Tag Archives: Tuskegee

From Tuskegee to Texas:

The Long Shadow of Gomillion v. Lightfoot

In 1960, the Supreme Court ruled that a map could be unconstitutional if its sole purpose were to silence Black voters. Charles Gomillion, a professor at Tuskegee Institute, had watched as Alabama’s legislature redrew the city’s boundaries into a 28-sided figure—an act of cartographic violence designed to excise nearly all Black residents from the voting rolls surgically. Gomillion refused to accept this as mere politics. He saw it for what it was: a betrayal of democratic promise. In 1956, Gomillion, as President of the Tuskegee Civic League, filed a lawsuit to contest this electoral map. It took this case four years to wind its way to the Supreme Court. read more

Tuskegee Alumni Should Take Boycott Lessons From David Hogg

David Hogg, 18 years-old and a survivor of the Parkland High School Massacre can teach a thing or two to alumni of Tuskegee University about the art of the boycott.

Last month, Laura Ingraham, host of the Fox News Show, The Ingraham Angle mocked Hogg because he has been turned down by four colleges for fall admission.

Ingraham’s mock angered Hogg, so he resorted to a tactic skillfully used by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a modern day twist. He called for a boycott of Ingraham’s sponsors.

Nothing novel about calling for a boycott, as King was very successful in exercising the power of the boycott to bring about change.

Hogg issued his threat of a boycott from his twitter account, a megaphone that was not available during King’s lifetime.

From that one tweet, 11 advertisers on The Ingraham Angle have dropped Ingraham. It only took one tweet and one week for Ingraham to issue a public apology to Hogg.

Hogg declined to accept Ingraham’s apology.

Last month, Tuskegee alumni called for the replacement of John Page as chair of the Tuskegee University Board of Trustees.

The alumni argued an alum should chair the university’s board.

Floyd Griffin, an alum and the former secretary of the board decided to have his name placed into nomination for the chair position.

Griffin was supported by the Tuskegee National Alumni Association, The Concerned Tuskegee Alumni for Change, the Tuskegee Golden Tigers National Athletic Association and former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes.

On the day of the vote, Griffin was not able to gather support from other members of the board, including sufficient support from other alumni on the board, so he withdrew his consideration before nominations were received by the nomination committee. Also, all officers were re-elected to serve for another term, but not Griffin, he was removed as the board secretary.

The alumni were disappointed in the outcome. A few suggested that John Page’s company, Golden State Foods should be targeted for a boycott. Golden State Foods is a major supplier of hamburger meat and buns to McDonald’s.

McDonald’s is an easy target to boycott. But the alumni, older, more mature and armed with college degrees that Hogg can’t seem to get in position to acquire, voiced fears of Page if they called for a boycott of Golden State Foods or McDonald’s.

One alum expressed fear of bodily harm. A fear this alum believes is well-founded because of Page’s braggadocio about his hood upbringing in Brooklyn.

Others fear Page’s legal acumen. He has argued a case before the United States Supreme Court. They fear Page will sue them and take their personal possessions if his company is embarrassed by a boycott.

The Tuskegee alumni have spent two weeks debating their fears of physical harm and of being sued by Page and Golden State Foods as a reason not to use the most powerful negotiating tool at their disposal.

Meanwhile, in one tweet, young Mr. David Hogg has received a public apology from Ingraham. He has gotten his boycott. Ingraham is not suing and her sponsors are dropping like flies.

All the while, Page still controls the Tuskegee board, non alumni board members remain on the board without making any financial contribution to the university. The Tuskegee alumni are left to fret and stutter over a well established method to bring about change.

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist. He is a Contributor at The Hill, SCLC National Magazine, Southern Changes Magazine and Black College Nines. He can be contacted at hmharvey@haroldmichaelharvey.com

 

Griffin Withdraws Without a Fight-Skegee Alumni Angry

Floyd Griffin withdrew his attempt to replace John page as chairman of the Tuskegee Board of Trustees. His withdrawal left Skegee Alumni angry.

Griffin had promised to bring transparency to the board and to open up board meetings to members of the Skegee Alumni.

Skegee alumni rallied around Griffin in his desire to become chairman of the board of Trustees. They argued that Skegee was the only elite HBCU that did not have an alumnus as head of its board.

Today, Skegee still does not have a graduate as its chairperson. This honor remains with John Page, a graduate of two Historically White Institutions.

The alumni push for an alumnus as chair fell on deaf ears as members of the board were not in the mood to entertain the alumni position during lobbying efforts the first day of the Board’s spring meeting last week.

In a conversation with construction magnet H. Jerome Russell, CEO of H. J. Russell & Company the Skegee alumni were notified that there was no reason why an alumnus should be the chair of the board.

Russell is an alumnus of Georgia State University. He was asked to name the chairman of the GSU board of trustees. He could not name his alma mater’s chairperson.

Georgia public colleges and universities do not have boards of trustees. They are governed by the Board of Regent. But GSU does have a Foundation and Deepak Raghavan a 2009 graduate of GSU is the Chairman of the Georgia State University Foundation. Of the 41 members on the board, 25 are graduates. Tuskegee alumni numbers do not come anywhere close to GSU’s alumni representation on its board.

Russell acknowledged he was only on the board because his father the late Herman J. Russell, a Skegee alumni, had served on the board. He said he was reluctant to vote against Page because Page had brought him onto the board.

“I counted the noses,” Griffin, a veteran of Georgia politics said, “and the votes simply were not there. So I decided to withdraw before a vote was taken.”

Several alumni said they were not satisfied with either Griffin’s withdrawal or the outcome of the Trustees re-election of John Page.

According to several prominent alumni, since they were unable to get the ear of the Tuskegee Board of Trustees, they will seek to get the attention of Golden State Food Corporation, where John Page is employed as Senior Corporate Vice President, Chief Corporate Social Responsibility and Legal Officer.

The group is exploring a nationwide boycott and social media campaign against products distributed by Golden State Food Corp., until Page steps down as chair of the Tuskegee Board of Trustees.

GSF supplies meat and liquid products like ketchup and mustard to McDonalds and through a joint venture with Mid-South Bakery in Bryan, Texas supplies buns that are used by McDonald’s for its hamburgers.

Given the absence of nutritional value, McDonald’s is an easy target. Drive down the sales of quarter pounders and GSF has fewer beef patties and buns to distribute.

Mark S. Wetterau, Chair and CEO of the $50 billion company can expect to receive a deluge of letters bearing the tenor of those submitted to the Tuskegee Board detailing their dislike of Page and the intimation of threats he has made to alumni with his reference that he grew up in Brooklyn.

Soon Page will have to decide whether he likes his job more than he like being chair of the Tuskegee Board of Trustees, especially, given the fact, that a large contingent of alumni do not like him as their board chair.

One member added that Trustees like Russell should be placed on notice that a similar boycott of their business interests maybe the price they will have to pay to keep Skegee alumni locked out of the process of helping to maintain the legacy of the Pride of the Swift Growing South.

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist. He is a Contributor at The Hill, SCLC National Magazine, Southern Changes Magazine and Black College Nines. He can be contacted at hmharvey@haroldmichaelharvey.com

 

 

Alumni Trustees Key To Tuskegee Chairman Election

This week Floyd Griffin, a 1966 Tuskegee Institute graduate tossed his hat into the ring to become only the second Tuskegee alumni in the 137 year history of the “Pride of the Swift Growing South,” to serve as chair of its Board of Trustees.

Current board chair John Page is maneuvering to keep the board out of the hands of an experienced Tuskegee alumni when the second of his two-year terms expire later this month.

According to all indications, Page is ready to ditch the Trustee Board for the Tuskegee Foundation. However, to keep board leadership away from any experienced alumni on the board, Page is quietly supporting former Boeing executive, Norma Clayton, who currently serves the board as First Vice Chair.

Should Clayton receive the nomination of the nominating committee, it would present the Tuskegee Board of Trustees with an ethical dilemma because Clayton serves on this committee.

Early in the week when Griffin announced his intentions to seek the nomination from the floor, he cautioned the board not to nominate any elected officer of the board serving on the nominating committee.

Provided Tuskegee follows ethical standards in the selection of the nominees, this will also eliminate Tuskegee alumni Erick Harris, a gas and energy attorney in Oklahoma, who also serves on the nominating committee. Both Clayton and Harris are elected First Vice Chair of the Board.

It is clear that in a fair election,Tuskegee alumni on the Tuskegee University Board of Trustees are the balance of power when the board meets to elect a new board chairperson for the next two years.

There are 23 members on the Board of Trustees. Of this number only 20 have voting rights. Therefore it takes 11 votes to win the chair position. There are eight Tuskegee alumni with voting rights. Thus, the Tuskegee alumni trustees hold in their hands the keys to deciding who will become the next board chair.

What are Griffin’s strengths?

He is a combat tested soldier. As a 20 year-old, he flew helicopters in the Vietnam War following his graduation from Tuskegee. Griffin has unsuccessfully run for Lt. Governor of the state of Georgia, becoming the first Black person in the 20th century to seek that post, none have sought it since.

In 1994, he became one of the first Blacks to win a state senate seat in a rural majority white senatorial district in Georgia.

Later, Griffin was elected to represent his hometown, Milledgeville, Georgia as its mayor.

In addition to his building construction degree from Tuskegee, Griffin earned a degree in funeral service from Gupton Jones College. Last year Griffin retired as CEO of Slater Funeral Home in Milledgeville, Georgia.

In 2009, Griffin published his autobiography,Legacy to Legend: Winners Make it Happen.

Griffin lives in Milledgeville, Georgia with his wife of 51 years Nathalie Huffman Griffin. The couple met as student on the campus at Tuskegee.

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist. He is a Contributor at The Hill, SCLC National Magazine, Southern Changes Magazine and Black College Nines. He can be contacted at hmharvey@haroldmichaelharvey.com

 

An Explosion of Violence near Tuskegee U

Why is there so much recent violence near the campus of Tuskegee University?

Forty-six years ago today, I set foot on this historic campus in pursuit of a degree in political science. I can’t recall anyone dying from gunshot wounds during my three years on campus. I can’t recall a single student fight. There may have been some down on the football field during pre-season drills, but no altercations between students or between a non-student and a student.

The only deaths I recall from the early 70s were a male student who died in his sleep after a night of heavy drinking and the female nursing student who went missing and turned up dead in the woods. The facts of these incidents were quickly swept under the rug. The student population went on their merry way feeling secure within the unlocked Lincoln Gates.

Members of the public always came onto to campus to hang out. Some would later enroll in a degree granting program, but there was not any noticeable tension between guys from the city of Tuskegee and the student body.

Something has happened!

Since 2013, there has been a noticeable increase in violence on or near the campus of Tuskegee University. Students have been the victims of some of this violence, as well as the perpetrators of some of this mayhem.

Much of this violence has happened or started at off campus locations and spilled onto campus. At least one campus shooting started and ended there. In April 2015, the university invited the Atlanta hip-hop rapper Young Thug to perform on campus. It is well known, that Young Thug’s entourage is in mortal combat with a rival hip-hop artist in the Atlanta community and fights usually break out at his concerts.

So this group showed up at Young Thug’s concert in the Daniel Chappie James Arena. Several fights broke-out inside the arena. The fights spilled over onto the outside where at least one non-student was shot. Also, that night, several members of the women’s basketball team fought with a female student from Birmingham and for a time, continued to threaten this student through social media posts. I have the screenshots of these threats.

This past April, two male students were shot in the parking lot of their campus dormitory by a fellow student after leaving an altercation with the shooter, their classmate, at an off-campus location.

This week’s murder of a n0n-student on the edge of the grassy mall between Logan hall and Armstrong Hall was a continuation of an argument that started in the Burger King about a mile and a half away. This fight continued past the Grey Columns which houses the president and his family behind a secure wrought iron fence, and ended just close enough to Alabama State Highway 126 that university officials could state with a straight face,  the shooting happened off campus.

This shooting was too close for comfort as the Zetas were hosting their annual beginning of school party in Logan Hall in an area bounded by the Fissell Library on one side and Armstrong Hall on the other. Members of the student community could have easily been wounded by stray bullets. Thankfully, none were. But a 2013 incident between rival Tuskegee gangs, about 100 yards from where this shooting occurred, took the life of BJ Smith, a very popular student-athlete.

While I was working on this story, a parent called to tell me that a member of the football team was dismissed from school this week because a gun was found in his room. This parent’s child reports that guns are numerous on Tuskegee’s campus.

These are indeed violent times in which we live. It would not be reasonable to expect that Tuskegee University would be immuned from the violence that is running wild in the larger community.

There are a couple of things unique to the Tuskegee experience that makes security more problematical than at other universities. For instance, designated status of certain Tuskegee properties as National Historic Sites makes it almost impossible to exclude the public from coming on campus and the fact that Alabama State Highway 126 runs through the campus permits direct public access.

Furthermore, given the fact that during the August commencement exercise, Tuskegee’s president Brian Johnson, told a Wall Street Journal reporter, that he enrolls a large number of people that he knows lack the educational tools to successfully obtain a degree from Tuskegee University; and without any programs in place to help them become successful, compounds the campuses’ security concerns.

Correspondingly, this knowledge of his pool of students, should tell the university that more should be done to ensure the socialization, in terms of conflict resolution, of such a student population.  Additionally, it is probably a good idea not to bring onto campus entertainers who agitate for violence during their concerts.

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.

 

 

 

Two Students Shot at Tuskegee

CASCADE PRESS (CP)Tuskegee Institute, Alabama:Two students were shot today at Tuskegee University, according to the Office of Communications, Public Relations and Marketing.

According to the university, two”students have sustained injuries and are being treated at area medical facilities.” Without identifying the campus location of the shooting, the university states the shooting took “place in a residence hall parking lot on the TU (Tuskegee University) campus.”

This shooting incident occurred between 3:30 a. m.- 4:00 a. m., according to the university announcement.

Last year a visitor to the campus was shot following a concert on campus where the hip-hop artist Young Thug had performed. At the time Cascade Press reported that the person shot was a student. The university would never confirm this information.

Two months ago, the Macon County Sheriff’s office confirmed that a shooting had occurred on the Tuskegee University campus following the Young Thug performance, but the individual shot was not enrolled at the university.

According to witnesses who responded to our story about last year’s shooting, the shooter was a resident of Auburn, Alabama. No one was ever arrested for this campus shooting.

In last night’s shooting, both the campus police with assistance from local law enforcement authorities have identified a suspect, but at this time have not released the suspect’s name or motive to the public.

According to a member of the Board of Trustees, authorities have apprehended a suspect in last night’s shooting. The suspect is a male Tuskegee University student. This Board member states that the suspect did not live on campus, but that the two students who were shot in the parking lot of the Commons residence hall on campus were students.

The two students injured in this attack were shot with a shot gun. Their injuries,  according to our sources and the university’s communication’s office, are not believed to be life threatening.

Cascade Press has learned that the two students injured in this attack were returning to their dormitory from an off campus party, where an altercation had occurred between them and the shooter. The two injured students left the party. The shooter followed the two men back to their residence on campus, and he opened fire upon them in the parking lot.

The university has been cleared from an active shooter situation.

SOURCES:

Original Interview a member of the Tuskegee Board of Trustees

Tuskegee Student Shot

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.

 

Tuskegee Turning Corner on Woes

Tuskegee University, in the words of the poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar, “is the Pride of the Swift Growing South.” This representation has been tarnished of late with several missteps following the 2010 retirement of Andrew Felton Brimmer, its long time Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Brimmer, an economist and the first African American to serve as a governor on the Federal Reserve Board, ended forty years of service on the Tuskegee Board at the same time that the university’s fifth president, Benjamin Payton was retiring.

It was thought that Payton had left the university in good financial standing, but, according to a team of researchers, led by Attorney Oliver Hunter, of the Atlanta Tuskegee Alumni Club, documents on file with the federal government indicate that Payton raised money by taking out bank loans which are now coming due. These loans have created a financial burden on the university.

Brimmer hand picked as his successor  Board Chair, Retired Major General Charles E. Williams. Williams, a Tuskegee grad, developed a representation for managing shoddy construction projects around the globe on behalf of the United States government, according to the New York Times and the Washington Post.  Critics say Williams’ construction projects used substandard materials, thereby increasing profits for the contractors he employed, but leaving the U. S. with buildings that were not functional over the long haul.

“I think the key to us turning things around at Tuskegee has to do with the fact that we were able to get rid of Charles Williams,”  a trustee board member said in a recent telephone interview.

The board member went on to say, “Williams meddled too much in the day to day operations of the school. This is one of the things that SAC had a problem with us.”

This board member was alluding to a recent SAC warning notice the university received last year. It was the first time in the 135 year history of the prestigious school that it had received a warning notice from its accreditation agency. The university’s response to the SAC warning notice is due next month.

“I think we are in good shape in the response that we will file with SAC. We have implemented some changes with governance that had caused some concerns. We have amended our bylaws to reflect some of these changes. It is hard to believe, but we found that we have some processes in place that were instituted by Booker T. Washington. So we amended our rules and brought them into the 21st century, the board member said. Now as a matter of policy all senior level university firings and hiring must be vetted by the Board.”

One noticeable change occurred this month following a February board meeting on campus, the Board for the first time in its history released a report of its meeting with a detailed list of items discussed.  The lack of transparency had been a bone of contention with many alumni groups throughout the country and last month led to the Atlanta Tuskegee Alumni Club issuing a vote of no confidence on both the university President, Brian Johnson and the entire Board of Trustees.

According to this board member, “We finally got President Johnson under control. He is cooperating with the Board. We are pleased with all of the concerns expressed by alumni throughout the country because it has helped us to get to the good place where we are today.”

Tuskegee, still striving to be the “Pride of the Swift Growing South.”

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.

 

Tuskegee Ousts Board Chair

TUSKEGEE, ALABAMA, CASCADE PRESS (CP) Sources close to the Tuskegee Board of Trustees have reported to the CP that the Board of Trustees at prestigious Tuskegee University removed Charles “Chuck” Williams as chairman of the Board. Williams had been the chairman of the Board since 2010 when he replaced long time board chairman Andrew Brimmer.

Williams was an undergraduate student at Tuskegee. He went on to have a distinguished career in the military. He obtained the rank of General. He came to the Tuskegee Board with a checkered career in the business world.

The CP in an article titled Who Runs Tuskegee outlined the details of allegations that followed Williams to his position on the Tuskegee Board of Trustees.

See https://haroldmichaelharvey.com/2015/03/24/who-runs-tuskegee/

Our sources indicate that the decision to remove Williams occurred today around 1:30 pm Central Standard Time. This information has been confirmed by two sources inside the Tuskegee Board of Trustees. According to these sources, Williams was replaced by John Page and that Norma Clayton was elevated to the position of First Vice Chair. Tuskegee has never had a woman to serve as the chairperson of its Board of Trustees.

Reasons for the ouster were not immediately known, but last spring the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) gave the school a warning notice because of the university’s inability to properly submit information to the accreditation commission.

Additionally, an alumni group organized a petition on change.org calling for the removal of  first year President Brian Johnson. Also, this week a student organizing the entertainment for Homecoming tweeted that Homecoming was being cancelled allegedly because President Johnson would not release student fees from the general fund to pay for the groups they had contracted with to perform at Homecoming. Proponents for the dismissal of President Johnson believed that Williams hand selected Johnson and was Johnson’s first line of defense in keeping his job.

One Tuskegee alumni who was part of the change.org petition to remove President Johnson said, “This is the best news since Barack Obama won the presidency. God shined on Mother Tuskegee today.”

This is a developing story and we will provide additional details as they become available.

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.

 

Lt. Spann Was A Change Agent

CARROLLTON, TEXAS, CASCADE PRESS (CP) Lieutenant Calvin J. Spann was a change agent. Spann did not set out to become a change agent. As a teenager growing up in Rutherford, New Jersey in the 1930s, he just wanted to fly airplanes. Little did he know his dream of becoming a pilot would change the course of a war. The winds of which were beginning to stir in Europe, or that his dream would lead to wider acceptance of black Americans by their government.

What is  a change agent? According to study.com, a “Change Agent is a person from inside or outside the organization who helps an organization transform itself by focusing on such matters as organizational effectiveness, improvement, and development.”

In 1943, Spann learned that he had scored higher than any applicant who had taken a math and science test administered by the US Army to persons seeking to become pilots. Before his senior high school class could graduate, Spann was summoned to report to Fort Dix, New Jersey for induction into the US Army, presumably to become a fighter pilot. He had just turned 19 years of age. Spann made arrangements for a younger sister to accept his high school diploma on his behalf and reported to duty.

When Spann reported for induction into the Army, recruiters realized that he was black. It had never dawned on the white recruiters that the person with the highest score could be anyone other than a white person.  In 1943, the Army, like all of American life – South and North – was segregated. In spite of Spann’s superior intellectual ability he was denied admission into this segregated white Army unit.

But all was not lost. In 1928, when Spann was four years old, Robert Russo Moton, who in 1915 succeeded Booker T. Washington as President of Tuskegee Institute, dedicated  500 acres of Institute land for the development of an airstrip to be used to train black pilots. In 1939, at the dawn of the War in Europe, Tuskegee Institute began a pilot training program with federal funds from the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA).

By 1941, the Army had moved into Tuskegee Institute (although they probably were already there) and created a pathway for black pilots to earn their military wings. In 1943, Tuskegee Institute was the perfect place to dispatch Spann and to maintain the myth of racial superiority inherent in American culture in that day.

On the first Sunday in September 2015, the sun did an unusual thing. It radiated a stream of light or consciousness, through the window of Spann’s living room in Allen, Texas.  Dressed in his Tuskegee Airmen cap and draped in his “Tuskegee Red” blazer, a  big smile appeared on his face.  He drew his last breath. He got a new pair of wings.

Then the radiating light danced out of the window. It danced like Spann often said he had danced in ’44 when he got his wings and became not only a Tuskegee Airman, but a US Army Airman.

In nearly 91 years, Spann’s commitment to a dream of flying airplanes caused America to integrate its armed forces, forced her, in time, to come to terms with her subliminal racism and put to the lie, the notion that black men and women are inferior in intelligence to other Americans.

Long live the legacy of Calvin J. Spann. Long live the spirit of the Tuskegee Airmen.

 

Harold Michael Harvey, is the author of the legal thriller “Paper Puzzle,” and “Justice in the Round: Essays on the American Jury System,” available at Amazon and at haroldmichaelharvey.com. He can be contacted at hmharvey@haroldmichaelharvey.com 

 

SOURCES:

http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2563#sthash.gosmOp2j.dpuf

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Tuskegee-Airman-Calvin-Spann-Laid-to-Rest-in-Carrollton-327135021.html