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Student Activism in the 1930s
This is My Story —That is—part of it Rembert Stokes
"Man born of dark woman is bound to see dark days." While not attempting to speak for the Negro race, I think I can truthfully say that the above statement contains the outlook on life for many Negroes. In part the statement is true, but instead of accepting the statement stoically, a new Negro is determined to prepare himself to see the light and to bring it to his people and the world. Before living in the east for any length of time, I thought that my native town, Dayton, Ohio, was a fine city for Negroes. My thought lacked experience. Now I am certain that Dayton a southern town on Northern soil so far as prejudice and discrimination are concerned. My father finished law at Ohio State in 1907; my mother graduated from Wilberforce in 1908. My father is very dark; my mother passes for white when she pleases. The children of my parents, I am the youngest, are all brown-skinned. Because of my father's professional status, his family rated more respect from whites than did most other Negroes in Dayton, but nonetheless, the barriers of race were made very clear to me at an early age. As a small child the revelation of racial hatreds hurt me because I didn't like losing my little German, Italian, and Greek playmates. In grade school prejudice was not too evident. At that age level children are too real to let it matter very much. In junior high school its prevalence was even felt less because only about a dozen Negroes were enrolled. I had a white sweetheart in junior high school. When the girl came down town to senior high school she would hardly speak; I was reluctant to speak myself. I have always found that the best ways to gain respect from other peoples are through cleanliness and intelligence. My high school did not encourage me to participate in extra curricular activities. The result was that the opportunity to absorb the academic fundamentals was one of few constructive benefits I received from secondary education, Another benefit was the creation of an earnest desire to find out what was at the basis of prejudice and discrimination. My high school also filled me with optimism by making me see that the whole question of discrimination can be altered for the better. Any account of my life would be incomplete without a statement of gratitude to the Y. M. C. A. and my church for Burnishing me a better way of living and giving me a chance to lead and follow in their various organizations. My first year in college was spent happily and uselessly. After the first quarter of my second year, I left school at the request of my father, who wanted me to study law, and I too a job as page or deputy bailiff in the common pleas court of my county. The six month's experience on the job convinced me that law as no field for me. Returning to Wilberforce last school year, courses in economies, history, and political science awakened me to local, national, and international affairs and to the class struggle. This past school year I took and active interest in national and international affairs by joining the International Club, attending lectures, and participating in forums and panel discussions. I picked history and political science as my major. When Mark Hopkins and Molly Yard introduced the ASU to Wilberforce last spring, I became curious about it immediately. On investigation I found the ASU to solidify and to integrate many of my new interests. I also found it an informative agent of political and social problems. I found the ASU a weapon with which to better political and social conditions and to help make this country more free from prejudice and discrimination. I was appointed chairman of a committee to establish a chapter of ASU on Wilberforce campus. Since that time I have been a firm proponent of liberal thought and action, determined to bring about and to preserve democracy in this country. To peep around the corner, I am attempting to secure a scholarship to the Yale Divinity School to begin in the fall of 1940. I have a too high conception of the ministry to treat it lightly. I will not say that I'm going to become an ambassador of Jesus. But if I do turn out to be one, it will not be bad. I love to say what I think and preachers can do that. Look at Father Coughlin. Home | Historical Essay | Documents | Credits |
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