THE ROUTE TO DIVERSITY

In 1968, John Maguire and Professor of Government Vose served as advisers when plans were set in motion for the Martin Luther King Jr. Library, which became the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Social Change in Atlanta.  Macguire chaired the King Center's first board in 1968-69, and when his daughter was born in 1968, she was named Anne King Maguire.  Twentyeven years later, her son was named for Andrew Young.

John Maguire Hoy's effort to recruit [the Black students] was nationwide in scope. These students were not just northern urban poor, these were kids from everywhere around the country. Some were fairly rough diamonds, and we knew from the start that they would need special academic support, but it proved to me that if you provide supplementary support mechanisms, then young people like these just flourish. It was an enormous success from that point of view.

I became a strong proponent of the creativity of tension. Looking back, it did three things: it raised consciousness, it changed attitudes, and it shattered stereotypes. That's really the passage I thought Wesleyan had to undergo. Despite all the storm and clamor, I was very proud of Wesleyan, because in those years Wesleyan was way out ahead, taking racial and social justice issues very seriously.

Wesleyan was criticized as being unprepared for this move.

Show me anyone who did it better! No university was prepared at that time. I know we tackled it first and I think some of the things we had to go through were the result of being the first one to do them. Working with other New England colleges, we did a lot of show and tell and helped each other out, but I think it was recognized from the start that Wesleyan was the pioneer, the advance guard. Of course we could have been better prepared.

The overnight integration of the armed forces is my example of how you effect social change. You just say, "By God, we're going to do it," and you do it. You struggle with the fall-out later. If we'd waited for majority approval, we'd still be sitting here. 

Wesleyan and Middletown: A Vital Connection

The city of Middletown had long had a viable black community, although the numbers were not significant until after World War II, when an influx from the South occurred. Little town-gown interchange occurred beyond the annual campus Halloween and Christmas parties, which were open to all Middletown children.

With the changing political awareness of the early '60s, however, interaction increased between the communities. In 1961, a study of "Housing Conditions of Negroes in Middletown" was carried out by the Middletown Negro Study Group--composed of Wesleyan faculty and students working with townspeople--in conjunction with the Middletown branch of the NAACP. This study documented the housing conditions, economic status, educational attainment, and social attitudes of blacks in Cromwell, Middletown, and Portland. It also documented the need for a tutorial program.

 The urgings of the Negro Study Group were answered in March of 1962 with the creation of the Middletown-Wesleyan Tutorial Program. Willard McRae, an administrator at Middlesex Memorial Hospital and the first black elected to the Middletown Common Council, and Beckham, who had returned to Wesleyan in 1961 to teach, started it and became co-directors of the program. They worked with student leaders John Meeker '66, Fred O'Dell '65, and Bill Roberts '63. The purpose was to encourage black high-school students to attend college and to help them prepare academically. Twenty undergraduates, many from Delta Tau Delta, were the first volunteers--untrained and inexperienced, but enthusiastic and dedicated.

 Operating on a shoestring budget, the tutorial program gradually grew into a permanent resource for junior high and high school students. The Wesleyan students later enlisted a cadre of faculty wives to conduct College Board preparation classes.

 In the fall of 1964, a black organization, the Goodwill Men's Club in Middletown, donated its facility for four days a week to be used by the tutorial program as a reading and study center. Fraternity pledges scrubbed and painted the meeting room; students added a blackboard; used card tables served as desks. Fred O'Dell and Edgar Beckham were joined as teachers by four students from Wesleyan's MAT program.

 McRae, the frequent adviser and guide to Wesleyan students volunteering in Middletown, also was instrumental in establishing an Upward Bound program that operated under the University's umbrella. Today Upward Bound continues to flourish and recently celebrated its thirty-fifth anniversary. Regarded nationally as a model program, it has had outstanding success increasing the numbers of Middletown area students from underrepresented groups who go on to college. McRae is still a sponsor and adviser with the program.

  As the campus became politically more active in the '60s, so did the town, creating more links and laying the foundation for later cooperation between African-American organizations at the college and in Middletown.