Paving the Way
By COLLEEN McCARTHY
Associate News Editor
University President Emeritus Father Theodore Hesburgh had just been named rector of Farley Hall in the fall of 1948 when he received a phone call from an irate woman, the mother of one of his residents in the newly-built residence hall.
"I got a call from a lady who said she was calling from New Orleans and her son lived in Farley Hall," said Hesburgh. "She then said to me, `I understand you have a nigger living in that hall. Is this true?' I told her that yes, we had a black student living in Farley Hall and he was just as much a student as her son, was here legitimately and was staying here."
Hesburgh's answer was not what the woman wanted to hear. At that time in Farley Hall, Hesburgh had 333 men living in the dorm, only one of whom was black.
The woman gave Hesburgh an ultimatum. She told him that he was to kick the black student out of the dorm by the next morning and if he didn't, put her son on the next plane back to New Orleans.
The next morning came and the woman's son was on a plane headed towards New Orleans where he enrolled in Tulane University and went on to become a doctor. Hesburgh talked to the woman's son in the years after the incident.
"He [the woman's son] told me that making him leave the University because there was a black student living in a dorm with him was the biggest mistake his mother ever made," said Hesburgh.
Despite resistance from some and mandated segregation in the South, Notre Dame's policy was one of the more progressive when it came to attempting to integrate the University.
In 1947, Frazier Thompson became the first black student to graduate from Notre Dame. A member of the Navy, Thompson was encouraged by vice president of Academic Affairs Father Kenna to return to the University to get his degree after completing his service in World War II, said Hesburgh.
Having worked in civil rights previously, upon becoming the executive vice president of Notre Dame in 1949, Hesburgh continued to push to integrate the University.
"We talked and said it was a shame that we hadn't had many black students, professors, or even maintenance people at the University," said Hesburgh. "I wanted to see blacks as well as whites at the University."
With Hesburgh and others' urging, the University opened up completely to blacks. Still, with options such as predominantly black colleges available to black students, few chose to attend Notre Dame.
"Everything opened up at once, including the athletic teams," said Hesburgh. "Yet I can understand that blacks may not have felt welcome here because they saw it was pretty much all white and that may have affected the number who chose to attend the University. I can see how it would have been kind of a lonely path and it would require a lot of courage."
Clarence Hodges
For Clarence Hodges who graduated from the University with a degree in education in 1955 and a master's degree in 1957, it didn't matter that Notre Dame was an overwhelmingly white University, because proximity to his home in Michigan was a priority. Attending another college that could have promised more diversity wasn't an option.
Hodges served in the U.S. military from 1940 to 1943 and through the GI Bill, which enabled veterans to get a college education, decided to use the funds from the entitlement to attend the University. With a wife, five kids, and a full-time job at a factory in Michigan, Hodges was not a traditional college student.
"I only lived 20 minutes from Notre Dame and my time to use the money from the GI Bill was running out so I came over to talk to one of the Fathers at Notre Dame and he suggested I apply and enroll at the University," said Hodges.
Being one of only three black students on campus didn't bother Hodges. In fact, race had never been something that affected him.
"I've never had any kind of internal feelings about the race issue," said Hodges. "I was born and raised in Arkansas where we had separate schools but all of my playmates were white. The only difference was that when people walked by we had to pretend like we didn't like each other because everything was segregated at that time."
Hodges attributed the lack of racism he saw at the University to the Catholic nature of the institution.
"I would have never gone to Indiana University of South Bend," said Hodges. "But I knew Notre Dame was a Catholic university and that the Fathers wouldn't take any foolishness and wouldn't tolerate racism. There was no feeling of differences whatsoever when I was at Notre Dame.
"I was just another Notre Dame student. Notre Dame was just different. I never heard anything of any racial discussion while I was there. I think people had other things to think about, like getting their work for class done."
Being "just another Notre Dame student" meant that Hodges had all of his classes in the Main Building, went to church on campus frequently (although he said he never could keep up with all the Hail Mary's), studied, and attended football games.
Yet even though the University was integrated, that didn't mean that black and white students were interacting.
In his free time, Hodges would go to the Huddle to play pool. Other students would gather there to play also.
"I was older than those boys to begin with and I know they came from well-to-do families but I did my best to integrate the pool tables," said Hodges. "I would go down there and play pool on all the different tables so if someone wanted to play pool, they had to play with me. I helped them to integrate."
After being a teacher for 40 years and receiving a master's degree in education from Michigan State, Hodges is still in love with Notre Dame.
"Notre Dame is an educational setting that is just different from everywhere else," he said, comparing his experience at the University to his time at Michigan State. "If there is any one thing that I like about Notre Dame it is that it is a Christian university. I haven't run across anything that comes remotely close to being a Christian university like Notre Dame. If I could do it all again, I'd still come to Notre Dame. I'm in love with the University."
Hodges still returns to the University for football games, particularly the years when the Irish play Michigan State.
"I love to come to those games," said Hodges. "It's not even a question of who I cheer for though. Definitely not the Spartans. Once you are a Notre Dame fan, you're always a Notre Dame fan."
Ben Finley
When Ben Finley arrived to begin his freshman year at Notre Dame in 1956, he was one of only 25 black students on campus. For Finley, this was nothing new. Born and raised in New York City, he attended high school at All Hollow's Institute where in a class of 56 students, he was one of two black students.
"I was used to being a grain of pepper in a sea of salt," said Finley, who graduated in 1960 with a degree in electrical engineering.
However, Notre Dame was not Finley's first choice.
"I initially applied to Notre Dame to keep the Brothers [who ran his high school] off my back," said Finley. "I didn't want to go to an all-male institution and I wanted the coed experience."
In the end, Finley was left to decide between the University of Colorado and Notre Dame. His decision to attend Notre Dame was not the most orthodox.
"The only thing left on the table was the University of Colorado and Notre Dame so I asked my girlfriend at the time where she thought I should go and she said she would rather tell her friends I went to Notre Dame so I chose Notre Dame," he said.
In general, Finley said that with very few exceptions, he experienced very little overt racism. But one of those exceptions came the first weekend Finley was at Notre Dame.
"During freshman orientation, I was down by one of the lakes sitting on the dock with one of my dormmates," he said. "What happened next was that he used the `n' word and I just punched him in the face. We ended up in the lake and no one tried to break us up. And that was the last time that that happened."
For Finley, college proved to be a continuation of high school and he remained a "grain of pepper" along with the 24 other black students at Notre Dame, who became a close-knit group.
"Every night after dinner we would meet in someone's dorm room for about two hours maintaining our ethnic identity," said Finley. "We would just talk and make plans for the weekend and then after that, we left to go back into the sea of salt. We were very close and if you asked me today, I could tell you where each of them is right now."
During the time Finley was at Notre Dame, the Civil Rights movement was in full swing. As a whole, Finley said he wouldn't describe the student body at that time as being unprejudiced. As more students on campus began to become a part of the Civil Rights movement through campus organizations, Finley found himself being one of only 25 black students in the role of teacher fielding questions from confused white students.
"Being one of 25 black students provided me with many opportunities to explain to white people at the University `why are you making our Negroes unhappy?'" said Finley.
This was a common question he was asked by his white classmates.
"It was not unusual during that time for guys, especially those from the South to come to my room and talk about race issues," said Finley. "They were racist but they had been raised racist and for them, this was probably the first time that they had interfaced with black students one-on-one.
"We [Finley and the other black students] were there to teach, whether we wanted to or not, and explain to these guys why folks in the South were conducting these civil rights marches."
An Uphill Struggle
While both Hesburgh and Finley acknowledge that the University has made strides in attracting and retaining black students, both said there is still a long way to go.
"Today, there is no question that we spend much time trying to get black students to come to Notre Dame," said Hesburgh. "We have white students coming out of our ears applying here. If you are black, Protestant, and a person who has grown up in the city, the thought of packing up and going to South Bend is not the most appealing thing on earth. It takes having a number of people from a group here for those students to feel comfortable.
"Every year we get a few more black students but it has required enormous amounts of scholarship money. But I must say that the admissions office has done a great job. We are making more progress every year."
The efforts of the Black Alumni of Notre Dame (BAND), a subcommittee of the Notre Dame Alumni Association, have been instrumental in recruiting black students. In addition, BAND has gone to great lengths to interact with black students on campus.
"In all honesty, Notre Dame has made huge strides in recruitment and while much is yet to be accomplished, the University should be congratulated for its accomplishments," said Finley.
Finley said that the University needs to actively recruit more students in general in order to recruit more black students.
"In Notre Dame's mindset, we don't need to recruit students and we don't need to sell the place to people because they'll still get their 10,000 applicants from well-qualified people," said Finley. "A different tactic needs to be taken. We need more of a marketing pitch as opposed to an informational pitch."
All News Stories for Friday, February 23, 2001
