Black Alumni, Students Gather

Ninety two year old Warmoth I. Gibbs '17 last night told a group of Black undergraduates clustered around him that times had changed since he came to Harvard from Baldwin Louisiana at age fifteen.

"I never saw so many Black faces in four years as I see now," said Gibbs, who was one of ten Black students in his class.

Gibbs is among one hundred Black Harvard alumni who have returned to Cambridge this weekend to participate in a program sponsored by a coalition of several Black students organizations on campus.

We want undergraduates and alumni to make connections and for its all to see that there is a history of Black students at Harvard" said Valerie Barton '86, a member of the Association of Black Radcliffe Women who helped to coordinate the weekend.

Changing Times

After a reception in Phillips Brooks House last night, alumni and undergraduates gathered in the Science Center, where a panel discussed the changes in the Harvard experience for Black students.

"In the forties, those of us who were here studiously avoided congregating together Integration was the way to go," said Barbara F. Scruggs '51, a speaker who was one of three Blacks in her class.

Panel participant Kenneth E. Reeves '72 said that the mid-sixties saw a significant change in the background and attitudes of Black students at Harvard.

"Harvard had invited into its ivy walls a new group of Blacks, from the working class, from regular old houses with regular old mothers and fathers," explained Reeves.

"If you were here, you had to be political, we asked what are you going to do for the Black folk?"

Today's Undergraduates

Reacting to Reeves' emotional description of Black student solidarity during his years at Harvard. Timothy A. Wilkins '86, president of the Black Students Association, said. "We want to link arms, but the problem is, what do we rise up to attack?"

"We're glad you came because we need to have role models," Wilkins told the alumni in the audience. "Over the weekend we'll be like sponges on you, trying to seep knowledge out of you."

Although there are now about 100 Black undergraduates in each Harvard class, "Being Black is still new," according to Frettra M. Miller '85, a resident of Winthrop House.

Reeves spoke of his involvement with Afro, the Black student movement that first demanded Harvard's divestment of stock in companies doing business in South Africa, and took over University Hall for a week in 1969.

An alumnus who had been president of Afro in the late sixties, Skip Griffin '70, in an interview prior to the forum said he is disappointed with the progress the University has made with the the Department of Afro-American Studies, established in the wake of protest that his group led.

Today's events, open to the general public, include panel discussions on minority admissions, career opportunities, and community activism, and a cultural show at the Agassiz Theatre