Tufts Community Remembers Gerald GillGerald Gill leaves behind a legacy of teaching and research that enriched the lives of students for more than 25 years. Medford/Somerville, Mass. [08.13.07] The Tufts community continues to mourn the loss of Gerald Gill, an associate professor of history who served as a friend and mentor to many.
Video of Gill memorial services
In Tribute Associate Professor of Music John McDonald composed a piano piece entitled "Quiet Moan" in Gill's honor. The piece uses the first few notes of the melody from the spiritual "We Shall Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death." This version, which also includes a piano version of the spiritual that inspired the piece, was recorded in Distler Hall at the Granoff Music Center on Aug. 3, 2007. John McDonald - Quiet Moan (streaming MP3 | download MP3, 4.9MB, 5:15) A Legacy of Scholarship A shorter version of Gill's article "Another Light on the Hill: A Brief History of Black Students at Tufts, 1900-the Present," ran in the spring 2002 issue of Tufts Magazine. The full text is reproduced below: The struggle for educational opportunities has been one of the central topics in the history of African-Americans in the United States. Whether as enslaved persons or free persons in the ante-bellum period or as citizens of the republic after the Civil War, African-Americans strove first to learn how to read and to write and then to gain access to both public and private educational institutions on a non-segregated and non-discriminatory basis. In pursuit of such opportunities, a small number of free blacks were admitted to and graduated from selected northern colleges before the Civil War. While the names of students who attended schools such as Middlebury, Amherst, Bowdoin and Oberlin have been recorded as "famous firsts" in African-American history, the experiences of black undergraduates--at predominantly white institutions as well as historically black institutions--over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have not been extensively documented. Although the vast majority of African-American leaders and professionals, past and present, has graduated from the traditionally black colleges, black graduates from "northern" or from "mixed" schools emerged as leaders and spokespersons on behalf of African-Americans. Yet, attention has generally been paid to black graduates of Ivy League institutions or large, state-supported institutions in the Midwest. Still, smaller, private institutions in the Northeast (schools other than Middlebury, Bowdoin and Amherst) were prominent among those institutions that allowed black students to matriculate. One such institution was Tufts College (later Tufts University) which provided educational opportunities to black students as early as the 1900s, if not decades earlier. Although individual black alumni of Tufts have been duly recognized for their on-campus accomplishments, the overall experiences of black students, past and present, have largely remained unrecorded. This brief essay seeks to highlight the experiences of black students at Tufts over the course of the twentieth century. While they sought to take advantage of a Tufts education, black undergraduates were not content solely with being allowed to matriculate. African-American students at Tufts have excelled in the classroom and on the athletic field, have played leading roles in a wide range of campus organizations, and have involved themselves in on-campus as well as off-campus efforts to improve race relations and to establish cultural and social programs for both black students and the entire campus community. Their accomplishments have not been limited solely to the Tufts campus. In their later careers and professions, black alumni have distinguished themselves and have brought national and international acclaim to themselves and to their alma mater. While evidence, albeit scant, does suggest that black students may have been enrolled at Tufts College during the late nineteenth century, it has not been firmly established as to the year in which the first black student enrolled at the Medford campus or the year in which the first black student graduated from the college. For, as W.E.B Du Bois noted in 1910, Tufts was an institution that had "sent forth Negro graduates of power and efficiency," although the Medford School did not keep "any record of race or nationality of [its] graduates." The first black graduate identified was Forrester Washington, a native of Salem, MA and a member of the Class of 1909. While Washington would later go on to achieve prominence as a social worker, National Urban League official, Dean of the Atlanta University School of Social Work, and as a member of the Black Cabinet during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, there is no mention in university publications of his undergraduate experiences. Shortly after Washington's graduation, James A. Jeffress did enroll as a member of the Class of 1915. Like a number of the early black students to attend Tufts before 1960, Jeffress was a resident of West Medford. Jeffress was a math major who would later become a secondary-school teacher, but little is known of his on-campus experiences. Although Jeffress may have been the only black undergraduate on campus, several of the black professional and graduate students took part in campus activities, particularly on sports teams. As professional students were not barred from inter-collegiate sports, black students from the School of Dentistry did play varsity football in the pre-and immediate post-World War One years. The decade of the 1920s, according to historian Raymond Wolters, saw the emergence of the "New Negro on campus." Whereas the total number of black students on college campuses nationwide in the 1910s averaged less than 1500 yearly, there was a marked increase in the 1920s as the sons and daughters of a small but emergent middle class began to enroll in institutions of higher education. Tufts was no exception;for at least one and sometimes two black students enrolled in most entering classes. Beginning with Madeline Bernard, (Jackson 1920) the first African-American woman identified as a graduate of the college, those black students participated rather actively in campus activities and on athletic teams. For example, Henry Jeffress of the Class of 1925 (a younger brother of James Jeffress) was on the staff of the Tufts Weekly, a member of the debating team, assistant secretary of the student union and a member of the track team. Mae Tyson Wright and Claude Randolph Taylor, both of the Class of 1927, were quite active in campus organizations. A biology major who would later earn a Ph.D., Taylor was a three-year varsity letter winner in football, basketball and track. Mae Tyson Wright, a native of Baltimore and a History major, played on the women's basketball and tennis teams during her first two years on campus. Modestly, she recalled, "my grades in college remained high," and in 1927 the cum laude student was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa. However, the on-campus social life of black students may have been restricted. To fill such a void, black male students pledged several of the historically black fraternities--Omega Psi Phi, Alpha Phi Alpha, and Kappa Alpha Psi and black female students pledged local chapters of two of the historically black sororities--Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta. Also, African-American students established friendships, often of long standing, with students from nearby colleges. Perhaps the most prominent on-campus activity involving black students in the 1920s was the staging of Eugene O'Neill's play "The Emperor Jones" by members of Pen, Paint and Pretzels. According to the Tufts Weekly, that production marked "the first time that any play has ever been given on hill with the lead taken by a negro [sic]." Starring John Moseley and Jester Hairston, (one of Tufts' most distinguished alumni) the play was well received on campus and in local communities. The depression years witnessed a nationwide decline in black enrollment in college and universities. At Tufts several black students had to withdraw from school due to financial reasons, and fewer black students enrolled than in the 1920s. Still, students such as Joseph Walker and Irma Thompson were quite involved in campus activities. Walker, a member of the Class of 1933 and a student of Americo-Liberian descent, was a summa cum laude graduate of the College of Engineering and captain of the men's tennis team during his senior year. Thompson, a member of the Class of 1937, played on the tennis, field hockey and basketball teams. In her senior year, she was captain of the women's basketball team. Throughout the decade there were gradual improvements in on-campus race relations. Student-sponsored forums would occasionally host programs addressing the topic of race relations on campus and around the world. In the mid-thirties, students formed the bi-racial group Amity to further understanding among students of different races and to oppose "both individually and collectively, any instances of injustice due to race prejudice coming to the notice of any one of the members." In 1934 the noted writer, composer, civil rights activist and educator James Weldon Johnson was invited on campus to address members of the freshman class. By the late 1930s, there was a slight increase in the number of black students enrolled. The class of 1941 included four African-American male students, most notably Edward Dugger of West Medford. As a student and as an athlete, Dugger won the respect of his classmates and peers for his involvement in numerous campus activities and for his stellar performances as a hurdler and sprinter. By the time of his graduation, Dugger had won 24 New England Intercollegiate, Eastern Intercollegiate, Amateur Athletic Union, Penn Relays, and National Collegiate Hurdles titles in the broadjump, one-hundred and two-hundred-yard dashes and the hurdles. Dugger was captain of the indoor-track team, co-captain of the men's outdoor track team, secretary of the Senior Class, and a member of the Senior Honorary Society for Men. Perhaps the best measure of Dugger's impact upon the Tufts community was the description of him contained in his class yearbook: "We will never forget Eddie Dugger, who is one of the finest athletes Tufts has ever had. He is unaffected by the fame he has attained, and his leadership and ability will never be forgotten." The years from 1945 to 1965 did witness a small increase comparatively in the enrollment of black students on campus. Although the Tufts community reflected the changing intellectual and attitudinal views then existent on many northern college campuses, the number of black students on campus grew rather slowly. Whereas an estimated twenty-five black students may have enrolled as undergraduates in the years from 1905 to 1945, more than fifty were enrolled in the two decades after World War II. Although their numbers were decidedly small, there was an increasing diversification in the background and in the gender ratio of the black student population. While a number of the early black students at Tufts were commuters from West Medford or from Cambridge, black matriculants from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s increasingly came from the Greater Boston area, the New York metropolitan area, Midwestern urban centers, parts of the South, the Caribbean Basin, and after 1960 from several British colonial possessions in Africa or from newly independent republics such as Nigeria. In addition, there was a slight increase in the number of black female enrollees in Jackson College. Only four black women have been identified as pre-World War II graduates of Jackson;approximately twenty black alumnae have been so identified for the two decades after World War Two. Like their predecessors, these students involved themselves in a wide range of campus activities. Several of the male students were stellar performers on the various varsity athletic teams, particularly the track team. During the decade Armon Furey, Robert Jones, Reginald Alleyne and Brooks Johnson captained the men's track team. Other students, male and female alike, wrote for campus publications, joined pre-professional organizations, were members of departmental honor societies, sang in various choral groups, starred in campus musical and drama productions, and ran for and won election to various class offices and student government positions. Among the most active students would be Ione Dugger-Vargus and Inez Smith-Reid, members of the Jackson Classes of 1952 and 1959 respectively. Each would later serve as a Trustee of Tufts University. Dugger-Vargus would be the fifth member of the Dugger family to receive either a bachelor's or master's degree from Tufts. In addition to being a Dean's List student, she was a member of the women's bowling team, member and officer of the co-ed choral group, a representative to the Student Council for commuter students, and a vice-president and secretary for her Jackson Class. Inez Smith-Reid was a Dean's List student, member of the Jackson Judiciary Council, president of the Forensic Council, president of the Debating Society, member of the Sociology Honor Society, winner of both the Moses True Brown Prize and the Greenwood Prize, and a second prize recipient of the Wendell Phillips Memorial Prize Scholarship. Although race relations at Tufts in the early 1950s were generally described as positive by Ebony magazine, there were still areas of on-campus student life and activities closed to black students. In the earlier years several, if not most, black students had sought a social life off-campus. Some had affiliated themselves with and others would continue to pledge the citywide chapters of the historically black fraternities and sororities. By the early 1950s, there was increasing concern among some black and white students over the racially exclusionary practices of most fraternities and sororities on campus. Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s campaigns were waged to have local chapters end such discrimination. Over the decade of the 1950s, several of the social living groups on campus began to accept black pledges. Most did so with no incident, but two campus sororities were expelled from their national associations for pledging black women students. By the early 1960s, two fraternities, due to their national headquarters' adherence to racially exclusionary policies, refused to accede to policies of non-discrimination on racial grounds until the mid-1960s. The nearly fifteen-year campaign waged by both black and white students against those living groups that did not accept non-white students as members made more and more Tufts students aware of the nature of racial prejudice on campus and throughout the United States. From the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s, black and white students became involved in other campaigns to end discriminatory practices in Medford, in the Greater-Boston area and throughout the United States. Several black students wrote of their negative reactions to segregation and discrimination in the United States, while others involved themselves in letter-writing protests and campaigns against the efforts of local realtors who refused to rent to black undergraduate and graduate students. Others involved themselves in local and national civil rights efforts. In March of 1960 black and white students took part in the picketing of the Woolworth's in Medford Square as an expression of their support for those black college students involved in sit-in campaigns against segregated facilities in the South. Other students, by late 1962, sought to form a more permanent campus organization that would provide support to civil rights campaigns in the Boston area and that would provide assistance to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in its effort to help black residents in the Deep South to register to vote. Such growing "civil rights consciousness" in the mid-1960s would be the spur for black and white students to ask why were so few black students enrolled at Tufts. To rectify the imbalance, particularly in Jackson, students did try to encourage friends and high-school students from their hometowns to apply. As an institution, Tufts was one of the first colleges and universities to implement policies and programs to spur the recruitment of black students. In the fall of 1964, the Committee on Negro Education was established. Chaired by Professor Bernard Harleston of the Psychology Department (who in 1956 became the first black faculty member to be hired at Tufts), the Committee was encharged with finding ways to increase educational opportunities, particularly post-secondary educational opportunities, for black students. By the fall of 1966, based in part upon the beginning efforts of the Committee and in part by the beginnings of outreach efforts by the Admissions Office, the black student population, while still quite small, began to increase incrementally. Whereas in the fall of 1963, there were fewer than twenty black undergraduate and graduate students on campus, by the fall of 1966 there were approximately forty. With the presence of a "critical mass" on campus, black students formed the Afro-American Society during the 1966-1967 academic year. Under the leadership of Charles Jordan A'69, the Society initially sought to work with the admissions office to recruit more black students and to serve as tutors for Freedom School in Roxbury. The nature of black student life and activities at Tufts from the late 1960s until the early 1990s largely mirrored that experienced by black students at other predominantly white, prestigious colleges and universities across the country. In less than a decade, the black student population increased by 700% (from 40 in the fall of 1966 to 279 in the fall of 1972). From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s black enrollment stabilized around 250-280, before declining throughout the 1980s. The rather rapid rise from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s was attributable in part to efforts initiated by black and white students alike. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April of 1968 affected the Tufts campus greatly. In the wake of the civil rights leader's death, black and white students formed the campus organization Students Concerned About Racism (SCAR) which intended to increase the number of black students admitted to the incoming freshman class. Through its active recruiting efforts and through its raising of scholarship monies from student cause dinners and from faculty contributions, SCAR was instrumental in the recruiting of an additional forty black students for the Class of 1972. The admission of more black students to Tufts was a beginning step. However, according to Glenn Smith, the president of the Afro-American Society in the spring of 1968, black students were now seeking "to challenge the present values of the university." Black students, upset at the paucity of black faculty members and upset at the near-total exclusion of course offerings on the life, history and culture of persons of African descent, demanded the hiring of more black faculty members and the introduction of courses examining the experiences of African and African-American peoples. Beginning in the late 1960s-early 1970s, courses pertaining to African and African-American literature, history, politics and art were being offered. Several of these courses were taught by black undergraduate and graduate students through the Experimental College. Within a few years, most had become institutionalized through the traditional academic departments. And, Tufts began more concentrated efforts to hire black faculty members, particularly when Bernard Harleston assumed the position of Dean of the Faculty in the early 1970s. Unlike its neighbors Brandeis and Harvard, Tufts was spared from any direct confrontation over the hiring of black faculty members, the establishing of a core component of African and African-American Studies courses, and the setting up of the Afro-American Cultural Center. During the fall of 1969, however, members of the Afro-American Society complained to the university administration that the Volpe Construction Company, the contractor building what later became Lewis Hall, employed only two or three black and other workers of color. In conjunction with the New Urban League and the United Community Construction Workers in Boston, members of the Afro-American Society proposed that at least twenty percent of the project's work force be made up of black and other people of color, that members of the Society be involved in and apprised of the monitoring of workers hired, and that they be allowed to observe university negotiations with the contractors. When the Volpe Company failed to hire the percentage of minority workers stipulated by the Afro-American Society, black students and supportive white students and faculty members occupied the construction site in November of 1969. Campus officials obtained a restraining order preventing students from occupying the site and called in police officers from Medford and Somerville to prevent any confrontation between students and workers. Tensions remained high between black students and administrators throughout the winter of 1970;however, feelings of ill-will began to abate when President Burton Hallowell ordered the injunction removed and university lawyers filed suit against the construction company for its failure to hire a sufficient number of workers of color. Throughout the 1970s the Afro-American Society and the Afro-American Center became the prime foci of most black students' life. According to one Society officer, the organization was one in which "black students can be involved in whatever areas their interests lie," both on-campus and off-campus. The Society began sponsoring (and continues to sponsor) the annual celebration of Kwanzaa, sponsored a 1973 cause dinner to benefit victims of the drought in West Africa, co-sponsored a Stevie Wonder Concert in 1974, and provided funding to the Committee for Black Involvement in Drama (a black student organization that sought to encourage more opportunities for black students in CBID productions and in Drama Department productions). The Society was also involved in several off-campus activities. During the early 1970s the Society sponsored a summer institute for school-age youngsters from Dorchester and Roxbury. In addition, the organization maintained tutoring programs for black children and adolescents in Roxbury and West Medford, helped set up cultural programs in the Columbia Point Housing project, initiated a sickle cell anemia testing program on-campus and off-campus, and worked with black inmates incarcerated in local prisons. The Afro-American Cultural Center (later renamed the African-American Cultural Center and since renamed the Africana Center in the spring 2001) emerged from a series of spring 1969 meetings between officers of the Afro-American Society and members of the Committee on Student Life and university administrators. Afro-American Society officers stressed the need for a Center to provide facilities to augment research opportunities in Afro-American history and culture and to enrich the social and cultural experience of black students at Tufts. Following an affirmative vote by committee members and an immediate endorsement by the university administration, the proposed center was created and initially was to consist of two residential houses (one female and one male, that were located in the Milne House and the Schmalz House) with a resource library in African and African-American history as well as several meeting rooms. The Afro-American Cultural Center opened in the fall of 1969 and in the same year there were established single-sex residential units for black male and black female students. The Center had office space in each of the respective residential units and its staff consisted of a director and other office personnel that helped to plan programs--educational, academic and social--for the campus' black population. By 1971, the two separate residential living units and the office space for the Center were housed in one building. In 1972 the Center was moved to Carpenter House and in 1977, the Center moved to its current location, Capen House. Among the activities sponsored or co-sponsored by the Afro-American Cultural Center during the 1970s were a Black Arts Festival in 1970, a Black Liberation Week in 1974, a 1976 National Black Solidarity Conference, a conference on "Blacks and Capital Punishment," and the 1977 symposium "Art, Politics and the Black Writer--An International Perspective." Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the Center sponsored or co-sponsored speakers such as Dr. Alvin Poussaint, Dick Gregory, Kathleen Cleaver, Representative Shirley Chisholm, Muhammad Ali, Bobby Seale, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Mel King, Gordon Parks, Dr. Kenneth Edelin, Amiri Baraka, and Representative Ronald Dellums. From the mid-1970s to the present, the African American Center/Africana Center has continued its original mission and has sought to reach out to more and more members of the campus community. According to Patricia Hill-Collins, director from 1977 to 1980 and currently a professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati, the Center strove to provide ongoing support programs for black students--male and female--while trying "to expose and sensitize the entire Tufts community to prominent themes in black political and intellectual thought." Indeed, with the changing gender ratio in the black student population--more female than male--Hill-Collins encouraged the formation of organizations such as the Black Dance Troupe and set up workshops on Black Male-Black Female Relationships. While many on the Tufts campus viewed black students as separatists, black students remained, as involved, if not more involved, in campus-wide activities as in earlier decades. Throughout the 1970s black students won election to the TCU Senate, starred or co-starred in campus productions and participated in several other campus organizations. Black male and female students distinguished themselves on several of the varsity athletic teams: David Whitley, Willie Young, Dennis Mink, Reggie Graham, Leroy Charles, George Powell and Ed and Mike Tapscott on the basketball team;Pete Watson, Sam Bryant, Donnie Moore and Darryl Brown on the football team;Gabe Gomez on the soccer team and Dennis Works on both the football and baseball teams. With the enactment of the Higher Education Act of 1972 (particularly Title IX which in part called for the equalization of resources for male and female students), women's sports teams came of age. Thus over the 1970s black women athletes such as Pam Whitley and Diane Nethersole won acclaim for their sports accomplishments. In addition, for several years black women comprised a majority of the members of the cheerleading squad. According to the Tufts Observer, the cheerleading squad had become "virtually defunct" until revitalized by black women interested in cheering for the men's basketball team. Although the African-American student population at Tufts declined throughout the 1980s, African-American students remained quite active in campus affairs. Through the African-American Society and the African-American Center, they established the African-American Dance Troupe, the Third Day Gospel Choir and the Black Outreach Program. Black students established the Onyx, a literary magazine, and served as writers and editors for both The Tufts Daily and The Observer. From the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, Karen Johns, Carlo Cadet, Anita Griffey, Derek Jones and Rachel Fouche wrote "The Other Side" column in the Daily in which they commented on campus race relations;in particular, their columns concerned themselves with issues such as the recruiting and admission of black students, the continued importance of black tables in dining halls, and the programming of Culture houses. Members of the African-American Society cooperated with other campus organizations in sponsoring the Third World Conference on Africa, a teach-in on the impact of the Reagan Presidency, the Benefit Concert for World Hunger, the Black-Jewish Coalition and an International Feast. In addition, black students were active in such campus productions as "Jesus Christ, Superstar,""Godspell,""Pippin" and the highly acclaimed 1986 production of "The Wiz," directed by Audrey Davis and choreographed by Iris Carter. In 1982 Vera Walker won election as Homecoming Queen, the first African-American woman to receive that honor. Throughout the 1980s, other black male and female students won election as King and Queen of the Homecoming Weekend. Throughout the 1980s-early 1990s, black students were active in any number of campus organizations and sports teams. Over the decade black students from Willette Joyner, Pedro Williams and T.J. Johnson in the early 1980s to Ron Blackburn, Dwight Byfield, Barry Taylor, and David Neal in the mid-1980s to Myra Frazier, Julian Barnes, Sharon Joseph and Silvio Tavares in the late 1980s-early 1990s were elected members and officers of the TCU Senate. Manar Zarroug in 1987 and Myra Frazier in 1990 were the Wendell Phillips Award winners. In 1991 Julian Barnes would win the first student body election for TCU president. From Charlie Neal, Lennie Barber, Bill Ewing, Troy Cooper and James Young of the 1982 championship season to Greg Davis, Darrell Brunson, Trey Robinson and Vern Riddick of the mid-to-late 1980s, black students were mainstays of the men's basketball team. Mark Hardie, Derek Green and Kenneth Noel were prominent members of the men's track team in the early-to-mid 1980s. Eric Mitchell, George Lawrence, Harry Lightfoot and Kenneth Fauntleroy distinguished themselves on the football teams of that era. Similarly, women athletes such as Paula Moss on the basketball team, Ellie Roane on the lacrosse and soccer teams, Jan Brown, Karin McCollin, Vera Stenhouse, and Carol Tate on the track team won regional and national acclaim for their performances. Likewise, Erica Barnes on the soccer team and Tami Gaines on the women's softball team earned well-deserved plaudits. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Robert O'Hara and Heather Simms (two recent Tufts alumni who are currently pursuing careers in the theater) reintroduced black drama productions to the campus. Over their Tufts years, both O'Hara and Simms brought distinction to themselves for their directing and starring in productions such as Ain't Right, A Trouble in Mind, Ain't Misbehavin', The Trip, and The Colored Museum. Their legacy continues today with the work of the Black Theater Company. Over the past decade there have been noticeable changes in the campus' black population. The number of students of African descent during the early-to-mid 1990s was lower than in the early 1980s, although by 1996 the numbers had started to rise from the low numbers of the late 1980s-early 1990s. Concurrently, the black student population was becoming increasingly diverse in terms of ethnicity and place of birth. In a realization of this latter change, the African-American Society voted in 1991 to rename itself as the Pan-African Alliance to reflect more globally the representation and the concerns of its membership. More recently, students have formed the Caribbean Club and the Tufts African Political, Social and Cultural Association. Individual black males have sung and continue to sing as members of the Beelzebubs. Although black women have performed in the Jackson Jills, African-American women formed the a cappella singing group, Essence (now a singing group for women of all races interested in the performing of music from the African diaspora). In more recent years, the multi-racial Gospel Choir has become one of the most spirited and dynamic singing groups on campus. African-American male and female students, while perhaps not as visible on some sports teams as they were in the 1980s, were and are valued contributors to Tufts athletic squads. Thus, Khari Brown and more recently Greg Michel, Mike Andrews and Bobby Mpuku have been and are playing for the men's basketball team. Damon Adams, Dave Carl and Henry Morgan have been recent stalwarts on the football team. Damon Adams, Jayson Brown, Noel Dennis and James Lavallee anchored the men's track team in the mid-1990s. Shawntell Manning, Randi Henry, Tricia McDermott and more recently Melissa Harper and Deonca Williams, Jennifer Carl and Felake Aaron have competed on the women's track team. Students of African descent have been recent nominees for the Wendell Phillips Award, with Ancy Verdier having been chosen as the 1996 recipient and Keshia Pollack, the 2000 recipient. Women of African descent have given presentations in the annual Beyond the Classroom program sponsored by the Deans' Office, the Women's Studies Program and the Women's Center. African-American students have continued to run for Homecoming King and Queen, and students such as Latonya Christian having been elected as the 1995 Homecoming Queen (announcement of which was mentioned in Ebony magazine). In concert with other concerned students, students of African descent have been among the spearheads of campus-wide activities and rallies on behalf of financial aid. While involved in numerous campus activities, students of African descent were deeply concerned about the declining or stagnant numbers of black students enrolled and the overall status of the African-American Center. Feeling that their concerns were not being addressed in a satisfactory manner and upset by the sudden resignation of Todd McFadden, director of the Center, students staged a peaceful March on Ballou Hall in December of 1998. That march, a recurrence of previous forms of protest by African-American students over the past decades, helped set in motion new initiatives on race and race relations. Such initiatives, indirectly and directly, have led to the increased enrollment of students of African descent. Indeed, the Classes of 2003, 2004 and 2005 have contained 97, 98 and 121 students of African descent respectively. Thus, the enrollment of students of African descent is at an all-time high. Individually as well as collectively, black students have contributed greatly to the ambiance of the "Tufts experience." Their accomplishments, past and present, need to be acknowledged and made more of part of the history and lore of Tufts University. Moreover, knowledge of past and present efforts of successive generations of African-American, Caribbean-American and Continental African students ought to be sufficiently uplifting and inspiring to past, current and future generations of Tufts students so that the history of Tufts more fully encompasses the experiences of all its students.
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