Sarah Stringer Heart and Soul of Tuskegee
As soon as Sarah Stringer received her degree from Tuskegee Institute in 1969, she went from student to employee. This week, after 47 years, she was unceremoniously fired from the only job she has ever held. The manner in which she was fired portends the trouble lurking around the corner at Tuskegee University.
Photo Credits: Frank H. Lee
Sarah Stringer, oh how my heart aches for you.
As far as I know, we have never met. I arrived on the campus of Tuskegee Institute, August 20, 1970. You were beginning your second year of employment. A year later I would meet your cousin Jackie Stringer. Jackie was a roommate of a young lady from Fairfield, Alabama that I would visit from time to time. I met your brother, a year or two ago. We sat next to each other at the funeral services for Jim Flournoy, who bled crimson and gold like you and I bleed it today.
When I received word that you had been removed from your employment at Tuskegee, it moved me to tears. I quickly counted the years. Your untiring service to the university came to 47 years.
Each of those years, you were a rock to many students. They looked to you for guidance, counsel, and a sense of motherly love. I have seen your work. You gave all of that to them.I know that you did because I have encountered many alumni over the past 40 years. They talked about how you navigated them into careers. These careers were the gateway to productive lives. I am told that your placement rate is 77 percent.
I have met many men and women who have raised their families on the strength of the head start you gave them in gaining meaningful employment. Your work at Tuskegee is the true test of Lewis Adams’ vision. Adams believed that a school for the colored children of Tuskegee could equip them with knowledge that would enable them to provide a service or product to the world.
In the beginning, Booker T. Washington served as the principal and placement officer. Then Robert Moton dispatched the sons and daughters of Tuskegee to jobs across the country. For the first 88 years of Tuskegee’s existence, men like Washington, Moton, Frederick Patterson and Luther Foster placed the Institute’s students. Most of the last 47 years, you filled those giant shoes. I salute you for a job well done. You have done what you came to Tuskegee to do. No one could have possibly done it better. We owe you our gratitude and our love.
It is not so much that you were terminated. It is how you were notified that your services would no longer be needed that is disquieting, disturbing, in short, down right perturbing.
I am a strong man, Ms. Sarah Stringer, but I wept. I wept because I was hurt when I learned, my beloved Tuskegee, had treated you in this fashion.
No one deserves to be mistreated like this, and certainly not Sarah Stringer. You were shown the door at 4:30 pm central daylight savings time and told not to come back the next day. The cold, heartless man who devised this method of firing a loyal employee would get an “A” from Donald Trump.
Now the university is asking alumni to dig deep into their pockets and give a donation to save the university from closing its doors. Every job I have had I got it without any assistance from Tuskegee. In fact if you were to look into my academic files you will see a note, written by an Institute official, which says, “He lacks any further academic potential.”
Perhaps, they were right. I’m just a dumb-fool who should keep his nose out of Tuskegee’s business. But if I was one of the alumni that you helped to get a job, I would not give one copper penny to the university until the Board of Trustees comes to their senses and fire the one person who, unlike Sarah Stringer, needs to be fired. How could I take money that you helped me to earn and give it to an institution that lacks the common decency to honor and respect the lady who made it possible for its students to have good paying jobs.
Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round; and the host of Beyond the Law with Harold Michael Harvey. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.
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Problems at the Pride of the Swift Growing South, Is Tuskegee University a Cash-Strapped Historical Black University?
Who Is Leading the Institution?
What are the financial problems?
Who Is Saving the Institution?
Will Tuskegee University Maintain Its Accreditation?
Is there a Decline of Tuskegee University?
The problems of Tuskegee University, which are symptomatic of the obsolescence of other HBCUs, can be grouped into two larger categories.
First, in the post- Brown era, integration makes Black colleges unnecessary.
Second, and a more positive category of discourse, Tuskegee University, pointing to the special role that it plays in the lives of African American students and the local community. Being mindful, the point in this discourse is that Tuskegee University is an institution founded by Blacks for Blacks—in fact, it is one of a few Black colleges founded by a Black-controlled institution rather than northern White missionaries or philanthropists. The university’s special commitment to the needs of Black students: “With a mission to serve both high-achieving students and those ‘who might not otherwise receive the opportunity to compete on the college level. The school is the state’s only college founded by Black’s and white southern philanthropists in 1881. Though it is a quasi-private university, receiving state funds, Tuskegee has enjoyed special appropriations from the federal government, millions a year over the last decade. But as a result of congressionally mandated, across-the-board cuts — a.k.a., the sequester — Tuskegee lost millions last year. Washington’s congressional representatives, on both sides of the isle put it: “Because of its historic reliance on government funds, that made Tuskegee University better off, but now, with the sequester, Tuskegee, which was better off, is now worse off.”
Partially causing the, “Right Sizing” budget cuts.
Beautiful column Harold!
Thank you Jocelyn.
Mr. Harvey I agree with you about the manner in which the long standing employees of Tuskegee University were fired. However, I do not agree with your inciting of others to stand with you to not donate money to the University to help it continue to provide the service it has done for 125 years. Mrs. Stringers performed her role and she performed well and I feel for her as well as others who have dedicated their lives for the good of others. Have your opinion but please don’t use your voice to further or deepen the whole our great University has found itself amassed in.
I respect your work and your rise but I cannot and will not amen your call.
Thank you for your comments. I appreciate your sentiment. It was not easy to come to the decision to withhold money at this time. I look at it like this. When I went to my parents for money after I had run through my budget, they would bail me out, but would want to know what was my plan for handling the situation. I had to be come up with a plan with built in accountability measures. I think it is only practical to require the school to disclose a financial plan where we can assess what went wrong. Also, we need to know exactly how deep the budget shortfalls are.
While on the other hand, I am currently contributing financially to the university’s baseball program. You may be aware that I serve on the College Baseball Hall of Fame sub-committee that select the top ten Black College Baseball programs each year. This year we lost over three baseball programs at HBCUs, because of the expense of running what are essentially a non-revenue generating sport. I have even published a video soliciting other former Tuskegee baseball players to come and participate in this alumni game. The entry fee goes to support the baseball program. I applaud Coach Hollins for coming up with a creative way to fund his program. Keep in mind, I will be 65 years old when this game is played in October. To the extinct that I can help Tuskegee’s baseball program survive, I am contributing to the overall success of the university, even as I caution a more circumspect approach to donating non earmarked funds to the university. Moreover, my caveat was no donations until the Board releases an actual financial statement. The type of financial statement that is recognized in the industry as a legitimate financial statement. I believe it is reasonable to ask the university to produce a financial statement.
When will the Tuskegee Baseball Alumni game be? I’m a former player and would love to donate and help out the Baseball Program
The game will be Homecoming weekend, Friday, October 21, 2016. Here is a link provided by Coach Hollins. I look forward to seeing you there. The more guys we can get to come back and participate, the more money we will raise.
http://baseball.tuskegeesportscamps.com/index.cfm