences to remember. “You can’t talk about leadership and global leadership development unless you take students out of their comfort zone,” said Anthony Pinder, executive director of the Andrew Young Center for International Studies. “So when the College is talking about internationalization, a major part of that is getting our students out in the world so they get the skill-set they will need to be model global citizens.”

W

Model UN Competition. Delegates debated issues and searched for solutions. Morehouse students represented Morocco and the United States in the competition.

“The 16 students who studied and prepared for this year’s world competition in Mexico did so by winning a few individual prizes for the first time in the annual regional competition held in Atlanta in November 2007,” Pinder said.

Morehouse brought home three of the regional competition’s nine individual awards – two of them Best Diplomat awards.

Dubai/Mumbai

South Africa

Dubai, which sits on the eastern edge of the Persian Gulf, has become a tourist haven in its haste to become a major world destination. Students and faculty from the Division of Business Administration and Economics saw new buildings springing up all over—including what will be the world’s tallest building.

“You can see that they put a lot of thought into becoming one of the biggest cities in the world,” said Kweku Arko-Gilbert, a senior finance major from Ghana.

The western India city of Mumbai, with a population of 20 million, was a more diverse and indigenous city. “I absolutely loved India,” Arko-Gilbert said. “It’s pretty amazing how everybody is trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

There’s education everywhere.”

Morehouse College Glee Club member Neal Arp remembers riding through parts of Cape Town and Johannesburg and seeing opulent homes. A few miles down the same roads, there were shanty towns and poverty. A decades-long system of apartheid had its tangible effects.

It was an eyeopener for Arp, a junior political science major.

“All of the things that we see depicted in Africa on television or read, I mean, you’d think that everyone is walking around primitive,” he said. “But we found out that it’s a country that has a lot of promise.”

It was one of the lessons learned during the group’s trip to perform, as well as visit several schools and organizations.

But the trip didn’t only benefit Morehouse students.

Tersia Wessels is director of the Basadi Pele Foundation, an organization just outside of Johannesburg that focuses on teaching women and children skills to become selfsustainable.

“The visit to Basadi Pele was very special for all of us,” Wessels said. “The choir members were all so interested in the staff, students and children and all the activities of everybody…. Such role models for the youth in South Africa!” ■

Puebla, Mexico Morehouse’s Model United Nations Team headed to Puebla, the nearly 500-year-old town southeast of Mexico City.

The team joined more than 1,600 college students from 42 countries taking part in the 17th Annual Harvard World

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

10

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

insidethehouse Morehouse Named “Hottest Men’s College” by Newsweek; One of Best Southeastern Colleges by Princeton Review

M

orehouse was listed in two national rankings: Newsweek magazine named it the nation’s “hottest men’s college” and the Princeton Review for 2008 named the College among its list of best Southeastern colleges.

Newsweek’s “25 Hottest Schools,” a new ranking, appeared in the news magazine’s Aug. 27, 2007, issue and in the annual Newsweek-Kaplan College Guide. Morehouse is the only HBCU and the only institution of higher learning in Georgia to make the list.

The article cites the College’s legacy of producing black leaders, specifically mentioning Nobel laureate

Martin Luther King Jr. ’48, actor Samuel L. Jackson ’72 and filmmaker Shelton “Spike” Lee ’79.

It also highlights two recent campus developments: the $2-million donation from Goldman Sachs to endow a chair that will be held by the new director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection; and the Morehouse College Center for the Arts, a $20-million, 76,000-square-foot facility that will house the Ray Charles Performing Arts Center and the Music Education Building. Construction on the new facility will begin fall 2008.

In the Princeton Review’s annual ranking of colleges and universities nationwide, Morehouse is one of 146 schools to receive the publication’s Best in the Southeast designation. A total of 654 schools made the listing, representing the Northeast, Midwest, Southeast and West. ■

Mathematics Conference Focuses on Aiding Doctoral Students THE UNITED STATES is facing a shortage of American mathematics students in doctoral programs. The numbers dwindle even more when it comes to African American students.

“We’re underrepresented across the board in the sciences, engineering and mathematics,” said Duane Cooper ’82, assistant professor of mathematics. “We lose people in mathematics at every level, so by the time we get to the doctoral level, there are just not many of them left.”

That makes events like the Morehouse mathematics department’s conference, “Shared Success and Struggle: A Conference of Morehouse Men of Mathematics,” so important.

The conference, held on Jan. 21,

2008, at Atlanta’s Wyndham Midtown Hotel and funded by grant support from the National Security Agency, focused on encouraging, mentoring and advising first-year graduate students and advanced doctoral students.

Featuring seven mathematics faculty members and eight non-local alumni with doctorates or other valuable experience in math, panel discussions focused on the transition to graduate study. Graduate students were each paired with a math professor or alumnus for individual discussions and to talk about pertinent issues in the graduate school experience.

Lloyd Edwards ’80 gave a presentation on biostatics careers, while senior mathematics major Brent

Woolridge honored the contributions of the late John Ewell ’48, who passed away in 2007. The Rev. Benjamin Martin ’63, a former Morehouse mathematics professor who is now pastor of Saint Rest Baptist Church in Minden, La., gave the keynote address.

Cooper said the conference’s main purpose was to let doctoral students know that there are people out there to help, encourage and support them.

“It’s a very difficult road,” he said of mathematics doctoral studies.

“That’s why mentoring is so important.

It’s to let doctoral candidates know that there are many of us who have been there. It’s important to have people along the way to help.” ■

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

11

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

peopleatthehouse

Banker Invests Time, Travel to Teach at Morehouse

By Add Seymour Jr.

T

Jonathan Ware

Junior First HBCU Student to Place in Trading Olympiad JONATHAN WARE FOUND his inspiration to become a financial trader from an interesting source: the 1980s Eddie Murphy movie “Trading Places.”

“Ever since I saw that as a kid, I wanted to be a trader,” said the 23-yearold junior marketing and finance major from Atlanta.

The love of the trading industry served him well as he became the first student from a historically black college or university to place in the worldwide Interactive Brokers Collegiate Trading Olympiad held in January and February 2008.

More than 400 students from around the world competed by creating and implementing their own algorithmic program to use in trading stocks, with the student earning the largest profit becoming the winner.

“The whole point of the competition is to highlight the need for programmers in the capital market industry,” said Andrew Wilkinson, director of media communications for Interactive Brokers.

“This is one way for us to get students’ attention and get them to apply for jobs as programmers.”

Ware, whose profit was nearly $617,000, finished third with a group of nine other students around the world.

It was his second time taking part after getting knocked out of the competition early in the 2007 competition. ■ MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

12

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

eaching at Morehouse was so important to Richard Thaler that he was willing to leave his prestigious and powerful post as vice chairman of Deutsche Bank Securities to teach students at the ’House last fall.

“I went to the firm and said, ’I want to do this,’” Thaler said. “‘If you want me to quit, I’ll quit. But it’s important and I want to do this.’”

The firm didn’t ask Thaler to leave. In fact, he, Morehouse and Deutsche Bank came up with a plan where he flew from New York once a week to teach a leveraged buyout class.

Richard Thaler “It’s tremendous in itself to have a leveraged buyout course taught by a professional from one of the top banks in the world – Deutsche Bank – in a school, particularly in an undergraduate school,” said John E. Williams, dean of the Division of Business Administration and Economics. “This particular course isn’t even taught in some graduate schools. I think that says something about the respect we receive in this program and for our students.”

Thaler’s vast network has allowed him to tap into his connections to bring other highpowered businessmen to his classroom.

“Every guy I talked to said ’I want to go to Morehouse and nowhere else,’” he said. “It’s Willie Woods ’85 just a different place.”

During one October class, Thaler’s guests were a trio of investment banking’s biggest names: Tony Haas of the huge investment buyout firm of Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts and Company; Gary Talarico, the managing director of Sun Capital Partners; and Willie Woods, president of ICV Capital Partners. Woods is a 1985 Morehouse graduate who worked with Thaler before starting his own firm.

“This industry has been such a private, secret industry that most minorities have not experienced it,” said Woods, adding it was wonderful to return to his alma mater to speak to current students. “So to see Rich bring these kinds of people to talk to the kids—it’s phenomenal.”

Thaler challenged students to think and explain concepts, and at the same time encouraged dialogue and banter.

“The kids … want to learn,” Thaler said. “I love it. I mean, it’s just an amazing place for me to teach.” ■

peopleatthehouse “I think the African Renaissance that so many of our leaders seek in Africa is possible. I believe with your help and love, working together, Africans and African Americans can ensure that Africa’s time is now.”

Former Cape Verde President Antonio Monteiro (right) greets SGA President Stanley Onuoha as Walter E. Fluker, executive director of the Leadership Center, looks on.

— His Excellency Antonio Monteiro former Cape Verde president, on Oct. 2007 in the Leadership Center building

’HOUSE GUESTS From an African president, to popular entertainers, to a university professor—though their words were different, their

“Combine street smarts and books smarts.

Education comes first—that’s very important.

But it is also important that you educate yourself outside of school. I went to Georgia State, majored in business. I don’t consider myself a rapper or an actor. At the end of the day, I consider myself a businessman.”

message was the same: educated leaders are needed for the community, the country and the world.

—Christopher “Ludacris” Bridges, actor and rapper, on Nov. 2007 in the Leadership Center, speaking on “Dreams, Resources, Reality”

“You have a gift of your own. Find it.

It’s not far from you. You don’t have to spend time being dumb…Because every last one of you, your spirit is going to be in this hall.”

—Bill Cosby entertainer and educator, on Jan. 2008 in Sale Hall’s Chapel of the Inward Journey

“Too many copies. Too many imitators.

Too many emulators. We want creators.

James Brown created; Curtis (Mayfield) created; Gladys (Knight) created. They didn’t imitate. Why? Because you have to have courage to take a risk and you have to be in it for more than just the money.”

— Cornel West, Princeton University religion and African American studies professor, on Feb. 2008, in King Chapel

“Statistics say that the generation following us will be the first generation of black folks in America to not do as well as the preceding generation of black folks in America. That presents a daunting challenge for us as a community.”

—Tavis Smiley national talk-show host on Oct. 2007 on his “Talented Tenth HBCU Tour ”

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

13

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

peopleatthehouse

Passages Charles Brown ’73 was Pioneer in Optical Fiber Field, Authority on African Diaspora

C Charles S. Brown ’73

“

Dr. Brown was indeed a pioneer in numerous technical and educational areas. We are able to communicate effectively by fiber optic light due to his work.

”

–Artis Jenkins Physics Professor Morehouse College

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

14

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

harles S. Brown ’73, former chair and professor in the physics department, died on Sept. 29, 2007. His illustrious career included service as a Distinguished Science Fellow at Lucent-Bell Labs, director of International Affairs of the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP), and several positions with the Edward A. Bouchet-ICTP Institute.

His main area of scientific interest was theoretical and experimental aspects of polarization optics, which makes it possible for people across the globe to communicate, download videos and send music files with light speed.

“Dr. Brown was indeed a pioneer in numerous technical and educational areas. We are able to communicate effectively by fiber optic light due to his work,” said Artis Jenkins, a physics professor at Morehouse who attended Georgia Tech with Brown, as well as worked with him for nearly 30 years at AT&T. As a student at Morehouse—where he earned a degree in physics in 1973—Brown was involved in the civil rights movement and read books by W.E.B. Du Bois and Kwame Nkrumah that inspired his worldly perspective of black culture. He became an authority on the African diaspora and was instrumental in establishing an exchange program between Morehouse and universities in Ghana. The physicist also infused African American history into his lessons, particularly as it related to science and technology.

In 1981, after receiving a master’s in physics from Emory University in 1975, Brown became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in theoretical condensed matter physics from Georgia Tech. His dissertation, titled “Aspects of Structure and Interactive Processes at Solid Crystal Surfaces,” was one of the first in the soon-to-be burgeoning area of nanoscience.

In 1989, Brown was appointed one of five American physicists to serve as a founding council member of the Edward A. Bouchet-ICTP Institute in Trieste, Italy. The institute was organized to promote physics, engineering and high-technology education and infrastructure development in African countries.

From 1989 to 1991, Brown served as an AT&T visiting lecturer at Clark Atlanta University, and as professor and chair of the physics department. In 1992, he was awarded the Black Engineer of the Year Pioneer Award for training African American and African scientists in science and technology. The following year, he was promoted to Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories primarily for his sustained contributions to polarization optics.

Brown rose to chair of the Edward A. Bouchet-ICTP Institute in 1995, and later that year was selected as a Fulbright Scholar to assist in the development of a Ph.D. program in physics at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana.

In 2003, Brown returned to his alma mater as interim chair and later chair of the physics department, where he served until just prior to his death. ■

2 0 0 8

Campus Visits

peopleatthehouse SEVERAL TIMES EACH YEAR, the Morehouse College Corporate Alliance Program and the Leadership Center invite senior-level executives from the world of business to participate in the Presidential Chat and Executive Lecture Series to share their experiences and expertise with a select group of business students and other members of the campus community. The session includes a short presentation by the visiting professional and an opportunity for informal interaction between the executives and students.

Tosa Ogbomo, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Sept. 13, 2007

Rosalind G. Brewer, executive vice president for Wal-Mart, Sept.

25, 2007

S. Truett Cathy (right), founder and chairman of Chick-fil-A, March 19, 2008 Margot J. Copeland, executive vice president for KeyBank, Oct. 31, 2007

Muhtar Kent (right), president of The Coca-Cola Company, Feb. 7, 2008

Charles Cornelius (center), president and CEO of INROADS, Inc., Jan. 29, 2008, with College administrators.

Stephanie Bell Rose, the Goldman Sachs Foundation, Feb. 26, 2008

Arthur E. Johnson (left), senior vice president for Lockheed Martin Corp., Feb. 6, 2008, with President Franklin

E.V. Rick Goings, chairman and CEO of Tupperware Brands Corp., March 5, 2008

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

15

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

More than 20,000 alumni and friends met at the ’House for a homecoming of food, fellowship and football. The Maroon Tigers overpowered the Clark Atlanta Panthers with a score

President Robert Franklin ’75 crowns Miss Maroon and White Kera Street.

First Lady Dr. Cheryl Franklin and President Franklin during parade.

Miss Maroon and White and her court.

Freshman dean Alvin Darden ’72 receives the Alumnus Meritorious Award as President Franklin, Phillip McCall ’69 and Jim Hall ’57 look on.

Coach Rich Freeman at Crown Forum.

Board Chairman Willie "Flash" Davis ’56 greets Ronald Mimms ’56 at the Alumni Town Hall Meeting.

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

16

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

Convocation speaker the Rev. Victor Davis, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, Columbus, Ohio

of 22-13, ending a two-year losing streak with its AUC rivals. With its wide array of activities, from cheering on the team to feasting during tailgating, Homecoming is making coming home more and more enticing.

Reunioners dancing with delight.

More than 20,000 Maroon Tigers fans tailgating.

Enjoying the Alumni Golf Tournament.

David Satcher ’63, director of the National Center for Primary Care at the Morehouse School of Medicine, greets President Franklin on the sidelines.

Maroon Tigers defeat CAU Panthers 22-13.

Maroon Tigers in prayer.

The Maroon Tigers Track team, along with Olympic gold medalist Edwin Moses ’78 and President Franklin, takes the field to cheer the team’s 2007 SIAC Cross Country Championship.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

17

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

insidethehouse MOREHOUSE

in the

NEWS

University of Pennsylvania lead seminars and foster discussion. The program is called the Goldman Sachs Global Leadership Institute.

■ November 19, 2007,

■ November 9, 2007, Atlanta

Financial

Journal Constitution

An article titled “A Studied

“Cataloging King Papers

Approach to Making a Better

Blazes a Trail” detailed the

World” outlined how

cataloging process of the

Goldman Sachs’ global

massive 10,000-piece

leadership program aims to

Morehouse College Martin

inspire and empower young

Luther King Jr. Collection. It

people. Faculty from The

profiled two of the archivists

Leadership Center at

who are working on the

Morehouse College and The

collection, which will

Wharton School of the

eventually, along with Boston

■

January 17, 2008, Atlanta Voice

Tom Joyner Foundation Sends Genarlow Wilson to Morehouse College

Genarlow Wilson’s story made national news after he was admitted to Morehouse College this spring. The 21-year-old’s case stirred the Georgia legislature and forced a change in state law.

Wilson was convicted of aggravated child molestation after having consensual sex while a teenager. The Georgia Supreme Court later overturned the conviction, stating that it was a cruel and unusual sentence. President Franklin said: “Genarlow Wilson is representative of many of our young black men who must overcome incredible obstacles before finding a place – like Morehouse – where they are valued.” Wilson’s admittance was a special case for Morehouse. It made news on CNN, The Tom Joyner Morning Show, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, NPR and Jet magazine, among others.

University and Stanford

calling a crisis of moral purpose.

University, become part of a

We’re producing smarter kids,

collaborative searchable web-

but they’re not necessarily good

based database.

people, better people. The focus needs to be on both cognitive or

■ November/December 2007,

academic excellence and

The Crisis

character excellence.” The Crisis

In an article titled “A

is the national magazine for the

Community in Crisis,”

NAACP.

reporter Lottie Joiner interviewed President Robert

■ January 10, 2008,

■ November 14, 2007, Tennessee Tribune

M. Franklin Jr. ’75 about his

Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

Morehouse College Spring Tour

book, Crisis in the Village:

A year after the new

Restoring Hope in African

Journalism and Sports

American Communities. When

Program launched under the

asked what’s wrong with our

Department of English, the

educational system, Franklin

program continues to make

said: “The schools face what I’m

news. In an article titled

A color pictorial titled “Morehouse College Spring Tour” featured Director of Alumni Relations Henry Goodgame ’84, Special Assistant to the president Kathleen Johnson and President Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75. The feature highlighted the College’s visit to Tennessee in the community news sections of the paper.

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

18

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

insidethehouse “Morehouse’s New Program

■ January 22, 2008, The Hill

speaker at Bates College

Tennessee-based Oak Ridge

Works to Increase Number of

“All the King’s Men: All-male

during a four-day celebration

National Laboratory (ORNL)

Sports Journalists” the focus

Club Seeks to Uphold King

of the MLK holiday. He told

and Morehouse.

was on the need for a program

Legacy” focused on “The

the students at Bates: “Dr.

of this type. It is one of the few

Morehouse Club” that has

King would be passionately

■ February 21, 2008,

journalism programs in the

formed on Capitol Hill. The

calling for values. He’d ask us

Atlanta Daily World

nation with an emphasis on

group ranges in age from 22 to

to be the dream.”

The 20th annual “A Candle in

sports reporting. “We are

41 and touches all parts of the

trying to provide basic

political arena, from interns to

■ February 14, 2008, Nature

prominently with a series of

journalism skills for any

aides to lobbyists. There are

Morehouse was featured in

color photos highlighting the

student who is interested in the

about 14 members in the

London, England’s Nature

event. The gala doubled as the

profession,” said Ron Thomas,

group and their purpose is to

magazine in an article titled

inaugural ball for President

director of the program.

further the cause for

“Lab Links with Southern

Franklin and was also featured

Morehouse alumnus and

Morehouse in Congress.

States” after the U.S.

in the Atlanta Voice and the

trustee Spike Lee ’79 conceived

Lodriguez Murray ’04 said:

Department of Energy

Atlanta Inquirer.

the idea for the program.

“We want to make sure we

announced a mentor-protégé

help people from our alma

partnership between the

■ January 21, 2008, Atlanta

mater get the same

Journal Constitution

opportunit[ies].” Alumnus

This was a special year for the

Michael Collins ’94, who is the

King Celebration Concert as

chief of staff to Rep. John

the nation paused to celebrate

Lewis (D-GA), said: “Every

the birthday of Dr. Martin

day, we have the opportunity

Luther King Jr. ’48. The

to change people’s lives.

nationally broadcast concert

Nothing has meant more to

was performed on the campus

me than attending Morehouse.

of Morehouse and featured the

That spirit is always with us.”

Morehouse and Spelman glee clubs, as well as the Atlanta

■ January 22, 2008, Sun Journal

Symphony Orchestra. An

In the article titled “Be the

article titled “King-size

Dream: Morehouse

Concert” noted “the program,

Philosopher Challenges People

performed and recorded in the

to Pick up King’s Work,” which

Martin Luther King Jr.

appeared in several editions of

International Chapel, clearly

the Sun Journal, Lawrence E.

was not just another concert in

Carter, dean of the Martin

a series.”

Luther King Jr. International

the Dark” Gala was featured

■ Spring 2008, Partners

Opening the Door to a Brand New Opportunity Alumnus Jim Hawes ’69 and his business partner, Jerry Freeman, were featured in the spring edition of Partners magazine, a trader publication for the franchise industry. Hawes is co-owner of two Kwik Kopy Business Centers in Midtown Atlanta. Though he and Freeman have been in business for nearly five years, they just celebrated the grand openings for their centers. The centers were originally Copy Club franchises when they opened in 2003 and 2004. In early 2008, they rebranded their Copy Club centers as Kwik Kopy Centers. “We want to benefit from the strength of the Kwik Kopy brand and the growth,” Hawes said. “We are going to take advantage of the name change to launch additional products and services.”

Chapel. Carter was the keynote

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

19

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

onthefieldandcourt

World Class Olympic Gold Medalist Edwin Moses ’78 Continues to Shine Away from the Track

By Add Seymour Jr.

Olympic Gold Medalist Edwin Moses ’78 then and now.

I

t was 1976 and Morehouse track star Edwin Moses ’78 wasn’t going to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime.

Even though he came to Morehouse on an academic scholarship and the College was the only school that offered him a place on its track team, Moses had the world’s fastest time in the 400-meter hurdles that year. He qualified for the Olympic Trials with a chance to go to the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada.

The only problem was there wasn’t any money available to fund his Olympic dreams.

“I personally went up to [then president] Dr. [Hugh] Gloster and he said, ’Do you really think you can really win the Olympics?’” Moses remembered. “I said, ’If I go, I’m going to win.’ He wrote a check [for $3,000].”

Moses went to Montreal and set a world record in winning the Olympic gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles. It jumpstarted one of the most dominating careers in track and field history, one in MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

20

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

which Moses went nearly 10 years without losing a race.

Talking to a class of Journalism and Sports Program students on April 30, Moses attributed his success to Morehouse.

“Just being here changed how I looked at the world,” he said. “The whole experience of coming to Morehouse—I mean, had I not come to Morehouse, I probably would not have run track.”

Moses, a physicist who once worked for General Dynamics, still spent much of his time after retiring from track and field working closely with the sport. For a while, he headed the United States Olympic Committee’s drug testing and enforcement efforts.

But the heavy politics – and the question of whether track and field officials truly wanted to enforce drug use — drove him away.

“I got very frustrated because, politically, it got very dicey for me,” Moses said. “So I had to pull away from all of that.”

Moses continued public speaking

engagements and other activities, but he eventually got involved in Laureus World Sports Academy, an international organization that uses sports to promote global social change –“using sports for good,” he said.

The organization, of which Moses is now chairman, sponsors locally run sports programs for youth worldwide. Its 45member board includes some of the world’s most iconic athletes, including Michael Jordan, Pele and Martina Navratilova.

“We work with organizations in different parts of the world that have identified really serious problems in relationships with kids,” he said. “We work with kids who have H.I.V.; we’ve worked with gang-bangers in the United States with basketball; kids who live in the slums in Rio or Sao Paulo, Brazil, who run around with machine guns; children who sleep under their mother’s sewing machines. We meet with different organizations that deal with a particular social issue, give them money directly and then they run the programs for us.”

Moses works out of London, but also maintains a home in California and in Atlanta, where he increasingly spends more of his time. In fact, this year he offered his advice to the Morehouse track team a couple of times this season as they worked out on the Edwin C. Moses Track at B.T. Harvey Stadium.

“Not nearly enough,” he said of working with the track team. “It’s where the story started.” ■

Morehouse Senior Jerome Singleton Heads to Beijing as Part of the U.S. Paralympic Team JEROME SINGLETON’S Olympic dreams have become reality as the Morehouse senior will be heading to Beijing, China, September 7 to 18 as part of the United States team in the 2008 Paralympic Games.

The Paralympic Games are Olympic competitions for athletes with physical disabilities, held every four years, coinciding with the Olympic Games and held in the same venue.

“It’s very exciting,”he said. “I’m very thankful that I’m getting an opportunity to go.”

Singleton, a triple major in math, physics and industrial engineering from Irmo, S.C., qualified for the team during the U.S. Paralympic Trials – Track and Field, in Mesa, Ariz., in June.

Singleton, who wears a prosthetic lower right leg, competes in the T-44 division of the 100- and 200-meter dash, along with the 4x100-meter relay. The T-44 division is for single-leg, below the knee amputees.

“I was born without my fibula, so they had to amputate my foot (while an infant),” Singleton said. “But I’ve been playing sports since I was five.”

After getting to Morehouse, he was researching trends in biomedical engineering when he ran across a story about a Paralympian. He then went to www.paralympic.org.

“I looked at some of the times and said, ‘I believe I can compete with these times,’” said Singleton.

He joined the Morehouse track team in 2006. A roving coach who sometimes works with the track team took Singleton to a Paralympics in 2006. A year later – and after working with Morehouse track coach Willie Hill — Singleton began to enter and

win Paralympic meets.

“This kid showed a lot of people about working and working hard,” Hill said. “I had no doubt this young man was going to do great things in life, on and off the track.”

Of the 206 athletes on the United States team heading to the Beijing Paralympics, Singleton is one of 44 members of the U.S. track and field squad.

The Paralympic Games won’t be Singleton’s first international competition. He won a gold medal in the 100-meter dash and a silver medal in the 200-meter dash during the 2008 Paralympic World Cup in Manchester, England. He won medals in the 200meter dash and 100-meter dash during the 2007 Para Pan American Games in Rio De Janiero.

“Hands down, he’s the most improved athlete on our elite squad,” U.S. Paralympic Track and Field Head Coach Troy Engle said in an article on Singleton on www.usparalympics.com. “He’s gone from an emerging athlete to a contending athlete to be on the podium in Beijing.”

This fall, Singleton will attend the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to begin completing the final two years of his dual-degree engineering program. But first, he will work to win a gold medal in Beijing.

“I’m just going to train hard this summer,” he said. “But I’m ready to go.”

Legendary Langston Coach and Morehouse Alum “Zip” Gayles ’24 Is Sports Hall of Fame Inductee

“It is an extremely high honor for somebody to make the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame,” said the organization’s president, Lynne Draper. “(Gayles) had a fantastic career. He had a heck of a coaching record.”

A strict disciplinarian, Gayles’ basketball squads won 571 games Caesar Felton “Zip” Gayles ’24 over 36 years, including a 51-game winning streak from 1944 to 1946. They won two National Negro championships and numerous Southwestern Athletic Conference titles. In 1946, Gayles’ team became the first and only college team to ever defeat the Harlem Globetrotters.

The Langston University gymnasium, the Caesar “Zip” Gayles Fieldhouse, has been named after Gayles. He is also a member of the NAIA Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame.

His football teams won 146 games, nine SWAC championships and two national titles. ■

CAESAR FELTON “ZIP” GAYLES ’24 was a pretty busy man of Morehouse when he attended the College. Besides working towards his degree, he was an All-American football and basketball player who also lettered in track and field.

By 1930, Gayles was teaching social sciences at Oklahoma’s Langston University. But he became a sports legend, coaching football, baseball and basketball and serving as the school’s athletic director.

His coaching career is why the Morehouse alum, who passed away in 1985, is being posthumously inducted to the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.

Gayles joins former NBA coach and executive Bob Bass, former major league baseball player Eddie Fisher and former college wrestling star Jack VanBebber as 2008 inductees. They will be honored on August 18 and will share the honor with sports luminaries such as Mickey Mantle and Jim Thorpe.

Go to http://paralympics.teamusa.org/news/article/2139 to read the full U.S. Paralympic Team profile story on Jerome Singleton.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

21

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

onthefieldandcourt

Round Up

FOOTBALL FOOTBALL SQUAD FINISHES 7-3 IN 2007 AND EXPECTS BIGGER THINGS IN 2008 SEASON Rich Freeman’s Morehouse football team had something to prove after a preseason Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference coaches’ poll forecasted the Maroon Tigers to finish last in 2007 conference play.

The team surprised everyone and finished with a 7-3 record. They jumped out to a 4-2 record—the team’s best start in school history—and finished by winning three of their last four games.

It surprised everyone but Freeman, who was in his first year as head coach of the Maroon Tigers.

“We came in and had a pretty good recruiting class and we were able to put together the first winning football season in a while,” Freeman said. “I’m proud of the kids.”

A balanced squad sported an SIAC top-five, total defense and total offense. A stingy Maroon Tiger defense, led by 2nd team All-SIAC defenders Derrick Scott and DeJuan Payne, was tops in the SIAC in red

zone defense and second in scoring defense. Junior punter Micah Streiff was also a 2nd team All-SIAC performer.

The offense was led by quarterbacks Carlos King, a senior, and sophomore Christian Sterling, both of whom finished among the SIAC’s top 10 players in total offense, and running back Kelvin Moore, who rushed for nearly 600 yards in 2007. Two offensive linemen, sophomore Ramon Harewood and junior Nate Nobles, were 2nd team All-SIAC picks.

The 2008 season kicks off August 30 with a trip to Benedict College and will be highlighted by a Sept. 27 appearance in the Angel City Classic in Los Angeles against Prairie View A&M. The Tuskegee-Morehouse Football Classic will be played on Oct. 11 in Columbus, while Homecoming will be played Oct. 25 against Albany State.

With eight starters returning on defense and seven on offense, Freeman is looking forward to next season.

“I’m very enthusiastic, considering the fact that we have 24 seniors and 24 juniors coming back this year,” Freeman said. “So we feel very optimistic about this upcoming season. But everybody knows about us and the seven teams we beat will be playing twice as hard when we play them next season.”

2008 F O OT B A LL S C H E D U L E DATE

OPPONENT

LOCATION

TIME

AUGUST 30

BENEDICT COLLEGE*

COLUMBIA, SC

4 PM

SEPTEMBER 7

FORT VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY*

FT. VALLEY, GA

1 PM

SEPTEMBER 13

LANE COLLEGE*

ATLANTA, GA

7 PM

SEPTEMBER 20

MILES COLLEGE*

BIRMINGHAM, AL

6 PM

SEPTEMBER 27

PRAIRIE VIEW A&M STATE UNIVERSITY (ANGEL CITY CLASSIC, LOS ANGELES MEMORIAL COLISEUM)

LOS ANGELES, CA

COLUMBUS, GA

2 PM

OCTOBER 18

TUSKEGEE UNIVERSITY* (73RD ANNUAL TUSKEGEEMOREHOUSE FOOTBALL CLASSIC) CLARK ATLANTA UNIVERSITY*

ATLANTA, GA

2 PM

OCTOBER 25

ALBANY STATE UNIVERSITY*

ATLANTA, GA (HOMECOMING)

2 PM

NOVEMBER 1

STILLMAN COLLEGE*

TUSCALOOSA, AL

5 PM

NOVEMBER 8

KENTUCKY STATE UNIVERSITY*

ATLANTA, GA

1 PM

OCTOBER 11

ALL GAME TIMES ARE LOCAL TIMES * DENOTES SOUTHERN INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETIC CONFERENCE GAMES MAROON DENOTES HOME GAME

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

22

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

2 PM

TRACK AND FIELD

• Garry Kennebrew, senior, biology, 3.39 G.P.A. • Lowell Lea, senior, business administration, 3.39 G.P.A.

TRACK AND FIELD TEAM WINS THIRD STRAIGHT SIAC TEAM TITLE For the third year in a row, the Morehouse Flying Maroon Tigers track and field team ended their season with an SIAC title. They finished far ahead of the other competition to win the team title at the SIAC Spring Sports Championships in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Head Coach Willie Hill was named the meet’s most outstanding coach, while five of his athletes were named to the conference’s 1st Team All-SIAC squad:

• • • • •

Barry Batson, junior, triple jump and high jump Turner Coggins, freshman, shotput Matt Tuffor, freshman, discus Damian Prince, junior, 400-meter dash, 400-meter intermediate hurdles Abraham Kiprotich, sophomore, 3000-meter steeplechase

Seven Morehouse athletes made the conference’s 2nd Team All-SIAC squad: Barry Batson, junior, long jump Derrick Smith, sophomore, triple jump Richmond Oliver, senior, pole vault Dreyfus Clemons, sophomore, 800-meter dash Abraham Kiprotich, sophomore, 5000-meter run Matt Tuffuor, freshman, shot put Daniel King, freshman, javelin

• • • • • • •

Seven Maroon Tigers were named to the conference’s 14-member AllAcademic track team, including: • Anthony Roberts, junior, economics, 4.00 G.P.A. • Kelsey Smith, sophomore, business administration, 3.92 G.P.A. • Jerome Singleton, junior, mathematics, 3.84 G.P.A. • Dezmond Douglas, sophomore, business administration, 3.57 G.P.A. • De’Andre Cherry, sophomore, pre-engineering, 3.50 G.P.A.

Hill was ecstatic about the Maroon Tigers’ season.

“This was the best team that we have ever had in the 18 years that I’ve been coaching as far as the young men coming together for the common cause, and that was winning a conference title,” he said.

“For next year, we’re only losing about five seniors [from this year’s squad],” Hill added. “So we’ve got the nucleus of the team returning.”

BASKETBALL REBUILDING BASKETBALL SQUAD SEEKS CONSISTENCY IN 2008-09 The 2007-08 Morehouse basketball campaign was a tale of two seasons.

The Maroon Tigers roared to a 7-2 start, including six straight wins at home. But after the Christmas break, they struggled, winning only three of their last 14 games and finishing 12-18.

“I was disappointed because we started out so well,” said head coach Grady Brewer. “I think what hurt us was the long Christmas break.”

The season did, however, have its bright spots.

Two of the conference’s top five scorers were Maroon Tigers. Both junior center Kenney Boyd and senior forward Jason Reese averaged just under 16 points per game, while Boyd, a 1st team All-SIAC selection, was also the league’s second-best rebounder. Travis Floyd was the league’s top free-throw shooter and finished second in assists. Jerry Felder was the conference’s secondbest shot blocker during the 2007-08 season.

Boyd, Floyd and Felder will form the nucleus of 10 players returning for the team’s 2008-09 season.

“We were a young team, so were in a rebuilding mode,” Brewer said of the Maroon Tigers, who last season was the SIAC’s most-watched team with nearly 52,000 fans attending their games. “We crawled last year. I think it’s time for us to walk now. I think the future is bright for us.” ■

The Morehouse College Flying Maroon Tigers track and field team celebrates after winning the SIAC team title for the third consecutive year.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

23

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

ontheshelf Balance: Advancing Identity Theory by Engaging the Black Male Adolescent

By David Wall Rice ’95 Published by Lexington Books IN A NATION where African American males are often viewed negatively and identified narrowly, personality psychologist David Wall Rice ’95 has written a book, Balance: Advancing Identity Theory by Engaging the Black Male Adolescent, that seeks to broaden the understanding of identity.

“The book really does work at filling gaps in understanding the function and form of identity, so this is novel. But so, too, is the use and exploration of black males through a normalized lens and within context,” said Rice, who is an assistant professor at Morehouse. “Popculture and the sciences really do paint us into a corner of stereotypes and this book looks at alternatives and successes in the face of stereotypes that we are fortunate enough to see daily here at Morehouse.”

Rice, who holds degrees in psychology,journalism and personality psychology,has provided criticism on pop culture,music,psychology and

politics for newspapers such as The Washington Post and The Dallas Morning News, and magazines that include VIBE, The Source, Code and Blaze. He also provides commentary for MSNBC, NBC and National Public Radio.

Rice is the principal investigator for Morehouse’s Identity Stasis Research Laboratory and is linking the College’s work with identity stasis research at Princeton University, where he is a visiting fellow.

With Balance, Rice wanted to get new ideas out in respect to theory and understanding of identity.

“Within both popular culture and the social sciences, identity is frequently a catch-all phrase,” he said. “I wanted to push myself toward understanding the phenomenon more fully by writing about it and by incorporating the unique experiences of black males in a way that is common, strengths-based and non-pathological.” ■

d 21st Century Guide to Leadership and Professional Development: Life Success Tools and Strategies for Emerging Leaders of Color

By Belinda White Published by McGraw Hill/Irwin BELINDA WHITE HAS DONE something she said no one else has done: pen a book about leadership studies, with an added focus on diversity in corporate America. The book is titled 21st Century Guide to Leadership and Professional Development: Life Success Tools and Strategies for Emerging Leaders of Color (McGraw Hill/ Irwin, 2007).

“There were no textbooks out there for this class,” said White, an assistant professor of leadership studies at the College. “I always had to hodge-podge. I got tired of trying to hodge-podge.”

She also presents her own theories and teachings on the topic, focusing on five areas: leadership, professionalism (“That’s the fifth language of business,” she said), ethics, MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

24

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

global awareness and public service. The book is currently sold in the College bookstore. The second edition will be available next year and will be marketed to higher education institutions across the country, especially other Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

White also uses actual quotes from some of the nation’s most renowned business leaders, including Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons, Morgan Stanley managing director Carla Harris and media pioneer Ted Turner, culled from their talks on campus. ■

ontheshelf F O O T N O T E S Robots (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller, 2007) a textbook by Arthur J. McClung III ’98. The basis of his study is biomimetics, which means imitating or mimicking life systems.

The work by McClung, who earned his Images of famine, poverty, disease and war in the African continent are real, but they are master’s degree from Stanford University, only one side of a focuses on developing a new class of much larger story, biologically-inspired robots, which would be far more advanced and life-like than current says Michael robotics. McClung talks about the Sprawl Janis, assistant family of hand-sized, hexapedal robots, which professor of English. Janis has are some of the fastest and most robust robots around. ■ written a book titled Africa After d Modernism, Transitions in Literature, Media Leaders in the Labyrinth: College and Philosophy (Routledge Press, 2006) to give a broader and more colorful picture of the Presidents and the Battleground of Creeds and Convictions mother continent.

During a career that spans his work in By Stephen J. Nelson West Africa as a journalist and an educator, Published by American Janis has first-hand knowledge of how the Council on Education Former Morehouse President Walter E. African continent has evolved. He also Massey ’58 and some of the challenges worked for the international wire service, during his Reuters, as a journalist in the mid-1990s. successful 12His book is a collection of his work and year tenure at his experiences in the mother continent. the College were d chronicled in Stephen Nelson’s Dynamic Locomotion: Maneuvering book, Leaders in with Hexapedal Legged Robots the Labyrinth:

By Arthur J. McClung III ’98 College Presidents and the Battleground of Published by VDR Creeds and Convictions (American Council Mechanical on Education, 2007). engineering, Nelson looked at the way various college specifically hexapedal legged robots, is the presidents dealt with issues of political correctness and how they kept their campuses subject of Dynamic together during contentious times. Nelson Locomotion: talked to Massey about those issues and said Maneuvering with he found the College’s ninth president to be Hexapedal Legged

Africa After Modernism, Transitions in Literature, Media and Philosophy

By Michael Janis Published by Routledge Press

very forthright and fair when dealing with various constituencies across campus.

d

The Way Out of Darkness: Vital Public Theology By the Rev. Willie James Webb ’61 Published by Author House In The Way Out of Darkness: Vital Public Theology (Author House, 2007), The Rev. Willie James Webb ’61 outlines the idea that a thorough knowledge of religion and Christianity is essential to a stronger future for this nation and the world.

Webb says basic theological beliefs form the foundation for solid working relationships – even in the midst of cultural and religious differences – and can allow citizens and their leaders to make sound and fair decisions for all.

Webb is pastor of Foundation of Community Church, Atlanta, Ga., and president of the Christian Association of Public Theologians and the Christian Institute of Public Theology.

d Editor’s Note: This column is open to Morehouse alumni, faculty and staff who have recently published books.

Please contact Add Seymour Jr. at aseymour@morehouse.edu to submit your work.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

25

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

developmentnews Opportunity Fund Receives Nearly $600,000 in Major Donations ■ AT&T MATCHING GRANT $250,000

■ ALLEN & COMPANY, INC. $100,000

WHEN HENRY M. GOODGAME ’84, director of Alumni Relations, spearheaded an e-solicitation campaign last winter with a goal of building awareness and support for the Opportunity Fund, he recruited Oluwabusayo “Topé”Folarin ’04,the College’s most recent Rhodes Scholar, to make an appeal.

But how could it be that Folarin, who graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, was the ideal poster child for financially strapped students?

It’s because, despite his considerable academic accomplishments, Folarin had simply run out of funds and found himself contemplating the unthinkable—just as nearly 150 upperclassmen do each year when money becomes tight. In fact, in November 2003, he was on the verge of leaving the College—just months before he was named a Rhodes Scholar.

According to Goodgame, the majority of upperclassmen who opt out of Morehouse are in good academic standing—even excellent standing, like Folarin. But they have reached the maximum amount available under federal programs such as the Pell Grant and the Stafford Loan, and their personal revenues are usually depleted, as well.

The case for The Opportunity Fund is clear: according to 2007 estimates, the College is at risk of losing approximately 150 upperclassmen annually who lack the $7,917 needed (on average) to complete their academic careers at Morehouse. Created by the Board of Trustees in 2005, the Fund is currently in a $2-million matching fundraising challenge with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Recent donations of $247,000 from the estate of Ernest A.Swain,$100,000 from Allen & Company, Inc., and a $250,000 grant from AT&T have brought the Fund considerably closer to reaching the matching goal.

Last year,when AT&T presented its $250,000 gift, President Franklin issued a challenge to alumni to match the gift with an additional

■ ESTATE OF ERNEST A. SWAIN $247,000

President Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75 (left) and Henry Goodgame ’84, director of Alumni Relations (2nd from right), accepted a $250,000 donation presented by AT&T regional managers Wayne Meadows ’86 (2nd from left) and Dennis Boyden (right).

$250,000. This February, after the successful alumni drive, AT&T presented its gift, making the net total to the fund a half million dollars.

The loss of a Morehouse student has far-reaching implications, said President Franklin.

“A non-returning student triggers a chain of unfortunate circumstances: America loses the benefit of another brilliant Morehouse man, the College loses the revenue he would have contributed, and our graduation rate goes south,” he wrote in the June 2008 “House Report.”

Goodgame’s recurring message to alumni has been that they must not rely solely on corporations and foundations to secure the future of the new generation of Morehouse men—especially as economic forces create an increased need among students and greater constraints on College resources.

“President Franklin is depending on alumni to step up and give as never before,” said Goodgame. “We should not expect our corporate friends to carry the load alone.” ■

Just Paying it Forward SPIKE LEE ’79 USES “JUST DO IT” AWARD AS SPRING BOARD FOR NIKE SUPPORT WHEN SPORTS manufacturing giant Nike wanted to honor Shelton Spike Lee ’79 with its “Just Do It” award during the company’s Black History Month reception held at Morehouse’s Executive Conference Center on March 7, Lee threw the ball back in their court. T h i n k i n g like a team player, he asked Nike what they would do, in return, for Morehouse. Their answer scored: a $2,500 endowed scholarship for the College’s Journalism and Sports Program and two summer internships at Nike—representing a combined value of more than $25,000.

Lee, who helped start the Journalism and Sports Program and has been one of its major financial supporters, was honored by Nike for his cultural MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

26

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

contributions with the 21 films he’s done in the past 21 years. He also was recognized because of his commitment to education.

NFL player Warrick Dunn was also given the award. Dunn, who was unable to attend the reception, played for the Atlanta Falcons from 2002 until 2007. He has long been known for his community service work. His “Homes for the Holidays” program has helped build and furnish houses for 74 single parents and 192 dependents in Atlanta, Tampa, Fla., and Baton Rouge, La. “We are excited about the impact that Warrick Dunn and Spike Lee have had on the world,” said President Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75. ■

developmentnews Ford Foundation’s $1 Million Grant Supports King Collection FUNDING WILL EXPAND PROGRAMMING, RESEARCH AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH ACTIVITIES The Collection, which spans 1946 to 1968, includes 10,000 pieces of King’s personal documents, notes, speeches and personal library.

34%7!2$3()0 s 3#(/,!23()0 s 0!24.%23()0

THE PRESTIGIOUS, 10,000-PIECE Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection has received significant support for its academic programming and community outreach activities with a $1-million grant from The Ford Foundation.

The grant will provide training and support to help Morehouse academic leaders and faculty to develop course-related materials; train and mentor Atlanta middle and high school teachers to develop curriculum and educational materials revolving around the Collection; convene a biennial symposium for King scholars who use the Collection for their own research to share their work; and create an annual publication to showcase the creative uses of the Collection.

“I gratefully acknowledge the Ford Foundation for its bold and inspiring commitment to expanding democracy, eradicating poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation, and supporting noble human achievement,” said President Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75. “Our visions—the Foundation’s, the College’s, and certainly Dr. King’s—are synchronous, and we are both proud and fortunate to be in partnership with a world leader in strategic philanthropy.

This support will enable the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection to expand programming, research, and outreach activities in substantive and innovative ways.”

The Collection, which spans 1946 to 1968, includes 10,000 pieces of King’s personal documents, notes, speeches and personal library. Approximately 7,000 are handwritten items including an early draft of the famous “I Have a Dream” speech, his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize lecture and a sermon box that contained nearly 100 handwritten sermons from the 1950s and 1960s.

A group of Atlanta business and civic leaders, led by Mayor Shirley Franklin, raised $32 million to purchase the Collection just before it was to have gone up for auction at Sotheby’s in 2006. The deal brought the Collection home to Atlanta, the cradle of the civil rights movement and King’s birthplace. It was the wishes of the King Estate that the Collection be donated to Morehouse, where King graduated in 1948.

The Collection is stored at the Robert W. Woodruff Library where it is being digitized and archived. The Collection is scheduled to be available for scholarly access in fall 2008. ■

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

27

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

feature

r o b h g i e N d o o G D e Th

By Rori Francis Blakeney and Don Winbush

espite their proximity to the Georgia Dome, the Georgia World Congress Center, the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and Atlanta’s other gleaming city skyscrapers, the West End communities near the Atlanta University Center were not realizing the economic and population growth seen in other parts of the city. Although the community is home to several thriving businesses, major arts venues — Hammonds House and Wrens Nest — and tree-lined streets with neatly renovated Victorian-style homes, the areas on the perimeter of Morehouse featured eyesores of rundown single-family homes and public housing units, and dilapidated and unkempt businesses. Many of the 25,000 residents near the College were economically and educationally challenged and needed some help to improve their lots in life.

James L. Brown, president of the John O. Chiles High Rise Association, a senior citizen residence near the campus, recalls a town-and-gown schism between the College and the community seemed insurmountable.

"It used to be....the college was the college, and the community was the community, [and] never the [twain] shall meet," Brown recalled. "A lot of residents and homeowners would not have come together if not for Morehouse. We were at two different stations.

Morehouse has bridged that gap.”

ve Morehouse and the community ha tackled crime, housing code ent, enforcements, housing developm transportation and economic development in an ongoing community revitalization effort.

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

28

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

feature According to Brown, the College has joined the community in its perennial struggles with urban existence. Together, Morehouse and the community have tackled crime, housing code enforcements, housing development, transportation and economic development in an ongoing community revitalization effort. “We now have a voice and some influence at City Hall," said Brown.

"The community expressed so much discontent with Morehouse. In order for meaningful change to come, we had to deal with major issues," said André Bertrand, vice president of Campus Operations at the College. "I always felt there was more the College could do to improve the physical, economic and social condition of the community."

It was a sentiment shared by President Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75 when he became the 10th president of the College in July 2007.

"Morehouse is a community asset and treasure, we have a moral obligation to offer the gifts and assets that we have to benefit the larger community," he declared. "I see a different community here than 15 years ago, and Morehouse has its fingerprints all over that change."

contained, middle-class community. We had places like Frazier’s Café society, Paschal’s Restaurant and Lounge, West Hunter Street Baptist and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.”

Massey initiated efforts to bridge the gap by spearheading what then was known as the Morehouse College Revitalization Task Force. He recruited students, faculty and staff to become part of the Community Intervention Initiative that grew out of the task force. The initiative was aimed at nurturing relationships with 10 adjoining neighborhoods, and improving the quality of life for the area residents.

"We're getting better places" in our community, said former Atlanta educator Chester Hayes, holding a bag of groceries in the parking lot of the new Publix grocery on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

An equal mix of local residents and AUC students usually shop its gleaming aisles—many of whom find the store close enough to walk to.

"They've torn down some of the old, and put up something new," said Phillip Ackerman ‘97, manager of Publix. Visible from the parking lot of the store he has managed for the last six years, a new development featuring refurnished

bungalows, high-rise lofts and shops is under construction. Elsewhere in the Historic Westside Village Project at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Mayson Turner Road are some 150 condominiums, 60 townhomes and 40,000 square feet of new retail space—including a Walgreen's Pharmacy—with a projected construction cost of $65 million.

Home Remedies IN ORDER TO produce the kind of changes desired by the College and community, the level of homeownership needed to be bolstered. The area also lagged behind in retail outlets; the per capita income was $10,550; and unemployment was high. Without resources, many homes near the Morehouse campus fell into disrepair or were abandoned.

Ten years ago, President Massey set an example of what he believed needed to be done when the Davidson House was built. The Davidson House and Center, built in 1998, is one of the best examples of Morehouse's effort to literally 'walk the talk' in the community. Davidson House, which is the president's residence, was

Bridging the Divide FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, the divide between the College and the community may have been at its widest. When President Walter E. Massey ’58 came to Morehouse in 1995 as the College’s ninth president, he lamented the fractured state of the relationship, recalling the closeknit ties between the AUC and the community as a student in the late ‘50s during the days of segregation in the Jim Crow South. He remembers an area bustling with activity.

“We lived and worked on Hunter Street [now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive],” Massey said. “It was a much more self-

Bonner and Oprah Scholars helped with a Habitat for Humanity project in Meridian, Miss. Pictured with a community resident are students (left to right) Desmond Key, Marcques Ahegdo, Richard Jones, Tony Rocker and Mark Dodd (kneeling).

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

29

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

Andre Bertrand, vice president for Campus Operations at Morehouse, is the architect of the College’s Community Revitalization Initiative. “We understand that community involvement is an organic process where the College doesn’t sit in an ivory tower and decide what the community needs. Our community development program is responsive to the preferred development scenario articulated by the residents. It is our attempt to bring the resources of the College to bear on their vision—and that vision is a shared vision.”

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

30

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

built at a symbolic intersection, located both on the campus—across the street from Century Campus on Fair Street— and in the community, literally around the corner from row houses in various stages of disrepair and refurbishing.

When Massey moved into the president’s home, he became the first Morehouse president in 30 years who actually walked the community as a fellow neighbor.

There have been some remarkable improvements since Davidson House’s construction. Some of the crime-ridden public housing units near Morehouse and the Atlanta University Center have been demolished and replaced with safer, cleaner abodes.

Morehouse began its revitalization efforts with a $250,000 seed grant from the Fannie Mae Foundation. The College then joined with Spelman and the Morehouse School of Medicine to create College Partners, Inc., a non-profit organization established to allow for land transfers between the schools and the Atlanta Housing Authority. The group initiated a plan to revitalize 11 acres formerly dedicated to public housing.

The Atlanta Housing Authority and College Partners agreed to purchase real estate in other parts of Atlanta, paving the way for expansions on all three campuses.

The partnership secured $35 million for a HOPE VI grant to revitalize an adjacent AHA community and its surroundings into a mixed-income, mixeduse development called College Town.

Across the street from College Town, on the corner of Lowery Boulevard and West End Drive, will be the Morehouse College Performing Arts Center, joining the impressive Leadership Center facility, which opened in fall 2006, in the northward expansion of Morehouse.

University Homes, a sprawling, public housing complex neighboring Morehouse and Spelman, has been fenced in and boarded up and soon will be replaced by student housing.

feature Morehouse is also the co-recipient with the University Community Development Corporation to rehabilitate 14 owneroccupied homes for the elderly and to construct six affordable homes on existing vacant land.

Ambassadors of Empowerment ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT alone will not change the landscape of the neighborhood. It is the empowerment of community that will ultimately lead to the change that the college and community are both hoping to bring about in the neighborhood.

Professors like Larry Blumer started to use experiential education along with classical teaching methods to give students a broad learning experience. He creatively fused the academic rigors of a Morehouse education with meaningful service to encourage lifelong civic engagement. It is hoped that this process, known as servicelearning, will strengthen communities for the common good.

One of the first projects to grow out of service-learning was a community garden in the nearby Ashview Heights area.

Martha Abbensett, a 35-year resident of Ashview Heights, beams about the community garden where she, Morehouse students and Blumer have worked over the years.

"I have become a green thumb,” she said. “[Morehouse] sends a group of students out regularly. We sit down and talk about the garden. There are things they know and things we know about the planting process. One of the things I know is that Morehouse is interested in the community. They have proven it because they have come to Ashview."

In another community, Peoplestown, students trained in Geographic Information Systems conducted a door-

to-door survey to assist residents in visualizing their community and in getting a better understanding of the challenges in the area.

Students also helped to create legally binding benefits agreements for residents living near the Ashby Street MARTA Station and on Langhorn Street to help control development of a proposed light rail coming to the area. The pending development of 22 miles of rail is part of a BeltLine Project community where light rapid transit rail lines will encircle Atlanta to unify the area's scattered pattern of growth.

Several years ago, Graham Jackson Jr. responded to a call Morehouse issued to neighborhood residents to come to Saturday workshops for residents.

"At first, I just wanted to see what was going on and what I could learn," recalled Jackson. The more he learned, the more he wanted to learn. He ended up attending 20 workshops. Then, in an impressive gesture of both civic involvement and selfimprovement, he went on to earn a bachelor's degree in urban policy studies at Georgia State University.

"I was determine to do all I could to help restore the beauty and economy that our community once had," said Jackson, who is now vice president of the Booker T. Washington Community Association.

He now uses his know-how to address issues such as proposed zoning changes, lobby for more municipal services and analyze census data.

“I've gained more insight, learned how to apply new theories and developed analytical, research and other skills that allow me to help the community proceed much more effectively," he said.

Jackson’s declaration of selfdetermination may be the greatest testament to Morehouse’s influence as a good neighbor. Empowering residents to take active roles in the growth and transformation of the West End community is giving life to the axiom about teaching a man to fish—as

opposed to giving him a fish for a day— so that you help him for a lifetime.

"More of us have a better understanding of how the pieces of community and economic development fit together, and how we can produce measurable results... It's one thing for me to say, 'We need to do something about our community.' It's another for me to say, 'We can do something,'” said Jackson.

Growing Leaders JACKIE MILES-JOHNSON has devoted herself to the work of helping students understand they can do something through service to others. MilesJohnson spearheads the College’s traditional community service efforts.

Assistant director and program manager for the Bonner Office of Community Service, Miles-Johnson estimates that during any given semester, 75 percent of Morehouse's enrollment is engaged in community service—from planting neighborhood gardens, to tutoring, to canvassing neighborhoods for research.

“We are empowering students to get involved. It’s a process of training and building trust. We really push the envelope.

Slowly, we have changed our image and we continue to perpetuate a culture of service.”

The office has moved from having two staff people to now housing seven community service-based scholarship programs, including Jumpstart, Bonner, Emma and Joe Adams Public Service Institute, Community Scholars, Revitalization Taskforce, UPS Scholars and the Oprah Winfrey Scholars.

Miles-Johnson said, “We had to reeducate people about our attitudes.

Many people view community service as punishment. We help our students know that they are altering the fate of the community, that they are changing the face of the community.” ■ S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

31

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, “Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?” I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn’t stop there.

I would move on by Greece and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon. And I would watch them around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality. But I wouldn’t stop there.

I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire.

And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders.But I wouldn’t stop there.

I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and aesthetic life of man. But I wouldn’t stop there.

I would even go by the way that the man for whom I am named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg. But I wouldn’t stop there.

I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating president by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn’t stop there.

I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but “fear itself.” But I wouldn’t stop there.

Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say,

“If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy.”

—Martin Luther King Jr. ’48 “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” April 3, 1968

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

32

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

Losin

By Add Seymour Jr.

g MARTIN T

here is another day in U.S. history that lives in infamy: April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King Jr. ’48 was assassinated. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of the country’s most prophetic dreamer, those who knew him best—as Tweed, M.L. or Daddy—reflect on what it was like to lose Martin.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

33

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

Christine King Farris , King’s sister, shows off a King family photo.

Before He Was ’Martin’ “I had a sense he was going to do something enormous and meaningful.”

—June Dobbs Butts

April 1, 2008 LONG BEFORE he was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ’48, Nobel Peace Prize winner, drum major for justice and the leader of the civil rights movement, he was ’Tweed.”

King’s sister,Christine King Farris,explained how,in middle school,

Martin was given a tweed suit as a graduation gift.“He loved it and just wore it all the time,” Farris said.“So the boys just called him Tweed.”

That was just one of the many tidbits about a youthful King that Farris along with King’s childhood and college friends Emmett LaCoste Proctor ’48, Juanita Spellers Stone and June Dobbs Butts recalled during a panel discussion titled “King: The Morehouse Years (1944-48), An Intimate Conversation with Those Who Knew Him Best” in April.

“We know him as an icon,” said Herman “Skip” Mason Jr., director of the Learning Resource Center and the College archivist. “But there are very few who are still around who knew him as a student here at Morehouse and as a child growing up in the Atlanta community.”

King, who was called “M.L.” back then, was a very fun-loving person and prankster, said his childhood friends. But he also was a good student who entered Morehouse in 1944 at the age of 15.

King started Morehouse with an eye towards becoming a doctor.

But he accepted the call to the ministry during his junior year.

“He had been toying with that,” Farris said. “Then I remember he became serious about going to the ministry — so much so that he started reading the Bible. He was going to parties and things, but then he wasn’t going to parties with us for a little while. He was studying the Bible.”

Butts added: “The things I heard (King) talk about were very visionary and prophetic. I had a great sense that he was going to

ExtendedMemory For the first time ever, Morehouse celebrated the life of Martin Luther King Jr. ’48 with activities that began in January, the month of his birth, and continued through April, which this year marked the 40th anniversary of his death. Some of the January events are pictured.

Ambassador Andrew Young was the narrator during one song as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Morehouse and Spelman glee clubs performed during the annual King Celebration Concert in King Chapel.

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

34

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

feature do things. I just didn’t know what. But I had a sense he was going to do something enormous and meaningful.”

His Final Moments “I was a witness.”

—The Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles

April 2, 2008 MEMPHIS WAS A STORMY PLACE—literally and figuratively— in April 1968.

King had come to the city to support sanitation workers in their fight for better wages and working conditions. He had previously led a march in support of their plight, but that event unexpectedly turned violent. So in April, he returned to lead a march that he vowed would be peaceful.

On the rainy, windy and stormy night of April 3, at Mason Temple where he gave his famous “Mountaintop Speech,” King spoke more about death than ever before, said the Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles. He remembered how wind-blown shutters banging against the windows made the unshakeable civil rights leader jump.

“The night was eerie,” Kyles said. “It was something so different about it….We had no idea that that would be the last speech he would make.”

Bernice King (with brother Martin III behind her) prays before the re-enactment of her father’s funeral march.

But later that evening, King was in a playful mood, Kyles said.

“It was as if he had preached himself through the fear of death. He got it out of him.”

The next morning, Kyles drove over to the Lorraine Hotel to pick up his friend and the usual entourage—Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, among them—for King’s favorite

Under darkening skies, chapel assistants from the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel held a prayer vigil on the day of King’s birth.

Radio host Tom Joyner talks about his lineage with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. after a screening of “African American Lives 2” in King Chapel.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

35

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

feature dinner of fried chicken.

“That gave me the wonderful privilege to spend the last hour of his life on Earth with him,” said Kyles, who was one of 47 preachers, sponsors and scholars inducted into the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Board of Preachers, Scholars and Collegium of Scholars on April 2, 2008.

Kyles, King and Abernathy sat in a hotel room and “talked about whatever it is preachers talk about. It was light-hearted – almost giddy really,” Kyles recalled.

They walked out onto the balcony around 5:45 p.m., met up with some of the other leaders and joked around for a while. Then Kyles took five steps away from King when he heard shots ring through the air.

“Kablam!” Kyles remembered. “Blood was everywhere.”

Kyles screamed to police who asked where the shots came from. That resulted in the famous photo of the group pointing towards where the shots were fired.

King was pronounced dead a few hours later.

“I had no words to express my feelings then and I have none 40 years later to express them,” Kyles said.

He wonders why he was present for such a sad and historic event. He then realized that, just as with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, there had to be a witness.

“I was a witness,” he said.

Though King, the Dreamer, was dead, Kyles told the King Chapel audience that the work lives on.

“You can kill the Dreamer, but nope, you cannot absolutely kill the dream. The dream is still alive,” he said.

Retracing the Funeral March “For me, it was a day that I lost my father.”

—Martin Luther King III ’79

April 9, 2008 MIXED EMOTIONS ran through Martin Luther King III ’79 as he prepared to retrace his father’s funeral procession from Ebenezer Baptist Church to Morehouse College.

King III and his sister, Bernice King, were about to march through the Atlanta streets – complete with two Percheron horses pulling a white, wooden carriage that carried an American cherry coffin – to remember that day when the Dreamer, his dad, Martin Luther King Jr. ’48, was laid to rest exactly 40 years ago.

“This effort is to be supportive to the students who commenced this idea,” King III said as his sister stood nearby. “But quite frankly, I don’t know how it’s going to feel to retrace these steps. To some degree, there are emotions out there that make this difficult.”

That wasn’t the intent that Reginald McKinley, Jeremy Cormier MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

36

S P R I N G

2 0 0 8

The Rev. Samuel Kyles spent the last hours of King’s life with him.

and Koree Hood had in mind. The three Morehouse students formed the core of a group of Atlanta University Center students who went to Jena, La., last summer to protest the legal treatment of six black male high school students in a racially-charged dispute.

Now, as the leaders of F.O.C.U.S. (Fostering Our Conscious by Uniting Society), they want to keep the focus on King’s ideas – ideas that young people are embracing.

“We are aware that there are things greater than us that need to be taken care of,” McKinley said. “That’s why Dr. King’s (idea) was lasting—because we understood it’s the message that the man carried.”

Marching in lines of five behind the horse drawn carriage (it was the same carriage used when one of King’s foot soldiers, the Rev. James Orange, was laid to rest in March), the group of nearly 100 people left Ebenezer Baptist Church, walking down historic Auburn Avenue, along the edges of downtown Atlanta near the Georgia State Capitol chanting and singing songs and carrying signs such as one that read “Unite to Fight War and Racism.”

Onlookers stared as the group walked by. Some clapped. Others blew the horns in their vehicles. As the group passed by the State Capitol where King’s wife, Coretta Scott King’s body lay in state after her death in 2006, Bernice King noted the irony.

“Notice that we are taking up the entire street,” she said as she walked arm in arm with her brother and Morehouse students.

“That normally doesn’t happen, but it is now. It’s a lot like a king is coming through.”

The group made its way down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to Northside Drive and then to Fair Street toward the campus.

There President Robert Franklin Jr. ’75 pointed out the importance of the march’s recreation.

“Today we are reminded we can see what he saw,” Franklin said.“In fact, we are being what he saw. It’s up to us to sustain what Dr. King saw.”

For King III, it was a tough day of remembrance.

“For me it was a day that I lost my father,” he said.“It’s painful.

I lost a loved one. But I’m impressed that these young people have taken a stand in this movement.”

feature

First-Time Global Webcast Brings World Together to Discuss King’s World House April 4, 11, 18 & 25, 2008 THE AUDIENCE INSIDE the Bank of America Auditorium in the Executive Conference Center held its collective breath in front of the large screen on April 4, 2008, exactly 40 years to the day after civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. ’48 was slain.

Seconds later,a group of students in Beijing, China, a professor in Nairobi, Kenya, an expert on King in San Francisco and college students in Florida all appeared simultaneously.

It was the beginning of a historic,first-time series of global webcast conversations titled “World House: Connecting the Global Community.”

“Having just commemorated the 40th anniversary of King’s death, this global cast was a timely and appropriate way to revitalize a precocious and important conversation and indeed an important vision that, once realized, will change the course of history and the lives of people around the world,” said President Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75.

Conducted each Friday in April, speakers and students from Morehouse,the University of Florida,South Africa,India and China talked,via webcast,about the four tenets of King’s vision of a World House, which was the subject of a chapter in his 1967 book,Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?

King called for the world to transcend race, class, nation and religion to embrace the World House vision; to eradicate the triple evils of racism, poverty and militarism; to curb excessive materialism and shift from a “thing”-oriented society to a“people”-oriented society;and to resist social injustice and resolve conflicts through love embodied in the spirit of non-violence.

Featured guests were stationed at

Morehouse and throughout the world including former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, hip-hop artist Mike “Killer Mike”Render,various African, American,Indian and Chinese educators,groups of dancers from China and Atlanta along with spoken word artists.

But the stimulating conversation – a technical wonder as students, faculty and guests in each global locale were all able to talk with each other – was the prime focus of each hour.

“This means – in the context of the world wide web – that we dared to begin a global conversation about the living legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., which embraces his prophetic vision of a World House,” said Walter E. Fluker, executive director of The Leadership Center at Morehouse College and interim executive director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection.

King’s 1967 book is not one of his most widely known writings, though some experts believe it – particularly the World House chapter — has been as influential as his“I Have a Dream”speech or “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

The book is part of the King Collection, a 10,000-piece collection of King’s works and personal writings. The collection came to Morehouse after a group of Atlanta business and political leaders, led

by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, raised $32 million for its purchase. The deal allowed the collection to come home to Morehouse and Atlanta, the epicenter of the

civil rights movement and King’s birthplace.

Terry Mills, dean of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, along with Fluker and Phillip Howard, vice president for Institutional Advancement, discussed with James Oliverio, director of the University of Florida’s Digital Worlds Institute, ways the two institutions could together to create a dialogue about King’s work.

“Using technology to literally connect places across the globe simultaneously, we [created] a shared virtual space around the world on the network and [had] performances and workshops over that global platform,” Oliverio said on DWI’s web site.

“The World House project was significant because it allowed Morehouse to partner with

WorldHouse the University of Florida to use its technology to disseminate the historic production, but also to globally disseminate Dr. King’s important vision of a World House,” Mills added.

The result was four productions that had audience worldwide talking to each other about King’s dream of a world living and getting along together.

“We’ve joined together the homeland of Gandhi, the homeland of Dr. King and the African continent,” said moderator Ray Metoyer during the April 18 World House global cast. “It doesn’t get any better than that!” ■ S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

37

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

BATTLING DONALD HOPKINS ’62 HUNTS DOWN HIS WORST ENEMY IN REMOTE AFRICAN VILLAGES

by Katie Scarlett Brandt

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

38

I

f Donald Hopkins ’62 has his way, Henrietta will be the last of her kind.

Hopkins preserves the dead Guinea worm in a jar on his desk—a symbol of his pledge to eradicate this subSaharan scourge.

A pale parasite resembling a strand of spaghetti left soaking too long in a pot of water, the Guinea worm causes dracunculiasis—roughly translated,“afflicted with little dragons.” The Latin derivative is an apt description of the pain patients suffer as the Guinea worm weaves its way through its hosts.

In the remote African villages that are the front line in the fight against the Guinea worm, some still attribute the disease to evil spirits, others to a curse imposed on victims as punishment for some horrible wrongdoing.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

To Hopkins, it’s a pest to be purged from the planet. And that’s something with which Hopkins has personal experience.

While working for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in the 1960s and ’70s, Hopkins became a key figure in ridding the world of smallpox. He’s well on his way to seeing the same success with the Guinea worm. Worldwide, about 3.5 million cases of dracunculiasis were estimated in 1986; it’s estimated that fewer than 20,000 cases exist now, most concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa. The disease has so far been eliminated from 11 of the 20 countries affected in 1986.

“The smallpox eradication program proved for the first time that a disease of humans could be completely eradicated,” Hopkins said. “It also showed how individual and national efforts were inadequate. Smallpox could only be eradicated

inperson Guinea worms are thin, threadlike parasites.

Inside the human body they can grow up to 3 feet long before emerging through the skin.

(Photo credit: Carter Center)

THE FIERY SERPENT when the entire world resolved to join together to do so.”

Working from Chicago, Hopkins helps lead the worldwide campaign to eradicate Guinea worm and other diseases. A former deputy director and acting director of the CDC, he now serves as vice president for health programs at the Atlanta-based Carter Center, founded by former President Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalynn, and chairs the International Task Force for Disease Eradication.

He is determined to make dracunculiasis the first disease to be conquered without a vaccine or medicine—and to see that Henrietta becomes the last Guinea worm on the face of the earth.

An ancient parasite Guinea worms are an age-old enemy. So old, in fact, that scientists have found them in Egyptian mummy remains. Some people consider them the “fiery serpent” in the Old Testament, the same that tortured Israelites in the desert.As larvae,they are ingested by water fleas,or copepods,which people in many poor African and Southeast Asian villages then ingest from unfiltered drinking water gathered from stagnant ponds and dams. Abdominal acids kill the water fleas, but the worm larvae survive. They live unnoticed in people’s bodies, likely feeding off their nutrients, for

about a year. They penetrate the stomach and intestines, incubate and mate; the males die and the females continue to grow— sometimes up to a yard long—into what Hopkins refers to as “essentially a huge uterus packed with larvae.”

When the female worm prepares to evacuate, she typically winds through the victim’s body to the lower extremities.

Somewhere on the legs,a painful blister forms, out of which the worm eventually will work its way. Worms also have exited through people’s arms, nipples, eye sockets or any other part of the body. And though they themselves aren’t deadly, the open wounds created by the worms become prime entryways for secondary bacterial infections and viruses.

As Hopkins can attest, pulling a single worm from a person’s body can take weeks, sometimes even months. The patient usually writhes in pain as a local health worker or village volunteer winds the worm around a small stick slowly out of the blistered opening.

Children tend to scream and cry; older men often try not to, but they turn their perspiring faces away, twisted in agony. This old practice of removing worms is thought to be depicted in the symbol of medicine—the snakeentwined staff of Asclepius.

To eradicate Guinea worm, Hopkins uses some of the same techniques he employed in fighting smallpox. During the latter’s heyday,

only 2 to 3 percent of a country’s population had the disease at any given time. Initially, Hopkins and his colleagues thought it best to attack by vaccinating at least 80 percent of the population.As they progressed, however, their strategy evolved. Instead of vaccinating whole populations, they located those infected and worked outward from them in circles, vaccinating those closest—live-in family members and neighbors—first. That technique eventually wiped out the disease.

A lifelong pursuit Hopkins’ relentless determination was shaped early. Born seventh of 10 children in Coconut Grove, Fla., his earliest memories are of his desire to become a doctor.

Hopkins was the only sibling to earn an M.D. One of his sisters is a nurse, and his older brother, born third, also wanted to be a doctor. However, their parents couldn’t afford to put three kids through college at the time and asked their son if he could put off his education for a year. Hopkins’ brother couldn’t stand to wait and instead ended up “making a career out of the Air Force.”

While his brother battled one type of enemy, Hopkins fought a different kind. A trip abroad during his undergraduate days at Morehouse piqued his interest in tropical and infectious diseases. He spent a year S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

39

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

Donald Hopkins ’62 visits Africa four times a year to eradicate the guinea worm. (Photo credit: Carter Center)

studying in Vienna, and during a break had traveled to Egypt with friends.There,adults and small children with flies buzzing around their eyes caught his attention.He didn’t know at the time, but these people had trachoma—the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness—and the flies were helping spread the disease.

It would be years—after medical school and marriage—before another infectious animal would change Hopkins’ life. After Morehouse,he was accepted by the University of Chicago medical school. Several of his Morehouse professors were Chicago grads, but it was a letter from then-Dean Joseph Ceithaml that motivated Hopkins to move north. Ceithaml was so intent on Hopkins joining the student body that he’d already sent his particulars to scholarship funds— and he let Hopkins know it.

Hopkins earned his M.D.. from Chicago, where microbiology professor Robert M. Lewert encouraged his interest in parasitology, then a master’s in public health from the MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

40

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

Harvard School of Public Health. For the next 20 years, he worked for the CDC. Now,Hopkins is back in Chicago,in a deep, two-story house on a quiet, tree-lined street not far from Lincoln Park Zoo. He met his wife, Ernestine Mathis, at the university. She was working in the medical center as an electron microscopist when he was a med student.

Ironically, poor eye sight almost caused her to pass him by; she had ignored him in a hallway not long after they’d met, but only because she didn’t recognize him without her glasses. They married in ’67.

Hopkins works primarily from a second floor office in their home. He has fastened about a half dozen painted, wooden woodpeckers to the wall behind his desk. The

variety among the species fascinates him, and he picked up the first of these wooden ones at an antique shop when his sisters visited Chicago years ago. To visitors, they signify that Hopkins isn’t the only worm hunter in the room.

Hopkins makes two trips a month to Atlanta and four a year to Africa in order to find his worms. In 1980, the CDC began the global Guinea worm eradication campaign.

United Nations agencies eventually jumped on board; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others followed later. In 1986, Carter urged his center to take on the cause, spurred by a Hopkins speech he attended, as well as advice from other advisors.

inperson “By working to eradicate these diseases, we are helping millions of poverty-stricken people see how they can make improvements in their own lives.”

–DR. DONALD HOPKINS ’62

A core change “We can’t change the worms,” Hopkins said plainly. And since there’s no effective agent or vaccine, he’s attempting to change people’s behavior instead.Hopkins’team—which includes government employees, nongovernmental organizations,local political leadership and village volunteers—takes a grassroots approach, going directly to the people in remote African villages from Ghana to Sudan.

Jimmy Carter played a key role early on.At a lunch with Edgar Bronfman, the Seagram’s liquor heir, he demonstrated with a napkin the technique of filtering copepods out of water.

Bronfman used his major stake in the DuPont chemical company to have DuPont scientists develop a tough, fine mesh now used to filter water. In the villages where people used this filter to purify their drinking water, the worm began to disappear.

However, filtering isn’t the only tool.

Hopkins’ team empowers the villagers in other ways too.In Uganda,they taught elderly men to act as pond caretakers, protecting the water from worm contamination by keeping infected people from using the ponds as a pain reliever as the worms exit their bodies.

Victims know that the water will ease their pain, but “that’s exactly what the worm wants,” Hopkins said, because the water immersion causes the blister to burst and thousands of larvae can escape to the water.

Because villagers often believe in curses

Dr. Hopkins and former President Jimmy Carter in Africa. (Photo credit: Carter Center)

and myths, not everyone was quick to jump on Hopkins’ bandwagon. Typically, though, some would begin to filter their water. Those who didn’t often changed their minds a year later when only they had to cope with worms.

“That’s one of the lasting things of this effort,” Hopkins said,“It’s empowering.”

In Ghana, he said, thousands of Red Cross women have joined as volunteers in this project. In Benin, women’s clubs have helped monitor water and educate villagers.

Thanks to Hopkins’ team, school attendance is up, and crop production has increased in many areas.

“The potential for disease eradication to permanently improve quality of life worldwide is tremendous,” he said. “By working to eradicate these diseases,we are helping millions

of poverty-stricken people see how they can make improvements in their own lives.

Families and communities can fulfill their potential, and people regain their faith that government and public services can change things for the better.”

Although the nay-sayers insist that a parasite like the Guinea worm can never be completely eliminated, Hopkins insists he’s heard that before.

“People said that smallpox would never, could never, be eradicated,” he recalled in his Chicago office, backed by his own army of worm hunters—and Henrietta on his desk as a reminder. ■ (Reprinted with permission from the University of Chicago Medicine on the Midway magazine.)

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

41

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

Robert M. Franklin Jr. '75 beamed as he sat in the tall, ornate wooden chair reserved for Morehouse's presidents.

It was part of an historical moment: Franklin was being inaugurated at the College’s 10th president, joining the ranks of great Morehouse leaders such as John Hope, Hugh Gloster ‘31 and Benjamin Mays.

"I come to this moment in my life with profound humility matched by my determination to see our great school rise to new heights of achievement," said Franklin in his inaugural address on February 13, 2008.

The moment was part of many that made the 141st Founder's Week a historic occasion for the Morehouse community.

The Rev. Otis Moss Jr. '56 looked to the College's illustrious past to forecast a bright future during his Founder's Day convocation speech.

"It’s a mission of Morehouse to…teach future generations that the pursuit of excellence is less than the cost of mediocrity,” he said.

An inaugural symposium, titled "Cultural, Spiritual Values and the Pursuit of Excellence in Higher Education," featured five of the nation's leading scholars in education, including Harold V. Bennett, associate professor of religion at Morehouse; Cheryl Gilkes, the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of African American Studies and Sociology at Colby College; Edward J. Blum, history professor at San Diego State University; Martin E. Marty, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus with the University of Chicago; and Clayborne Carson, founding director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

The glitz and glamour of Morehouse was on full display during the “A Candle in the Dark” gala and Inaugural Ball. Bennie and Candle honorees this year were James A. Hall ’57, M. William Howard ’68, Mack Roach ’75, Clinton E. Warner ’44, Lloyd G. Trotter, Alvin Crawford and William “Smokey” Robinson.

Earlier in the day, CNN anchor Tony Harris led a stimulating discussion with the seven honorees during “Reflections of Excellence,” a forum that allows them to share their stories of personal triumphs.

The Rev. Brad Ronnel Braxton brought the weekend to an inspirational close during the annual Founder's Day Worship Service. ■

I

Otis Moss Jr. ’56 delivered the Founder’s Day convocation address.

Celebrating

To view more photos of Founder’s Day 2008, visit www.morehouse.edu.

The Rev.Brad Ronnell Braxton ofthe Vanderbilt University Divinity School was the speaker for the Founder’s Day Worship Service on Feb.17 in the King Chapel.

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

42

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

The Founder’s Day Concert featured mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves performing with the Morehouse College Glee Club in the King Chapel on Feb. 15.

the 141 Founder’s DayObservance st

President Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75, Mary Ziegler, president of the Charles W. Chesnutt Association and Kate Wiley of the United States Postal Service unveiled a USPS Heritage Series stamp honoring author Charles W. Chesnutt.

President Franklin and childhood friend Mae Jemison before they took the stage for his inauguration.

Trustee Billye Aaron presented Dr. Franklin with the presidential necklace during the inauguration.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

43

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

Roswell O. Sutton ’41 received the Presidential Award of Distinction from President Franklin as his wife and Willis B. Sheftall ’64, interim provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, look on.

Otis Moss Jr. ’56 (right), former chairman of the Morehouse Board of Trustees, and President Franklin, along with Anne W. Watts (right), associate vice president for Academic Affairs, with the winners of the 2008 Otis Moss Jr. Oratory Contest.

Panelists Martin E. Marty, (bottom) the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus from the University of Chicago, and Harold V. Bennett, (top) associate professor of religion at Morehouse, argued a point during the inaugural symposium, titled “Culture, Spiritual Values and the Pursuit of Excellence in Higher Education.”

President Robert Michael Franklin Jr. ’75 with the Bennie and Candle honorees: (left to right) Alvin Crawford, Moses W. Howard Jr. ’68, Clinton Warner ’44, Lloyd Trotter, William “Smokey” Robinson Jr., James R. Hall ’57 and Mack Roach ’75.

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

44

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

founder’s day observance Smokey Robinson Says Renaissance Man “Completely, Utterly Needed” WILLIAM G. “SMOKEY” ROBINSON sat in front of a microphone and admitted being overwhelmed.

Never mind that he is a music industry legend, having been one of the chief architects of “The Motown Sound” along with mentor and best friend Berry Gordy.

Morehouse College was honoring him as one of the 2008 Bennie and Candle award winners for his lifetime achievements in arts and entertainment – and years of being the greeneyed crooner who, as fellow Candle winner Dr. Alvin Crawford jokingly admitted likely for many fans worldwide, “…is responsible for my children.”

Being honored by Morehouse humbled Robinson.

“Morehouse is very traditional and important to the legacy of black men who have come here to be educated and to do positive things for our country and black people in general,” Robinson said. “I was very honored. I was really overwhelmed.”

That may seem hard for some to believe as Robinson has been the heart and soul of R&B music for nearly 50 years.He’s penned some ofthe industry’s best known songs,including classics like “The Tracks of My Tears,” “Tears of a Clown,” “Ooo Baby Baby,” “Crusin’” “Being With You,” along with top-selling songs for other Motown artists such as “My Guy,” by Mary Wells and “My Girl,” by The Temptations.

In fact, an entire 1980s musical genre, the Quiet Storm format featuring lush, romantic R&B songs with jazz underpinnings, was based on a 1976 song by Robinson,“Quiet Storm.”

But the multi-Grammy Award winner said he’s always admired the Morehouse legacy for developing Black men and fiercely backs the Renaissance Man concept being championed

by President Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75.

“It’s definitely, completely and utterly needed,” said Robinson as his deep, green eyes twinkled. “We need to think like that. We need to influence our young black brothers to be

positive, to build positive images for our little brothers who are out there.

“We live in a world where the negative is always in the forefront,” he continued. “All the news is negative. It’s time we put out some positive role models – some obvious positivity.

Basically black men are looked at as guys who don’t stick with their families, who are always the absentee fathers…because these are the guys who are published. These are the guys who are talked about. But we have so many wonderful positive black men in this world for our young brothers to look up to. So I think the Renaissance Men concept is a very wonderful idea.”

Gordy, a 2005 Candle honoree, agrees.

“His philosophy and philosophy of Morehouse is such a pure, strong approach to developing young people. When I came here the first time, I was more thrilled after I got here to see the purpose of how all of this

works from a Morehouse stand point. The same principle we have at Motown you have at Morehouse – very strong, sensible and purposeful and it’s just from our standpoint the right way to go.”

Robinson meanwhile has several things going on. He’s working on his latest venture, Smokey G. Robinson Foods, which is a line of frozen foods. His foundation finances scholarships for young, inner-city children who want to go to college.

He’s also in the studio finishing up a new album that he plans to release in the fall.

“It’s just me,” he said of the new project.

“But I of course want to be current in my sound. I never vary from myself because that’s who I am. I don’t want to get on any bandwagons or trends of anything like that. It’s me.” ■

Robinson (right) with good friend Motown founder Berry Gordy and President Franklin.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

45

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

COMMENCEMENT 2008

Let Your Light Shine

By Add Seymour Jr.

P

resident Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75 stood in front of approximately 520 anxious men of Morehouse on Commencement Day 2008 and pointed to the Morehouse College seal where rays emanate from a sun that has broken through voluminous clouds.

“We challenge every man of Morehouse to select a ray and put your name on it, for you represent a ray of enlightenment, hope and renaissance,” he said.

With that, Franklin, presiding over his first spring Commencement ceremony, gave the first directive that the class of 2008 received during a stirring graduation on the Century Campus on May 18.

More than 10,000 people filled the lush, green lawn in front of Graves Hall and the Benjamin Elijah Mays National Memorial on a mostly-sunny Sunday.

The day began at 5:45 a.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel for the men of Morehouse who would this day become Morehouse men.

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

46

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

feature Two hours later, lined in rows of two same blood of commitment to and led by a group of African drummers, excellence and achievement that ran the group of high achievers – 28 went through Dr. [Howard] Thurman, Dr. directly to Wall Street for corporate jobs [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] and Dr. while 36 were inducted into Phi Beta [David] Satcher runs through every one Kappa Honor Society this year – were of us who are graduating today. It is cheered as they left the Chapel, went through Mother Morehouse’s teachings through a human tunnel of proud and and influence that we have been well-wishing alumni and proceeded reborn.” toward the Century Campus.

Willie “Flash” Davis ’56, chairman of “They march…as they challenged the board of trustees, told the men that obstacles and divine odds and their work is now beginning. “While contradicting statistics that said they the journey ends today, the would be a jail mate instead of a college responsibility is endless,” he said. “From graduate,” said Anne Watts, associate vice this day forward, great things are president for Academic Affairs, as parents expected of you.”

Emmett D. Carson ’80, president of the Silicon Valley and family members watched the Emmett D. Carson ’80, president of Community Foundation of Mountain View, Calif., processional on a large screen. the Silicon Valley Community delivered the Commencement address.

Cheering families, mothers and Foundation of Mountain View, Calif., fathers watched and waved as the class of delivered a commencement address that 2008 marched into the Century Campus. Leading the way was spoke of the graduates’ achievement in the face of challenges the College’s first Caucasian valedictorian, Joshua Packwood, facing black men in this country. with salutatorian Shannon Joyner by his side.

For example, Carson cited statistics that find that African “Though diverse in race, ethnicity, family background and Americans make up 13 percent of the nation’s population, but religious beliefs, we are all brothers at Morehouse College,” black men make up 49 percent of the United States’ murder Packwood said in his valedictory address (see sidebar). “The victims and 41 percent of the country’s prison population.

VALEDICTORY

“We are all brothers at Morehouse”

By Joshua William Packwood ’08 …Though diverse in race, ethnicity, family background and religious beliefs, we are all “brothers” at Morehouse College. The same blood of commitment to excellence and achievement that ran through Dr. Thurman, Dr. King and Dr. Satcher runs through every one of us who are graduating today. It is through Mother Morehouse’s teachings and influence that we have been reborn. President Franklin has defined the 21st Century Morehouse Man as a “Renaissance Man”— one who represents scholarly commitment, personal arête and social consciousness. This is a tall order, yet we have indeed grown tall enough to wear the proverbial crown that Morehouse demands. The Greeks called this growth eudaimonia or human flourishing through integrity and truth.

We as men of Morehouse and soon to be Morehouse Men call it our duty.

At Morehouse College, the administrators, professors, staff and alumni have cultivated a community of social consciousness. Dr. Tobe

Johnson compelled us to contemplate carefully the political system and how to change it to bring about justice. Dr. Aaron Parker required us to empathize with religious beliefs other than our own, from Protestantism to Zoroastrianism, in order to solve many of the conflicts of the world.

Dr. Keith Hollingsworth encouraged us to make ethical business decisions so that we create not only commerce, but goodwill. Dr. J.K. Haynes taught us to observe objectively and to discover truth through scientific inquiry.

Thank you to all of our faculty, staff, parents, guardians, sponsors and friends who kept us going when we may have wanted to quit…but we took the “road less traveled and that has made all the difference.”

As the moon rotates around the earth, and the earth around the sun, so Morehouse will always provide the epicenter of virtue, truth and justice towards which we gravitate. We woke with the sun this morning—some of us still aren’t awake—but tonight we will not sleep

without remembering that Dr. King told us to stay awake, for we have much work to do. This is our promise—this is our commitment as we continue to serve.

Fellow classmates, for four years, your inspiration has invigorated my spirit. And, because we are all products of the eminent tutelage of Mother Morehouse, our lineage is clear and our kinship is eternal.

I am proud to be your brother.

Thank you.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

47

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

“We challenge every man of Morehouse to select a ray and put your name on it, for you represent a ray of enlightenment, hope and renaissance.”

-President Franklin ’75 “The reality is that any effort to save us is going to have to start with us,” he said. “No one is going to save us but honest men of good will – Morehouse men – who are willing to take responsibility for solving the social ills confronting our people.

“I am asking that each of you live up to and honor the highest traditions and expectations of being a Morehouse man,” he said as a misty drizzle began. “I am expecting that you reach a hand back while you continue to climb even higher. I am asking that you commit yourselves to finding ways to give some of your time and some of your money to efforts that help our people… I believe that, like it or not, agree with it or not, to move our community forward will require us to accept that the successful civil rights agenda that was focused almost exclusively on the rights of black people must evolve to become an education and economic agenda for all people.”

Light drizzle turned into a steady rain as Carson, baccalaureate speaker the Rev. H. Beecher Hicks Jr. and retired physician Edgar D. Smith were each bestowed honorary doctorates of humane letters.

Carson, a well-regarded scholar on African

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

48

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

CLASS REUNION

1968

A Class Shaped by a Revolution

In 1968, Sanford Bishop was a wide-eyed senior who would soon graduate from the College into a world that was in the throes of a historic and very volatile year.

In February that year, three students were killed at South Carolina State University in what is known as the Orangeburg Massacre when state troopers fired into a crowd protesting segregation at a popular hangout in Orangeburg, S.C. At the time, it was the worst campus shooting the nation had ever seen.

The moral center and leader of the civil rights movement—and a fellow Morehouse brother—Martin Luther King Jr. ’48, was assassinated two months later in Memphis, Tenn.

“It was very, very stressful,” Bishop recalled. “There were a lot of things going on. It was a violent, revolutionary change taking place.”

Meanwhile, incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson wasn’t seeking re-election, which made for a wide-open Democratic race for the White House—which opened up even more after candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated that June.

Democrats struggled to find consensus behind any particular presidential candidate; the Democratic National Convention was primed to be controversial. And there was heavy opposition to the unpopular Vietnam War. Forty years later, it all sounds remarkably similar. During their reunion this May, members from the Class of 1968 couldn’t help but compare notes between those tumultuous days then and the current state of affairs. “There are a number of parallels,” Bishop pointed out.

The increasingly unpopular War Against Terror continues to rage in the Middle East. And Bishop, now a U.S. senator from southeast Georgia, had been squarely in the middle of a Democratic dust-up over which candidate – Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton – super delegates like himself would choose to become the Democratic presidential nominee.

“We had a small period of reflection in our class meeting as we talked about where we are today with the prospect of Barack Obama becoming president of the United States,” Bishop said.

“You know, everybody in the class is just proud of where we’ve come as a class…and as a people.”

Lessons from the past helped shaped the Class of 1968 into the Morehouse Men they became.

“It made all of us focus on how we can be change agents,” said Bishop.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

49

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

feature

American philanthropy, leads one of the nation’s largest community foundations.

Hicks is a renowned theologian, author, educator and activist. Smith excelled during a long career in medicine and scientific research while also serving as a higher education administrator.

Also recognized were the late Donnie Brooks Taylor Jr. and Jarrett CrockettBrown ’08.

Taylor was a Morehouse business student who was killed in an automobile accident on Aug. 19, 2007. His mother, Sarah Taylor, was presented a certificate of attendance recognizing her son’s matriculation at Morehouse.

Crockett-Brown was a business major and member of the class of 2008 who died suddenly in December 2007 while visiting family in Boston during the Christmas break. His mother, Vanessa CrockettBrown, received her son’s bachelor of arts degree that was posthumously presented to him.

Then in a commencement ceremony

“

I am asking that each of you live up to and honor the highest traditions and expectations of being a Morehouse man. I am expecting that you reach a hand back while you continue to climb even higher.

”

—Emmett D. Carson ’80

that for the first time was broadcast globally, via the Internet at www.morehouse.edu, the umbrellas began to pop up as the graduates finally began their walk across the stage.

A smiling Franklin shook their hands and gave many a hug and a pat on the back as the sun began to break through the clouds.

“Remember, when a Morehouse man

bears the insignia of a Morehouse graduate, he is expected to do exceptionally well. In fact, we expect nothing less,” said Phillip McCall ’69, president of the Morehouse College National Alumni Association. “We hope you will represent us well and play an active role in supporting both your alumni association and your college, forever.”

Then it was time for members of the class of 2008 to make their final march as a full group. But before the ceremony ended, Franklin gave his presidential charge: “More than anything, we need you to lead the Renaissance in our villages, to help make being smart cool again, to promote healthy relationships and strong marriages and families,” he said. “So I ask you, class of 2008, will you heed the wishes of your president today?”

“Yes,” they yelled back.

“If you will, I say up and be doing,” Franklin continued. “Up, young men.

Go forth to build a brave new world.

Up, you mighty men! You can accomplish what you will.” ■

BACCALAUREATE

Signed, Sealed and Delivered!

The class of 2008 should be proud of their achievements, but they should never forget that God, family and others who came before them helped in their becoming Morehouse men, the Rev. H. Beecher Hicks Jr. said during the baccalaureate ceremony at the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel on May 17.

“This is no time for selective amnesia,” Hicks said. “Do not forget that somebody prayed for you and do not forget again that somebody did your jail time.”

In a rousing address titled “Signed, Sealed and Delivered” that had the capacity audience shouting and on their feet, Hicks, senior minister of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., spoke of an America that has not always been welcoming of African American men.

But he cited the work of icons such as Malcolm X and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ’48 along with the love from family and friends as very important contributors to the graduation of the approximately 520 men of Morehouse.

“Truth of the matter is that if you were to be measured by sociological (statistics) alone, you should be in jail,” Hicks said. “But now you have what you have. You look like you look.

You will graduate from this institution because somebody else suffered on your behalf.”

Rev. H. Beecher Hicks Jr. MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

50

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

VISION

By Add Seymour Jr.

S

OF A

Renaissance

ome of Chicago’s worst characters, gang-bangers and thugs often held court on the South Side streets during the 1960s and 70s. One day, a few congregated in front of Martha McCann’s house—two sides, ready to rumble over a female friend.

Bad idea, remembers Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75, who was a child on this day watching McCann, his grandmother, drop her apron and rush into the street to stand between the warring factions.

“She stood between these two gangs and two muscle-bound brothers who were about to go fist-to-cuff,” he remembered.

“She said, ’I watched most of you young men grow up. I know most of your

mothers. And I know what it’s like for a mother to receive a call saying your son has been shot because my own son was shot during World War II. No mother wants to hear that and I don’t want another mother to hear that tonight, so you young men back off.’

“It was extraordinary,” Franklin said.

“I was first embarrassed and then a little scared for her, saying to myself, ’What are they going to do to this little old lady?’ But those brothers listened. She spoke with a moral authority. She took a risk and put her life on the line and it had an impact.

So when I think about the people who had an impact on my life, she’s at the top of the list, for leadership, consensus-building, for conflict resolution and for just a genuine

love of people and a willingness to take a risk for the common good.”

Much like his grandmother, Franklin, now 10th president of Morehouse College, considers himself a unifier. It has been one of his main charges as he culminates one year of returning to lead his alma mater.

He wants to embrace the old traditions and mores of a past that brings to mind illustrious former president Benjamin Elijah Mays and connect it to a hip-hop present more concerned with “keeping it real” and feeling Jay-Z. So Franklin, a renowned theologian and educator, will be putting the consensus-building skills that he attributes to his grandmother to the test at Morehouse.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

51

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

inauguration The Awakening Franklin’s family was like many others in Chicago at the time: native Southerners (his family is from Mississippi) who moved to the Midwest seeking increased opportunities.

Martha McCann and her twin sister eventually bought small houses next door to each other. Franklin’s family lived with Grandma Martha.

While his father worked in the local Campbell Soup Company plant and his mother helped his grandmother maintain the household, a young Franklin and his three brothers did all the things that kids his age did: played football in the streets, built tree houses and raced on bicycles.

Yet, Franklin grew up in the middle of two worlds: an era of unrest marked by the black power generation and the Vietnam War, but also during a time of hardening streets and their constant battles between gangs like the Blackstone Rangers and the Gangster Disciples.

The balancing factor for him: a strong family unit and the church, where his grandmother was a home missionary.

“Taken together, her home visits to the infirm, her street courage with the homeboys and her hospitality to the saints and sinners alike demonstrated to me, a little kid, the power and the surprising possibilities that lurked within the religion of Jesus,” Franklin said in his book, Crisis in the Village.

By the time Franklin entered high school, his parents bought their own home in the Mt. Vernon community, where they were one of the first black families.

“I wasn’t particularly a serious student that early part of my high school career,” he admitted. “But I experienced something of an awakening. I actually emerged from that period with a keen sense of the importance of developing my mind and leadership abilities.

“At the same time, I found in Ebony MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

52

S P R I N G

2 0 0 8

magazine an article on Julian Bond, about this Morehouse man who was too young to be added to the Democratic vice presidential ticket,” Franklin said. “I was fascinated with that – with politics and law and in Morehouse as an incubator for a certain kind of dynamic but sophisticated leadership in society.”

His newfound connection to Morehouse was solidified when, one day in1968, Franklin’s father asked him to join him in front of the television.

“He told me to sit and watch the funeral ceremony of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” Franklin recalled. “The ceremony that began at Ebenezer Baptist Church concluded here on the Morehouse campus… Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays delivered his eulogy. After watching the ceremony together, my dad looked at me and said, ‘That’s where I’d like you to go to college.’”

The Evolution Franklin beams when he talks about the day his mother dropped him off at Morehouse in 1971.

“I arrived by Greyhound bus,” he said during his inauguration. “My father didn’t make the trip, but preferred to work so that he could pay for tuition.

The day of registration, my mother and I took a taxi from Pascal’s Hotel and, when I saw the long line of brothers attempting to register at Graves Hall, I told Mom to leave me on Fair Street, a short distance from the gate, so no one would see her escort me to the door. I wore a shirt and tie and had a snazzy new briefcase given by the proud members of my local church. I felt that I was Mr. Morehouse, all set to dive into the mystique.”

Franklin’s family and friends looked to him to be the immediate family’s first college graduate. The pressure, both external and internal, was on.

“But frankly, I think that’s why I arrived on Day One at Morehouse serious and

ready to go,” he said. “I was ready to learn.”

Sporting a large Afro, he was a determined and hard-working student, but had, as he does today, a great sense of humor and was very well-liked. He even took part in the campus’ party culture – but just a little.

“Robert was very friendly and very structured. He was always well prepared for class,” remembered Derek Alphran ’75. The two political science majors became close friends during their freshman year. “But he was never a big partier at all. He attended church regularly. He attended chapel. He was a serious student, but likeable.”

Law looked to be Franklin’s future, especially with then-political science department chairman Robert Brisbane pushing him towards Harvard Law School. But after studying in England at the University of Durham, Franklin made a dramatic shift in where he wanted his future to go. He chose to go to divinity school rather than law school.

“I discovered that I wanted to broaden my horizons,” Franklin said. “The perceptions of political science and law were much more parochial than those in theology and religion. [Theology and religion] meshed who I was evolving into and led me into philosophical and religious pursuits.”

His new focus rubbed off on others.

Former astronaut Mae Jemison was two years behind Franklin at Morgan Park High School, where as students they often debated and discussed topics such as religion, civil rights, feminism and space exploration. She recalled a Franklin visit to Chicago after his sophomore year at Morehouse.

She had just won a high school English award and a bookstore gift certificate and Franklin referred her to a book—teachings

by Chinese philosopher Lau Tzu—which didn’t initially interest Jemison.

“After spending time thinking about it, it started to make sense to me,” she said.

“It was really about a way of life and continuing to learn and realizing that you

“I come to this moment in my life with profound humility matched by my determination to see our great school rise to new heights of achievement.”

—Robert M. Franklin Jr. ’75 10th President, Morehouse College

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

53

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

don’t always have the final answers. This story…is really about how Robert opened a door for me that has been profoundly impactful and important in shaping a lifelong philosophy – something that’s important for a friend to do.”

The Renaissance It’s a cold, windy and gray day in February 2008 in Boston. But Franklin in on familiar turf. After graduating from Morehouse in 1975, he earned his master’s degree in the city from Harvard Divinity School, then went on to earn a doctorate at the University of Chicago on his journey to becoming a leading theologian and educator.

On this day, he has flown up for the Greater Boston Morehouse College Alumni Association’s annual scholarship gala. He MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

54

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

stood in the center of the reception area, smiling, taking photos and greeting anyone who came near.

It made Sean Daughtry ’93, president of the chapter, smile.

“Everybody was highly encouraged,” he said later. “He’s not a baby boomer. He’s between Generation X and the baby boomers. So he represents a new generation.”

Alumni like Daughtry say that is just what Morehouse needed. Daughtry said alums had been increasingly concerned about the College’s moral center. They pointed to students who wore their pants low and hip-hop sensibility high.

“The culture had begun to change a little on campus. You had generational change,” said Daughtry, who blamed the times and not any previous administrators.

“The culture of the student body, the moral center of the student body, needed to be addressed. I was hoping that Morehouse

would bring in a president who spoke to the culture of the school.”

It is a challenge that Franklin believed he was well suited for – not only at Morehouse, but also in the community at large.

For instance, part of his first two goals in his Morehouse action agenda was projecting the Morehouse Man as a symbol of hope as future marriage partners, responsible fathers, leading citizens and role models; embracing a Biblical model in renewing the Morehouse village; and exorcising the ’demons’ of self hate, violence, hyper-materialism, misogyny and homophobia.

He wants to walk with, talk to and listen to students, but also to mentor and lead them. Franklin wants Morehouse to spearhead a rebirth by building “Renaissance men with a social conscience.”

“Dr. Mays was a clergy person as well as an educator,” he said.“If I’m correct, I am the first minister/educator to occupy the office of

inauguration president since he departed in 1967. So it’s an opportunity to use the power of the pulpit both on campus, speaking to the issues of character and values, but also in the public domain, in the streets and in religious houses of worship, talking about Morehouse as a symbol of excellence among black men. I find that every time I do that — as Dr. Mays and as Drs. Gloster, Keith, Massey and others have done — we touch a button in black America. It triggers a button for young boys in our community signaling they can have an impact on our communities; that young black men don’t have to be criminalized, don’t have to drop out, don’t have to engage in illicit behavior, but can become models of service, character and leadership and be individuals who make us proud.

“So when we touch the Morehouse button,” Franklin added, “that’s when we’re connecting deep into the African American psyche.”

Four priorities make up his idea of the Renaissance: academic excellence, leadership development, character development and community service.

“That idea has been with me for sometime because I have been very interested in leadership in general and certainly in African American communities,” he said. “So there’s been an opportunity to think a lot about what it is we admire about leaders and of course Benjamin Elijah Mays who led Morehouse for 27 years and who is almost synonymous with the Morehouse mystique. That inspired me and really inspired the renaissance metaphor as a way of talking about our renewal and our rebirth.

We’ve always been doing it, but this is an opportunity to bring this to a new level of visibility and impact.”

Senior Chad Mance, the 2008-09 Student Government Association president, hopes Franklin’s efforts will have the desired impact on students.

“It’s a bit too early to tell,” he said. “He’s done a good job trying to establish a rapport with the student body. He is making an attempt right now, but I think that has to be

President Franklin’s EDUCATION: B.A., Morehouse College, 1975 M.A., Harvard Divinity School, 1978 Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1985 FACULTY MEMBER: University of Chicago; Harvard Divinity School; Colgate-Rochester Divinity School; Chautauqua Institution; Emory University ADMINISTRATIVE POSTS: Program Officer in Human Rights and Social Justice, Ford Foundation; Director of Black Church Studies, Candler School of Religion, Emory University; President, Interdenominational Theological Seminary; President, Morehouse College BOOKS: Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social Justice in African American Thought (1990); Another Day’s Journey: Black Churches Confronting the American Crisis (1997); Crisis in the Village: Restoring Hope in African American Communities (2007); co-authored a volume titled, From Culture Wars to Common Ground: Religion and the American Family Debate (2001); co-editor of the forthcoming The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther King Jr. FAMILY: wife, Dr. Cheryl Goffney Franklin; daughter Imani Renee Franklin; sons Robert M. Franklin III and Julian Michael DeShazier ’05 MISCELLANEOUS: Franklin is a movie buff, avid golfer and fan of Motown and Baroque music. He has traveled extensively throughout the world and has studied seven languages.

HOMETOWN: Chicago

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

55

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

developed. This year, we will see the development of things a little bit more.”

Alumni are also a crucial part of the Renaissance, Franklin said.

“Because they know better than anyone else the power and the genius of the Morehouse experience,” he said. “I need their ideas. We need their best thinking because they serve in areas of economic and public life in which they have become experts, and their knowledge and intellectual capital can be an important gift for a man of Morehouse. We need them to open doors for internships for students. We need them to hire men of Morehouse for summer and upon graduation.”

The Resolve Each year, an increasing number of students – mostly juniors and seniors –have to “stop out,” or quit school for awhile as they can no longer afford the costs of attending.

Franklin hopes alumni can be part of solving that problem.

“Right now there are over 150 men of Morehouse who will not return their junior or senior year for want of $5,000 or $6,000,” he said. “That simple financial gap stands between 150 young men completing Morehouse, sometimes delaying, sometimes never returning. That’s a tragedy. But that’s a reversible tragedy. So my challenge to the alumni of Morehouse: be on the tip of helping to lead change with respect to the access and affordability of higher education for those young men.”

Franklin says there is also preliminary talk about creating master’s and/or doctoral programs and looking at recruiting a more internationally and racially diverse pool of students.

There are other issues that Franklin will be diving into during the coming year: the College’s completion of the reaccreditation process with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools; developing Morehouse’s five-year strategic plan and MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

56

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

inauguration gearing up for the next capital campaign.

“Morehouse is as dynamic and as strong as it has ever been, in part because those who went before us laid a firm foundation,” he said. “We have a strong faculty, and it’s going to grow stronger. We have an excellent student body. We expect it to grow stronger. We have wonderful campus facilities – they can be improved and with more resources we will improve and upgrade and really be the 21st century institution of excellence that all of the founders aspired to.

“Certainly we’re going to be cost conscious,” Franklin continued. “We’re going to have to be disciplined in our expenditures.

We can’t engage in extravagant spending. But we’re going to continue to be the strong institution that we are. So Morehouse is like others: we’ll do what we need to do to make sure we advance our mission, that we make sure we don’t drift from what we do well, but at the same time be as efficient as possible.”

The Exemplar It’s Saturday afternoon. Where is Robert M. Franklin Jr.?

“When the weather is warm, I am on the golf course,” he said with a smile.

“Handicap? Very high: low two digits.

Embarrassingly high.”

No matter how great his game is, it is part of the life of a Renaissance man that he hopes to exemplify. He loves to take his family – the College’s first lady, OB-GYN physician Dr. Cheryl Franklin, daughter Imani, son Robert III, and son Julian Michael DeShazier ’05 when he is town to visit the family – to restaurants and movies. He travels extensively and has studied seven languages. He doesn’t own an Ipod, but listens to Baroque music and the sounds of Motown. He’s also an avid reader and an author of three books.

He travels across the country extensively to speak and to preach. It is in the pulpit

where Franklin, with his passion for religion and theology woven into his thoughts about the African American condition, illuminates.

His sermons usually begin softly as an intellectual and informative exercise, always with a quick and witty anecdote.

But they then swell into an emotional tide as social as it is theological with Franklin likely to drift away from the podium and microphone to more passionately make his point.

This is Robert M. Franklin Jr.— author, theologian, professor, preacher, golfer, husband, father—who aspires to set the example of the Renaissance man as he builds his legacy as the “student president.”

“I look forward to each morning,” he said. “I know that through the course of the day, there’s an opportunity to plant inside a man of Morehouse that seed of imagination in the brain and consciousness that was planted in me.” ■

(Left to right) President Franklin with his family, daughter Imani Renee Franklin, son Robert M. Franklin III, wife Dr. Cheryl Goffney Franklin and son Julian Michael DeShazier ’05.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

57

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

Taking some ofthe work out of networking

Experience Alumni!

OFFERS MOREHOUSE MEN A NEW NETWORKING TOOL FOR JOB HUNTING For more information contact: Kellye Blackburn Eccles Career Planning and Placement Non Business Majors Morehouse College 404-215-2703 kblackbu@morehouse.edu Pat Bowers Career Planning and Placement Business Majors Morehouse College 404-681-2800 x2644 pbowers@morehouse.edu

The Morehouse College’s Career Planning and Placement Office isexcited to unveil its latest service,designed with Morehouse College alumni in mind: Experience Alumni!

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED eRecruiting is the system currently used to coordinate all job postings and interview schedules for students.Now, Experience Alumni! offers a similar service designed specifically with more experienced candidates in mind.

Experience Alumni! gives Morehouse alumni a safe, secure place to look for employment opportunities by providing job postings from companies looking to recruit experienced Morehouse Men. Job opportunities from sites such as CareerBuilder, DICE and HotJobs are also posted.

BROTHER TO BROTHER If you know of positions within your own company that you want other alumni to know about, you can post them directly into the system yourself. It is a great system for recruiting other Morehouse Men!

Log in and check out Experience Alumni! at http://morehouse.experience.com.

brothertobrother

LOVE Must Prevail Episcopal Church’s Proposed Covenant Unworkable if it Abandons Justice for All

By Charles V. Willie ’48 “Love Must Prevail” first appeared in Episcopal Life, the magazine of the Episcopal church in October 2007.

T

he contentious relationship between the Episcopal church based in the United States and the worldwide Anglican Communion is appropriately called a “civil war over homosexuality”by The New York Times. I, also, think it is an event of civil stress about love and justice. In 1966, Joseph Fletcher, an Episcopal priest on the faculty of the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass., wrote a book titled Situation Ethics in which he declared that “love is the boss principle of life”and “justice is love distributed.”

“God is love”is a fact of life some of us learned in Sunday school.We also learned that covenants, creeds, doctrines and traditions may pass away, but love endures.

How, then, can a church with a responsibility of promoting love and justice adopt a policy of discrimination that prohibits homosexual people from being elected and consecrated as bishops? There is no evidence that such people cannot “love and be loved in return.” If love is the boss principle of life, arbitrary and capricious acts of discrimination against all sorts and conditions of people, including male and female people, heterosexual and homosexual people,[are] unjust and should cease and desist.

While other institutional systems in society – like government, the economy and education – identify principles other than love that are central to their mission,certainly love is the foundational principle of religion— all religions. It is our religious responsibility in society to remind other institutions to do what they are called to do in loving and just ways.

It is a shocking experience to see a religious institution like the Anglican Communion refuse to support gay couples and lesbian couples who wish to marry and homosexual people who wish to make a sacrificial offering of their leadership skills to serve the church as priests and bishops. It is regrettable that the church rejects such people, as if they were engaged in a demonized activity.

There is no evidence that one’s sexual orientation limits one’s

capacity to lead and love others. So why is the church so upset about women and homosexual people serving as church leaders? …In 1789, the United States established a democratic nationstate governed by a constitution that did not resolve the undemocratic issue of slavery. Two-thirds of a century later, we paid dearly for this miscarriage of love and justice with a civil war that resulted in more than 600,000 deaths and lingering mistrust to this day between some civil districts in the South and North.

Can the Episcopal Church expect a different outcome if it permits itself to be governed by a covenant of the Anglican Communion that discriminates against gay and lesbian people? I do not think so! For this reason, I believe that the archbishop has mentioned a proposal that will not work.

Finally, we know that a diversified population consisting of all kinds of people has a better chance of surviving and adapting to a changing world than one that is homogenous. If we believe the Kingdom of God “shall have no end”(as we say in the Nicene Creed), it is because we fully embrace all sorts and conditions of people – black, brown and white people, affluent and poor people, young and old people, male and female people, gay and lesbian people.

I am convinced this is the right thing to do because love and justice are durable and inclusive.This should be the ultimate test of the efficacy of public policy in church and society.

Now may be the time when the Episcopal Church may have to suffer the redemption of its friends in the Anglican Communion elsewhere in the world by showing forth love for all sorts and conditions of people and by refusing to compromise in an unjust way on this human rights matter. While the past may be the prologue to the present, the present does not determine the future. Only that which is loving and just will endure. ■ —Charles V. Willie ’48 of Concord, Mass., is an educator, author, sociologist and professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

59

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

alumninews national alumni association president’s message Brothers,

R

ecognizing the formal inauguration of our 10th College president, Robert Michael Franklin Jr. ’75, the Association is extremely pleased to have such a dedicated and supportive alumnus as a partner and member. Being fortunate to have an active and committed alumni team and staff, we expect to make tremendous strides together in support of the ’House.

Your Association is very proud of the ’youth movement’ in both membership and leadership at all levels. This is exemplified by the outstanding efforts demonstrated by Nashon Hornsby ’93, Region IX vice president, and his aggressive team of chapter leaders in the Northeast. They have stepped up the pace in membership, dues, fundraising and community service initiatives. Another example is Brad Minniefield ’00, Chicago Chapter president, and the members in that chapter who are working diligently in the community and with the Association. With this type of commitment being demonstrated throughout the country, our future success is well assured.

Our need for resources continues to grow as we expand our reach and initiatives. In addition to the traditional activities we provide to alumni and other stakeholders, our focus on giving back requires that we develop additional sources of support. Our corporate partnerships continue to grow financially as both the Liberty Mutual and MBNA Credit Card Programs are very successful. We thank all alumni who have taken advantage of them and encourage others to give them a try. We continue to seek out opportunities to add quality products and services through partnerships. Please continue to let us know of opportunities you feel will be valuable to you and other alumni.

As we are all aware, one of the most critical needs of the College is more unrestricted funding to assist our current students in continuing their studies and attaining their degrees. No individual amount of giving is too small to help in achieving this most important objective. Our Emergency Student Loan Program is increasingly becoming a vital tool in supporting these young men when other options have been exhausted. To date, the Association has provided financial assistance to more than 78 students from throughout the country with loans that exceed a total of $65,000. The summer 2007 edition of Morehouse Magazine includes testimonials from two students that best explain the impact these funds had on furthering their educational dreams.

In closing, I urge you to continue to support your Association. If you are currently not active or in a local chapter or financial, please step up and give back to help others achieve what you have already been fortunate enough to accomplish. Visit our website – morehousecollegealumni.com – for current updates, articles of interest and to pay dues!

Thanks for all of your support.

“Our need for resources continues to grow as we expand our reach and initiatives. In addition to the traditional activities we provide to alumni and other stakeholders, our focus on giving back requires that we develop additional sources of support.”

Regards,

Phillip H. McCall Jr. ’69 NOTE: MCNAA is an independent 501(C)(3) organization.

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

60

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

alumninews Walter E. Massey ’58 Named Salzburg Global Seminar’s Board Chairman MOREHOUSE PRESIDENT EMERITUS Walter E. Massey ’58 was recently elected chairman of the board of directors of the Salzburg Global Seminar, one of the world’s foremost international educational centers committed to broadening the perspectives of tomorrow’s leaders.

“The Salzburg Global Seminar is a laboratory for ideas, a proving ground,” said Massey. “It’s a place where you can test new concepts, put them in front of people from different disciplines and perspectives who approach the issue with the same intellectual vigor and passion, and then thrash it out in a candid, yet civilized setting. The exercise invariably leads to some deeper understanding of the issue that can be applied to potential conclusions and resolutions.”

The appointment reflects a renewed commitment to the Seminar’s founding principles of global understanding and the transformational power of ideas. For more than 60 years, the Seminar has been challenging present and future leaders to

solve issues of global concern.

“Having such a distinguished educator and executive leading the Salzburg Global Seminar Board is a decided asset as we shape our programs in the 21st century,” Seminar President Stephen L. Salyer said on the appointment of Massey.

One of Massey’s goals for the Seminar is to achieve exemplary governance practice. The board is international in makeup and represents leaders from government, academe, business and the not-for-profit sector.With the principles of reconciliation and intellectual inquiry central to its activities, the Seminar is dedicated to promoting the free exchange of ideas,experience and understanding in a multi-disciplinary,crosscultural environment. The Seminar annually develops and conducts a variety of international seminars, workshops, symposia and conferences in its facilities in Salzburg,Austria.

Massey retired as president of Morehouse last May after 12 years of service.

Before joining Morehouse,he was provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at the University of California, the second most

Walter E. Massey ’58

senior position in the system. Previously, he served as director of the National Science Foundation, the government’s lead agency for support of research and education in mathematics, science and engineering. He also is the former vice president for research at the University of Chicago and former director of the Argonne National Laboratory.

Massey and his wife, Shirley A. Massey, have been active members of the Salzburg Global Seminar Board of Directors since the early 1990s. ■

Frank Peterman Jr. ’85 to Head Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice REP. FRANK PETERMAN JR. ’85 was recently appointed by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to serve as Secretary of the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ).

“Rep. Peterman’s dedication to improving the lives of young people is evident from his 23-year track record of juvenile services work,” said Rep. Frank Peterman Jr. ’85 Crist.

Elected to the state House of Representatives in 2000, Peterman also serves as senior pastor of The Rock of Jesus Missionary Baptist Church in St. Petersburg since 2002, and as director of development for Juvenile Services Program Inc. of Clearwater since 1988. Before being elected to the legislature,

he was a St. Petersburg city councilman, beginning in 1997.

“Our devotion to the longevity of implementing prevention programs will have a lasting impact throughout our state, and the Blueprint Commission’s report provides a great roadmap for the work ahead of us,” said Peterman.

Peterman’s juvenile justice experience includes establishing a mentoring program for African American male youth through the Urban League of Pinellas County and securing funding and staffing for Blacks Against Dangerous Drugs (BADD). He also served as a juvenile services counselor and was a parole and probation trainee.

A 1985 graduate of Morehouse, Peterman is the son of Morehouse alumnus Frank Peterman Sr. ’58 of Atlanta and is a 1983 initiate of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity (Psi Chapter). He has worked at DJJ for 15 years, beginning as a senior/regional attorney in 1993 and becoming the chief of delinquency in 1996, supervising 11 attorneys throughout the state. ■ S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

61

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

alumninews Melvin White ’84 Named 36th President of D.C. Bar

Charles H. James III ’81

Charles H. James III ’81 Named to Wintrust Financial Corp. Board CHARLES H. JAMES III ’81 recently was appointed to the board of directors of Wintrust Financial Corporation, a financial holding company whose common stock is traded on the Nasdaq. As of December 2007, Wintrust operated a total of 77 banking offices and is in the process of constructing several additional banking facilities. All of the company’s banking subsidiaries are locally managed with large local boards of directors.

James is the chairman and CEO of C.H. James & Co., an investment holding company with interests in wholesale food distribution businesses, as well as in quick-service restaurant operations.

James graduated from Morehouse in 1981 and obtained an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently serves on the board of directors of Morehouse, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, the Children’s Memorial Hospital (Chicago) and the Chicago Urban League. He received the Bennie Leadership Award from Morehouse in 2001.

“We are very pleased that Chuck has joined our Board. Chuck is a community and business leader and his considerable business experience and perspective will be a valuable asset to the Company and further strengthen our Board,” said Edward J. Wehmer, the president and CEO of Wintrust. ■ MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

62

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

MELVIN WHITE ’84, a partner in the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery, was sworn in as the 36th president of the District of Columbia Bar during its annual meeting and awards dinner in June 2007. White, who has an extensive history of voluntary service to the D.C. Bar, the community and the legal profession, is a two-term member of the D.C. Bar’s Board of Governors (2000–2006), and he currently serves on the executive committee with prior service on the budget and finance committees.

“As president, my focus will be to continue our strong tradition of community service, to safeguard the proper professional interest of the members of the Bar, to highlight and enhance service to our members, and to aid our courts in carrying out and improving the administration of justice,” said White. “My priorities range from fostering greater inclusion in the D.C.Bar with respect to its programs and services and in the profession, to facilitating more partnerships between D.C. Bar members and local pro bono service providers, to

Melvin White ’84

initiatives focusing on the mentoring and retention of junior attorneys.”

After graduating from Morehouse in 1984, White continued his education at the University of Virginia School of Law. He was a law clerk for the Hon. G. Thomas Eisele, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

He also is an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Air Force. ■

Ronald L. Carter ’71 Named President of Johnson C. Smith University RONALD L. CARTER ’71 was recently chosen to become the 13th president of Johnson C. Smith University. His appointment became effective July 1, 2008. Carter brings more than 30 years of experience with an impressive record of community leadership, academic administration and budget management to his new position.

Ronald L. Carter ’71 After graduating from Morehouse in 1971, Carter began his career at Boston University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Center, where, by 1981, he rose to become the school’s youngest dean of students. In the late 1980s, Carter helped relatives of Nelson Mandela gain admission to U.S. colleges and, in so doing, was compelled to put his abilities to work in South Africa. ■

classnotes 1940s Charles V. Willie ’48, the Charles W. Eliot Professor of Education Emeritus at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, received a U.S. Speaker and Specialist Grant Award from the U.S. State Department to lecture at the College of the Bahamas and elsewhere in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas during the celebration of Education Awareness Week and Black History Month 2007.

1960s Calvin B. Grimes ’62, former dean of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences at Morehouse, has been invited as a guest lecturer to Churchill College in Cambridge, England, as part of the 4th biennial International Symposium and Festival on Composition in Africa and the Diaspora. He will lecture on the “Style in Selected Orchestral Works of Ulysses Kay,” an African American composer on whom Grimes is an authority and has done extensive research.

Creigs Beverly ’63 has been named professor emeritus by Wayne State

REMINISCING ABOUT THEIR COLLEGE DAYS

Morehouse men from the class of 1957 meet quarterly for lunch at a Picadilly Cafeteria in southwest Atlanta. They include Robert E. Perdue, Willie J. Webb, Marvin E. Lampkin, Abraham Davis, Arthur Bailey and Clydell Johnson. Their conversations run the gamut from reminiscing about their college days to current world issues. The meeting provides an opportunity for the men to develop a system of mutual support and continue to bond as they look forward to their golden year.

University. Beverly recently retired as professor in the school of social work at the university with more than 16 years of service.

Julius E. Coles ’63, president of Africare, was recently inducted as a fellow into The National Academy of Public Administration at its 2007 fall meeting in Washington, D.C. The Academy is a respected, independent, non-profit, non-partisan corporation chartered by Congress to give “trusted advice” on matters of government strategy and administration to policy makers from every branch in the U.S. government.

Fellows are elected by their peers for their extensive experience in a variety of issues at the highest level of public service. Coles joined the ranks of the nation’s top policy makers, public administrators and distinguished scholars of public policy.

Allen Carter ’66, clinical director in the Counseling Resource Center, has successfully completed the final examination to become board certified in clinical psychology through The American Board of Professional Psychology. This distinction qualifies him as an expert in clinical

psychology, making him the second African American to attain this status in the state of Georgia.

Roosevelt Thomas ’66 was recently featured in the Atlanta Daily World for being on the forefront of developing and implementing innovative concepts and strategies for maximizing organizational and individual potential through diversity management.

1970s Eddie D. Gaffney ’70 (deceased) was recently honored with the Presidential Award of Distinction for his many years of outstanding service and dedication to his profession and Morehouse. Gaffney served under the leadership of three presidents as associate professor, dean of students and vice president for student services (1992-2006).

Milton J. Little Jr. ’76 was recently named president of United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta. Milton formerly served as president and chief executive officer of United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley.

He is the first African

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

63

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

classnotes Profilesin Leadership

A Ministry of Advocacy Lamell McMorris ’95 WHAT SEEMED LIKE an average call from a fellow alumnus turned into a score of a lifetime for Lamell McMorris ’95. Derrick Stafford ’79, an NBA referee, phoned him in late 2003 to ask McMorris’ firm, Perennial Sports and Entertainment, to help the referees conduct a secret ballot on a proposed pay raise. As the result of his work on that issue, the National Basketball Referees Association hired his firm as their primary representatives.

Five years later, McMorris was also hired to negotiate labor-management issues on behalf of the World Umpires Association.

Advocacy, McMorris said, is something Lamell McMorris ’95 he learned from Morehouse Men. “Every step I have taken has been inspired by a Morehouse Man,” he said. “A Morehouse Man has faith, intellect, perseverance, integrity and a commitment to community.” These are traits that McMorris saw in Morehouse Men while growing up on Chicago’s South Side: graduates like the Rev. Tyrone Crider Sr.’ 81, pastor of Chicago’s Mount Calvary Baptist Church, and author and Ebony magazine executive editor Lerone Bennett Jr. ’49.

“Tyrone Crider and Lerone Bennett took me under their wings. They gave me a solid foundation—from making sure I had good grades to having enough money,” he said. “Their lives were examples of the intersection of words and deeds.”

McMorris, following in his mentors’ footsteps, applied to Morehouse, where he found fertile ground for personal growth. He received support from people like Anne Watts, Aaron Parker, Larry Crawford, Lawrence Carter and Henry Goodgame.

“I remember Dr. Crawford teaching us that culture is everything. I have never forgotten that,” he said.

After finishing Morehouse with a degree in religion and society, he went on to earn a master’s degree in divinity from Princeton University.

An ordained Baptist minister, he has never served the church in a traditional sense, instead seeing his ministry as a convergence of theology and public policy. His Christian faith is at the root of his commitment to advocacy: helping people. This led him to found a bipartisan government consulting firm, Perennial Strategy Group, a sister organization to his sports and entertainment business.

“I’m an advocate — I’m passionate about individuals’ causes,” he said.

—Rori Francis Blakeney MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

64

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

American president of United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta.

Jackie Robinson ’78 has joined the international law firm of Thompson & Knight LLP as a partner in the Dallas office. His practice will focus on litigation and dispute resolution. Robinson has practiced in state and federal courts and has tried more than 70 cases to verdict.

1980s David Morrow ’80, director of the Morehouse College Glee Club, was recently appointed conductor of the Atlanta Singers, an elite professional vocal ensemble of approximately 20 singers who are from around the city.

Morrow is the third director of this group and the first African American to conduct such a group in the city.

Melvin White ’84 was recently inaugurated as 36th president of the District of Columbia Bar. White is a senior trial partner at McDermott, Will & Emery LLP, where his practice focuses on complex commercial matters, including antitrust, civil RICO, class actions, contractual disputes, intellectual property, managed care, product

classnotes liability, securities fraud and telecommunications.

Lionel Montel Elder ’87 served as director of photography on two independent films that were picked up for a double distribution deal by York Entertainment. Both films – “The Chip Factor” and “The Common Denominators” – were produced by New Visions Film Group.

Commander Alvin Holsey ’88, U.S. Navy, recently assumed command of the “EASYRIDERS” of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light 37, (HSL-37) at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. Holsey received his commission from the Atlanta University Center NROTC Unit and graduated from Morehouse in 1988 with a degree in computer science.

Major Otha Thornton ’89 has been named director of Military Human Resources for the White House Communications Agency.

In this capacity, he will serve as the Joint Military Human Resource Manager for nearly 900 personnel.

Thornton also will be the principal staff adviser on all military/civilian human resource, assignment, recruitment, training and administrative issues.

1990s Scott C. King ’91 recently had his photography featured in the China News Daily, a Chinese publication that reaches more than 100 million readers.

Mark Oliphant ’91 was recently recognized as a member of DHL President’s Club. To qualify for membership, he had to meet strict company standards for sales quotas, be ranked within the top 10 percent of the sales force, and attain 100 percent of his sales goals.

Calvin Harris Jr. ’92 recently was named chief financial officer at the Council for Excellence in Government (“CEG”) in Washington, D.C. CEG works to improve the performance of government at all levels. Before joining CEG, Harris served as controller of the United Nations Foundation and the Better World Fund, where he managed the accounting operations and staff of the foundation.

Said Sewell ’92 was recently awarded the 2007 Doris J. Harris Humanitarian Award by Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Tau Epsilon Omega Chapter in conjunction with

Save the Dates OPENING CONVOCATION September 18, 2008 • King Chapel ANGEL CITY CLASSIC September 27, 2008 • Los Angeles HOMECOMING WEEK October 19-26 , 2008 142nd FOUNDER’S DAY CONVOCATION February 12, 2009 • King Chapel REFLECTIONS OF EXCELLENCE February 14 , 2009 • King Chapel A CANDLE IN THE DARK GALA February 14, 2009 • Hyatt Regency

the Twenty Pearls Foundation, Inc. The Doris J. Harris Humanitarian Award is given each year to an outstanding citizen in the community. Sewell, director of the Center for African American Male Research, Success and Leadership at West Georgia College, was chosen for his high regard for young African American males in the community and for being an integral part in the enrichment of these young men and his work and service to their success in college.

Ahmed Davis ’94 was recently named principal in the law firm of Fish & Richardson P.C. He will serve as principal attorney in the firm’s Litigation

Group, where he will continue to focus his practice in the areas of chemistry and medical devices. Davis received a master’s degree in chemistry from Emory University in 1996 and the juris doctor degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1999.

Lamell McMorris ’95, founder of Perennial Strategy Group, a consulting and lobbying firm in Washington, D.C., was featured in the August 22 issue of the New York Times in an article titled, “Defending Those Who Call the Games,” for his service as lead negotiator for the referees in the National Basketball Association and the umpires in Major League

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

65

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

classnotes Profilesin Leadership

A Voice for New Orleans’ Youngest Patients Corey Hebert ’92 DR. COREY HEBERT ’92 realized pretty quickly that one-on-one contact during office visits was not going to create the impact needed to combat the myriad health problems of his young New Orleans patients.

So the popular pediatrician, who was already hosting a weekly radio show on Citadel Broadcasting Network titled “Doctor for the People,” turned to the airwaves again, this time to produce and host a local cable show titled “Urban Pediatrics.” In just thirty minutes he could reach thousands of parents and warn them of the health issues that were unique to children living in the inner city, such as the increased incidence of asthma and infections brought on by closequarter living.

Then, as if his young patients’ situation wasn’t bad enough—he once described New Orleans children as the most unhealthy, overweight, stressed children in the country— Hurricane Katrina hit, and health conditions dropped precipitously.

Hebert again took to the airwaves, this time as an expert on the physical and mental health issues of the children of the New Orleans diaspora. He appeared as an expert on several national shows, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The Early Show” on CBS, BET’s “Meet the Faith” and on the local NBC news affiliate, where he is now chief medical editor. He also was featured in the Spike Lee ‘79 film, “When the Levees Broke.”

Hebert, an assistant professor at Tulane University Medical Center and president and CEO of Hebert Medical Consulting Inc., began piling more onto his already full plate. He was appointed medical director of the State of Louisiana Recovery MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

66

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

School District, where he sees to it that all students in the district receive free sports physicals and free immunizations. He also was appointed vice chairman of the National Executive Committee for the National Health Service Corps. Supervised by the Surgeon General, this board decides which areas in the nation and U.S. territories will be designated as underserved and underrepresented.

But, more importantly, Hebert put his money where his mouth was. Drawing from his own savings, he started a health delivery program called “No Excuses” in which he calls on his colleagues throughout the nation to treat the psychiatric illnesses of New Orleans children scarred by Hurricane Katrina.

“Sometimes people have to do what they have to do, no matter the price,” he explained.

It is a lesson he learned at Morehouse, which he credits for his success, his keen sense of community responsibility and his never-say-no stance when it comes to taking up the mantle of leadership.

For three months after Hurricane Katrina, Hebert was the only pediatrician in the Crescent City. He looked around to see who would lead the mammoth effort to help so many of New Orleans traumatized children and, realizing he was the only game in town, stepped up to the plate.

“Morehouse taught me that when you’re called on to lead, you can’t say no.

You must lead,” he said.

Yet, for this product of a predominately white neighborhood and high school, Morehouse wasn’t even on his radar when it came time to choose a college. His Caucasian coach pulled him aside and told

Corey Hebert ’92

him that he had learned to be a man, but that he needed to learn to be a black man.

“You must go to Morehouse,” he told Hebert.

Hebert was reluctant at first, that is, until he saw something he had never seen before: a campus of African American male scholars. “It was everyone, the whole Morehouse experience that inspired me,” he said.

Now Hebert echoes his coach’s advice, embarking on a personal crusade to recruit for Morehouse: “The education and the guidance I got at Morehouse is what every African American man in America needs. I tell everyone, if you know of an African American male student in your community who has the potential to become a leader, you must encourage him to come to Morehouse.”

—Vickie G. Hampton

classnotes represented the National Basketball Referees Association for four years, and, this summer, was hired to negotiate labormanagement issues on behalf of the World Umpires Association.

Kwame J. Manley ’96 recently received the Skolnik Award for his work on the Harwood, Md., firebombing case, which resulted in the prosecution of eight defendants who tried to silence a neighborhood activist determined to report to police the drug activity taking place near her home.

Manley also was recognized for his successful prosecution of other significant cases, including several drug murders in Baltimore City, child pornography cases, as well as significant white-collar and fraud schemes. Manley previously received recog-

nition for prosecution of a $5-million identity theft and bank fraud scheme in Maryland and New York. He has been an assistant United States attorney in Baltimore since 2004.

Earl Adams Jr. ’97 has been appointed deputy chief of staff for Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown. He is responsible for managing Brown’s portfolio of legislative issues, including health care, higher education and economic development. Prior to this position, Adams was an associate for the international law firm Hogan & Hartson LLP, and at Shipley & Horne, P.A. in Largo, Md. Michael A. Davis ’97 was recently accepted into the Broad Residency Program, a management development program that places talented early-career executives into full-time positions at top levels of

Take a minute to drop us a note!

Help Morehouse and your classmates keep up with what’s happening in your life—both personally and professionally—by sending Class Notes items to the address below. We’d like to share the good news about everyone’s accomplishments.

Quickest way to send Class Notes: morehousealumniandfriends.com

urban school systems across the country.

Charles L Fischer III ’97 was recently elected president of the student body at the historic Virginia Theological Seminary, where he is currently a candidate for the master’s degree in divinity.

Fischer also serves as co-chair for the annual

Conference on Ministry, which takes place at VTS each spring. He sits on the Board of Trustees’ Honorary Degrees subcommittee and serves as chairperson/ convener for the Office of Black Episcopal Seminaries.

He was elected to represent his class on the Racial and Ethnic Diversity Initiative and, last summer, he participated in the Canterbury Scholars’ Programme in London.

MOREHOUSE GRADS ON THE MOVE

Keith Jones ’02, Jonathan Allen ’05 and Robert Allen ’02 are continuing their post-graduate academic accomplishments. Jones (left), a 2006 University of Connecticut Medical School graduate is currently doing a surgical residency at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. Allen (center), graduated in May 2007 from the University at Albany (SUNY) master’s program in public health. Jonathan received a fellowship from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C., for further studies in environmental engineering. Jonathan’s brother, Robert Allen (right), completed his medical degree in May 2007 from the University of Connecticut and will be doing an internship at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Youngstown, Ohio.

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

67

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

classnotes Stacey L. Frazier ’99 was recently elected pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C. The church was previously pastored by the late Rev. Thomas Kilgore ’41, former chairman of the Morehouse College Board of Trustees.

2000s Kevin D. Johnson ’01, president and CEO of Johnson Media Inc., recently lectured to MBA students at Kennesaw State University’s Coles College of Business about entrepreneurship and new venture analysis. Johnson Media Inc. is a media holding company that specializes in print, the Internet, television and radio.

Isaac Keys ’01 recently signed with the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League. Keys plays rush end for the Eskimos, the CFL equivalent to defensive end, the position he played at Morehouse. A three-time AllSIAC honoree, the St. Louis native was the keynote speaker of the Morehouse AllSports Award Banquet in April 2007. Keys, the first Morehouse graduate to make it to the NFL, played almost exclusively on practice squads as a linebacker. Signed first by the Minnesota Vikings, he made stops in Green Bay, NFL Europe with the Scottish Claymores and three years with the Arizona Cardinals.

Manu Platt ’01 was recently awarded a postdoctoral science research

fellowship by the United Negro College Fund/Merck Science Initiative. The program provides more than $13 million in scholarship grants over five years and targets students pursuing careers in scientific research at the undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral levels.

Alexander J. Chenault ’03, a second-year law student at Tulane University Law School, was selected for a yearlong Federal Judicial Externship with Judge Ivan Lemelle of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Alexander is also serving as president of New Orleans Young Democrats, where he recently hosted United States House of Representatives Majority Leader, Congressman Steny Hoyer.

KATARRO ROUNDTREE ’04 RINGS OPENING BELL AT NASDAQ

Births

Tony Woods ’04 and his wife Sakinah are the proud parents of a son, Brendan Alexander Woods. Brendan was born August 21, weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces and measured 21 inches long.

Sarquis Parker ’98 and his wife, Keilani, are the proud parents of Evan Sadiq, born on Sept. 28, 2007, weighting 8 pounds, 1 ounce, and measuring 21 inches long.

Passages

Katarro Roundtree ’04 (far right) recently represented Morehouse College by ringing the closing bell for the UNCF for NASDAQ. Katarro is employed with Lehman Brothers in NYC. MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

68

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

Edwin R. “Doc” Edmonds ’38 died on Nov. 6, 2007, of pneumoniarelated complications. He was 90. Edmonds, a former chair of the UCC’s Commission for Racial Justice, was the retired pastor of Dixwell Avenue

classnotes

For the New Millennium Classes 2000-2008

“Invest in your future; invest in your Alumni Association.

Will you be the next Life Member in your class?”

— Kevin R. McGee ‘93 Region I Vice President

LIFE MEMBERSHIP CHALLENGE

Congregational UCC in New Haven, Conn., where he served for 35 years.

Milton Roderick Jones ’61 died recently after a decade-long confinement to a nursing home. Jones, a native of Reading, Pa., lettered in football and basketball at Morehouse. He was retired from the Atlanta Public Schools System.

Edwin Preston ’94 recently died as the result of a car accident. Preston, a resident of Washington, D.C., was in the process of completing his residency to become a transplant surgeon.

Clarence “Kappa” Brown ’40 was One of the College’s Most Loyal Alumnus CLARENCE “KAPPA” BROWN ’40 took seriously the charge by President Benjamin E. Mays to make a financial gift to Morehouse of at least 1 percent of your salary each month in order for Morehouse to survive.

So seriously, in fact, that from the time he received his first check in 1940 to shortly before his death, he made a financial gift to the College each month.

Over the last 20 years, although he gradually went blind due to complications of diabetes, he insisted that there was no excuse for him not to give back. “Kappa” actually increased his support to the College.

In an interview, he once said, “Over time, I realized that 1 percent was simply not enough for all that Morehouse had done for me.”

Brown died on Nov. 21, 2007, in St. Albans, N.Y. He had celebrated his 89th birthday a couple of weeks prior to his death.

In 1992, Brown was recognized with a Bennie Service Award for his lifetime of giving to the College. He also was a life member of the Morehouse College National Alumni Association.

Brown retired after more than 40 years with the New York Transit Authority. He served faithfully as a member of the Brooklyn-Long Island-Queens Chapter of the Association.

He was married for more than 50 years to his wife, Isabelle. They have three children, Clarence Jr., Catherine and Richard. ■

CLASS 2000

CLASS 2003 cont’d

ELITE THOUSANDAIRE CLUB - $1,000 Marcus K. Shaw: First Member of the Elite Club in his class Lindsay Edwards: Second Member of the Elite Club in his class Demetrius J. Ingram: Third Member of the Elite Club in his class Jason C. Smoot: Fourth Member of the Elite Club in his class Thomas A. Tate Jr.: Fifth Member of the Elite Club in his class

LIFE MEMBERSHIP CLUB - $700 Adriel A. Hilton: First Life Member in his class Christopher O. Bayne: Second Life Member in his class Jerome T. Hardy: Third Life Member in his class

LIFE MEMBERSHIP CLUB - $700 James D. Whitney: First Life Member in his class Henry Thompson: Second Life Member in his class

CLASS 2004 ELITE THOUSANDAIRE CLUB - $1,000 Who will be the first Elite Member in the class of 2004?

LIFE MEMBERSHIP CLUB - $700 Robert A. Wilkins Jr.: First Life Member in his class

CLASS 2001 ELITE THOUSANDAIRE CLUB - $1,000 Warner L. Pinchback: First Member of the Elite Club in his class

CLASS 2005 Who will be the first Elite or Life Membe rin the class of 2005?

LIFE MEMBERSHIP CLUB - $700 Anthony S. Neal: First Life Member in his class Justin C. Letts: Second Life Member in his class

Who will be the first Elite or Life Member in the class of 2006?

CLASS 2002

CLASS 2007

ELITE THOUSANDAIRE CLUB - $1,000 Charles J. Willoughby Jr.: First Member of the Elite Club in his class

ELITE THOUSANDAIRE CLUB - $1,000 Adam R. Hester: First Member of the Elite Club in his class Ravelle C. Dupree: Second Member of the Elite Club in his class

LIFE MEMBERSHIP CLUB - $700 Brian (Shawn) Easler: First Life Member in his class Brian A. Shaw: Second Life Member in his class

CLASS 2003 ELITE THOUSANDAIRE CLUB - $1,000 Who will be the first in the class of 2003?

CLASS 2006

CLASS 2008 Who will be the first Elite or Life Member in the class of 2008?

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

69

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

hereas physical wounds can heal swiftly, psychological wounds can take decades, or even a lifetime, to heal. For my close friend, David Munoz, now a senior African American studies major at Morehouse confined to a wheelchair due to cerebral palsy, deep-rooted psychological wounds had imprisoned him.

“All my life, I’ve experienced rejection from my parents not wanting me up to the present day,” David once told me in private.

One can only imagine this spiritual nightmare: being plagued by emotional turmoil and deep-seated bitterness from desiring acceptance, love and compassion—but receiving rejection for more than 25 years.

Recently, I had the pleasure of escorting David to Dimona, Israel, to reside in the Village of Peace, a community founded by the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem who practice a paradigm-shifting, holistic version of nonviolence in every aspect of life, including social interaction, diet, dress, entertainment and conflict resolution.

W

By Donald Washington Jr. ’06

Two weeks of peace…

In Dimona, we studied how Kingian Nonviolence can help the disabled at the Dr.Martin Luther King Jr./SCLC Ben Ammi Institute for a New Humanity, an international conflict resolution center established by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the African Hebrew Israelites.

The West End community played a significant role in Donald Washington Jr. ’06 and senior David Munoz coming to David’s aid for this trip. President Robert M. Franklin ’75; Prince Rahm, a government official from Israel, and the Hebrew Israelites’ Atlanta New Jerusalem Brotherhood helped finance the majority of our expenses for this trip.

We stayed in a guest house in the middle of the village. Thankfully, we had no television or radio in our residence. This was exciting because the community is truly cosmopolitan and international in the citizenry it attracts: in our guest

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

70

S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

TheRoadTaken house alone, we met people visiting the community from Germany and other parts of Europe, Canada, Ethiopia and various cities in Israel.

Ironically, due to the community’s steadfast dedication to nonviolence as a way of life, we learned more about nonviolence outside of the classroom than inside! Because of the community’s peace-centered worldview, even the simplest of activities in the Village of Peace can yield profound healing revelations.

For instance, I had David sit by the village’s playground and watch children play. This was a liberating experience for him: “I never had the chance to run around and play as a normal child, but at least I can live vicariously by watching them enjoy themselves,” he told me happily. “Some greeted me with smiles,” he added.

Our trip was action-packed. For the first time in his life, David floated on water in the healing salt water of the Live Sea aka Dead Sea.“Wow! I never thought that I could float on water so effortlessly,” he told me while staring into the desert mountainside.

A priest from the community personally escorted us throughout various

Alumnus Escorts Student to Holy Land to Find Spiritual Healing parts of northern and southern Israel. We saw the Sea of Galilee where Jesus walked on water; we both dipped our feet in the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized; and we viewed the verdant countryside from Mount Tabor where Jesus was transfigured.

In total, David gained approximately 20 pounds in only two weeks! “I never knew that vegan cuisine could taste so good,” he told me. I made sure that David experienced vegan pizzas, sandwiches, cereals, meat substitutes and desserts such as carrot cake, cookies and ice cream. He also experienced juicy, lip-smacking Holy Land mangos, which he said are “definitely sweeter than mangos in America.”

At our trip’s end, David turned to me in a moment of clarity and said, “Donald, I really needed this experience. I had 26 years of baggage that I inherited from all these years of struggle and rejection. Now it’s time for me to leave that behind and become a new man.”

For David to choose to abandon a past of bitterness and embrace life after only two weeks in the Holy Land is truly a significant miracle!

As an alumnus, I would like to commend President Franklin and the African Hebrew Israelites for their role in accomplishing such a remarkable feat. ■

N E

W S

Taking the Road Less Traveled?

If so, we want to hear about it.

Send to: morehousemageditor@morehouse.edu

Background photo: Dead Sea, Israel S P R I N G / S U M M E R

2 0 0 8

71

MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE

Show Your True Colors on the Green...

AND SUPPORT THE MOREHOUSE NATIONAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION GOLF BAG MODEL #MH33 $165.00 Manufactured by Burton Bags • • • • • • •

8.5” Srand Bag Custom 5 Way Dividers 5 Pockets Single Shoulder Strap Nylon Weave Fabric Zippered Head Embroidered Logo on Ball Pocket

TO ORDER: Call (404) 688-3554 All major credit cards and checks accepted.

BUFFALO VINYL HEAD COVERS: MODEL #MH34 • With the look and feel of leather • Logo Embroidered on Top HEAD COVERS PRICE: $60.00 for set up (5)

OR, MAIL TO Morehouse College National Alumni Association Office 830 Westview Drive, SW • Box 93 Atlanta, GA. 30314 Additional charges for Shipping, Handling and Tax

Morehouse Memories

R

obert M. Franklin Jr. posed with four other members of the class of 1975 inside Benjamin E. Mays Hall on the Morehouse College campus. The photo was taken during his first stint at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology from 1989 to 1995 where he was director of Black Church Studies.

From left: The Rev. Harold Dean Trulear, Franklin, The Rev. Aaron Parker, The Rev. Vincent Wimbush and The Rev. Josiah Young.

Courtesy of Morehouse College Archives

Define YOURSELF. MOREHOUSE COLLEGE OFFICE OF ADMISSION 830 WESTVIEW DRIVE, S.W.

• • •

ATLANTA, GA 30314

(404) 681-2800

•

Named “the hottest men's college” in the nation in Kaplan/Newsweek magazine's August 2007 listing of “25 Hottest Schools” Named one of the best schools in the Southeast by The Princeton Review in its listing of 2008 Best Colleges: Region by Region Recognized by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top feeder schools for the 15 most prominent graduate and professional schools in the country in September 2003 One of only two Historically Black Colleges or Universities to produce three Rhodes Scholars

www.morehouse.edu

Redefine THE WORLD. NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE

PAID Office of Communications 830 Westview Drive, S.W. Atlanta, GA 30314

ATLANTA, GA PERMIT NO. 925