Summers of Hate

When our class left Harvard," Suzanne R. Garment '67 says, "the country was in a state of urban crisis."

"Today," Garment says, the state of civil rights is "both better and worse."

Better, perhaps, because of the post-Voting Rights Act entry of many Blacks into the electorate, the growth of the Black middle and professional classes and the end of state-sanctioned discrimination in the South.

Worse, perhaps, because of what hasn't changed in 25 years. The class of'67 watched Watts burn the summer after its sophomore year, only to watch South Central burn just a month before its return to Cambridge this week. The Black underclass--like all people living in poverty in America--is now poorer, less educated and more likely to commit crime than 25 years ago.

As Garment, an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Resident Scholar, says, in some areas, "our problems are much deeper and more resistant than almost any of us imagined."

Garment's attitude was echoed last week by many of her classmates.

"Poverty, the absence of opportunity--the problems are vast," says Linda C. Dalton '67, now a professor of urban planning in California. "Now, even the ethnic mix itself is more complicated. It's a multiracial and more class-based problem."

And two questions--whom to blame and what to do next--now seem to be retaking the national stage they once dominated in the days of the Kerner Commission, the War on Poverty and the voter registration movement in the South.

Twenty-five years ago, the class of'67 did not answer these specific questions with one voice. But class members indicate that, on the broader issues of civil rights, they were in agreement.

"The class was extremely civil rights-minded and activist," says Richard Blumenthal '67, currently the Attorney General of Connecticut. "I re- call that for a number of marches in the South,busloads of Harvard students went down."

"The country was in the middle of a very broadand deep evil," Boston Globe columnist Thomas N.Oliphant '67 says. "Public opinion...had swungtotally against segregation."

Today, however, the evil that focused the classand the nation on civil rights has been confused.In the '60s, Southern white violence againstBlacks brought to public attention what GunnarMyrdal called the "American dilemma"--the conflictbetween America's democratic values and itstreatment of Blacks.

Several '67 alumni specifically remembered the1963 Birmingham, Ala. march in which Eugene "Bull"Connor unleashed dogs on Black children. Classmembers say this event, which happened duringtheir first year at the College, illustrated thatdilemma in a startling way.

But now, the clear-cut nature of the civilrights struggle has been muddled by thedifficulties of fighting poverty anddiscrimination in a tight economy.

Many in the class say Americans feel ambivalentabout affirmative action, which is seen asunfairly favoring one group in a supposedlymeritocratic society. Political rhetoric about"special interests" has only exacerbated theconfusion.

"We had the exhilaration of doing somethingright," says Harold A. McDougall '67, formerpresident of the campus Civil Rights CoordinatingCommittee, and author of the forthcoming BeyondCivil Rights. "That's not the paradigm fortoday."

Indeed, the national debate now surroundingcivil rights is increasingly focused on a yeastynew center, staked out most recently by The NewRepublic, which rejects as non-solutions bothRepublican commitments to law and order andDemocratic commitments to welfare state policies.

"The issues today are really more class issues,and they are harder for people to get hold of,"says Patricia A. Wynn '67, an associate judge withthe Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Still, many '67 alumni urge Americans not toforget the successes of the civil rights movement.

"For 40 percent of Blacks in the United States,the civil rights movement was an extraordinaryleap forward," says Robert H. Abzug '67, a formervolunteer with the Student Nonviolent CoordinatingCommittee (SNCC) who is now a professor of historyand American studies at the University of Texas inAustin.

"The civil rights movement had a profoundimpact on people like me," says McDougall, who isBlack.

Aside from an aunt, McDougall was the first inhis family to attend any college. When he came toHarvard, he recalls, "there was a total of about60 people of African descent" at the entireUniversity.

Still, McDougall says that among this groupwere "some incredibly intelligentmentors"--including the first Black woman toattend the Law School and an undergraduate fromZanzibar who participated in the revolution there.

"We had access to the vanguard of the civilrights movement," he says.

McDougall spent the summer of 1965 with SNCCregistering Blacks to vote about 30 miles fromTuscaloosa, Ala., then the headquarters of the KuKlux Klan.

The work was slow, marred by resistance andintimidation from white registrars and publicofficials and by the economic and psychologicalbarriers to voting in the rural Black community.

"We were really on the fringes out there,"McDougall says. In fact, SNCC's efforts throughoutthe South would only net hundreds of voters overseveral years. After the Voting Rights Act waspassed in August of 1965, thousands joined thevoter rolls in a few months.

"This was really the amazing time [for civilrights]--a turning point," says Abzug.

But only six days after Congress passed thevoting rights legislation--legislation thatempowered the federal government to overseeSouthern voting procedures for the first timesince Reconstruction--rioting broke out in Watts.

"[Watts] was totally foreign to the experienceof anyone born after World War II," Oliphant says."It came at a time when tremendous victoriesseemed to be happening for civil rights."

At the same time, the civil rights movementitself was breaking up into younger, angrier BlackPower proponents and the more moderate NAACPlawyers and civil rights workers.

After Watts ended and the Black Power movementbegan, McDougall says, "most of the [whites in themovement] were still very supportive but wereworried that they were not wanted, that theircontributions were not needed."

If whites were feeling partially excluded fromthe movement at Harvard, Blacks had to face muchdeeper exclusion still institutionalized at theschool.

The University was slow to change a variety ofdiscriminatory policies. This year's 25thAnniversary Report shows fewer than a dozenBlack faces. Women were not allowed to study inLamont Library until 1966, and then only becausethe University was refurbishing Hilles.

Jews were not allowed to hold religiousservices in Memorial Church until the fall of1966. And the Spee Club admitted the first Blackstudent to a final club only in 1966.

Still, McDougall says, "the assumption" amongcivil rights workers at the College "was that itwas a good place...At that time, our criticism ofsociety never turned on Harvard. After I left, thecritical eye of the movement turned inward."

"Harvard was not a racist place," Oliphantrecalls, "but it didn't open itself quickly. In ahalting way, it was moving forward."

"We would have said 25 years ago thatB-7HATECrimson File PhotosClear-cut civil rights issues in the '60shave yielded today to controversy surroundingprograms like affirmative action.

"The country was in the middle of a very broadand deep evil," Boston Globe columnist Thomas N.Oliphant '67 says. "Public opinion...had swungtotally against segregation."

Today, however, the evil that focused the classand the nation on civil rights has been confused.In the '60s, Southern white violence againstBlacks brought to public attention what GunnarMyrdal called the "American dilemma"--the conflictbetween America's democratic values and itstreatment of Blacks.

Several '67 alumni specifically remembered the1963 Birmingham, Ala. march in which Eugene "Bull"Connor unleashed dogs on Black children. Classmembers say this event, which happened duringtheir first year at the College, illustrated thatdilemma in a startling way.

But now, the clear-cut nature of the civilrights struggle has been muddled by thedifficulties of fighting poverty anddiscrimination in a tight economy.

Many in the class say Americans feel ambivalentabout affirmative action, which is seen asunfairly favoring one group in a supposedlymeritocratic society. Political rhetoric about"special interests" has only exacerbated theconfusion.

"We had the exhilaration of doing somethingright," says Harold A. McDougall '67, formerpresident of the campus Civil Rights CoordinatingCommittee, and author of the forthcoming BeyondCivil Rights. "That's not the paradigm fortoday."

Indeed, the national debate now surroundingcivil rights is increasingly focused on a yeastynew center, staked out most recently by The NewRepublic, which rejects as non-solutions bothRepublican commitments to law and order andDemocratic commitments to welfare state policies.

"The issues today are really more class issues,and they are harder for people to get hold of,"says Patricia A. Wynn '67, an associate judge withthe Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Still, many '67 alumni urge Americans not toforget the successes of the civil rights movement.

"For 40 percent of Blacks in the United States,the civil rights movement was an extraordinaryleap forward," says Robert H. Abzug '67, a formervolunteer with the Student Nonviolent CoordinatingCommittee (SNCC) who is now a professor of historyand American studies at the University of Texas inAustin.

"The civil rights movement had a profoundimpact on people like me," says McDougall, who isBlack.

Aside from an aunt, McDougall was the first inhis family to attend any college. When he came toHarvard, he recalls, "there was a total of about60 people of African descent" at the entireUniversity.

Still, McDougall says that among this groupwere "some incredibly intelligentmentors"--including the first Black woman toattend the Law School and an undergraduate fromZanzibar who participated in the revolution there.

"We had access to the vanguard of the civilrights movement," he says.

McDougall spent the summer of 1965 with SNCCregistering Blacks to vote about 30 miles fromTuscaloosa, Ala., then the headquarters of the KuKlux Klan.

The work was slow, marred by resistance andintimidation from white registrars and publicofficials and by the economic and psychologicalbarriers to voting in the rural Black community.

"We were really on the fringes out there,"McDougall says. In fact, SNCC's efforts throughoutthe South would only net hundreds of voters overseveral years. After the Voting Rights Act waspassed in August of 1965, thousands joined thevoter rolls in a few months.

"This was really the amazing time [for civilrights]--a turning point," says Abzug.

But only six days after Congress passed thevoting rights legislation--legislation thatempowered the federal government to overseeSouthern voting procedures for the first timesince Reconstruction--rioting broke out in Watts.

"[Watts] was totally foreign to the experienceof anyone born after World War II," Oliphant says."It came at a time when tremendous victoriesseemed to be happening for civil rights."

At the same time, the civil rights movementitself was breaking up into younger, angrier BlackPower proponents and the more moderate NAACPlawyers and civil rights workers.

After Watts ended and the Black Power movementbegan, McDougall says, "most of the [whites in themovement] were still very supportive but wereworried that they were not wanted, that theircontributions were not needed."

If whites were feeling partially excluded fromthe movement at Harvard, Blacks had to face muchdeeper exclusion still institutionalized at theschool.

The University was slow to change a variety ofdiscriminatory policies. This year's 25thAnniversary Report shows fewer than a dozenBlack faces. Women were not allowed to study inLamont Library until 1966, and then only becausethe University was refurbishing Hilles.

Jews were not allowed to hold religiousservices in Memorial Church until the fall of1966. And the Spee Club admitted the first Blackstudent to a final club only in 1966.

Still, McDougall says, "the assumption" amongcivil rights workers at the College "was that itwas a good place...At that time, our criticism ofsociety never turned on Harvard. After I left, thecritical eye of the movement turned inward."

"Harvard was not a racist place," Oliphantrecalls, "but it didn't open itself quickly. In ahalting way, it was moving forward."

"We would have said 25 years ago thatB-7HATECrimson File PhotosClear-cut civil rights issues in the '60shave yielded today to controversy surroundingprograms like affirmative action.