Alums Trace Radcliffe's Black History

A panel of four black female alums discussed the evolution of the black community at Harvard and Radcliffe—from demographics to dating—Friday as part of a conference to celebrating the 60th anniversary of Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library (Please see related story, below).

A’Lelia P. Bundles ’74, great-granddaughter and biographer of trailblazing black entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and a former president of the Radcliffe Association, moderated the lunch discussion, “Being Black at Radcliffe: A Multigenerational Discussion.”

The panelists, Adele Logan Alexander ’59, Susan McHenry ’72, Angela Romans ’92 and Gail Snowden ’67, spoke about how being black at Harvard and Radcliffe has changed over the years and their experiences as a minority.

Alexander, a professor of history at George Washington University, said she believes she was the first second-generation black Radcliffe student.

Her aunt attended Radcliffe at the beginning of the 20th century, but Alexander said she was not allowed to live in the dorms because of her skin color.

“My mother went to BU and my father went to Williams, so nowhere but Massachusetts, preferably Cambridge, would do for their daughter’s education,” Alexander said.

Snowden, now executive vice president at Fleet Bank, said her mother was also at first forced to live off campus in Cambridge because she was black.

“My grandmother called the school and said she was not sending my mother here for a social life, so she lived on campus sophomore year,” she said.

Alexander said that in her junior year when she had the opportunity to contribute to the Hasty Pudding Club’s production, she declined because they would not accept black members, including her fiancé.

“If the crass and racist Hasty Pudding Club would not accept him, then they couldn’t have my talents either,” she said.

McHenry, founding editor of Black Issues Book Review and former editor of Ms. magazine, led a sit-in of 29 women while an undergraduate because she felt Radcliffe wasn’t making enough of an effort to recruit black women to be students.

McHenry said that the protesters—decked out in their best earrings—confronted Radcliffe President Mary I. Bunting at Fay House when she came back from a trip to Duke.

She said the sit-in pushed Bunting to commit $5,000 to outreach efforts and to recruit a black administrator.

The question and answer period at the end of the lunch opened the discussion up to current issues facing the black community at Harvard.

Desirée L. Lyle ’02, an audience member, said that the current body of black students at Harvard is divided between those that are from African countries and those whose family is from the U.S.

“That change has made the black community so much more divided,” she said. “There’s a thought that black Americans aren’t good enough—you have to be an immigrant. It’s a new issue that’s emerging now.”

Valerie R. Dixon ’01 said that Harvard’s statistics on the number of black students at the College are misleading because black students come from disparate backgrounds.

“Individual students have the frustration of not having people to relate to,” she said. “I would relate more to my Midwestern white friends than to my black classmates.”

The alums also addressed how the dating scene at Harvard has changed for black women.

“I guess all the black guys had the book of pictures, so we [Radcliffe women] never wanted for dates,” Snowden said.

Romans, now associate director of admissions at Brown, said that during her years at Harvard there were a lot of discussions about interracial dating because there were 90 black women and only 48 black men—encouraging black women to consider dating people of other races.

“Discussions of interracial dating came up and there were some really tough conversations,” she said. “Were we just going to sit in our rooms?”