The Social Experience of Black Students at Dartmouth
Social Life
As the administration began to admit a more diverse student body to the College, student groups on campus were tasked with a microcosmic decision: would fraternities admit Black students into their brotherhood?
In her own digital exhibit, Sabrina Eager '23 touches upon the history of fraternity discrimination on campus. Eager '23 notes that Dartmouth's administration became aware of the discriminatory clauses in fraternities’ recruitment processes in the 1940s. When President Dickey was inaugurated in 1945, a major point of contention was reopening fraternities after WWII. Allegedly, as Eager quotes, “a major point of debate was the discriminatory clauses in the constitutions of some chapters, as members of the Board of Trustees were concerned the clauses would have a negative impact on public image" (Eager 2023). President Dickey dispelled any debate in a 1948 pamphlet, circulated specifically to potential brothers: “This college neither teaches nor practices religious or racial prejudices, and I do not believe it can for long permit certain national fraternities through their chapter provisions or national policies to impose prejudice on Dartmouth men" (Dickey 1948).
As can be seen in the scanned reports to the right, attempts to desegregate from the top down were not unilaterally successful. Black students were forced to find other avenues for socialization, such as religious or political activist groups. Dr. Buckner found a social network in forming his own fraternity with his friends, Doug Skopp [‘63], Bruce MacPhail [‘66], and DeWitt Bell [‘62].
We decided to form our own fraternity. And we called it the Sigma Society.
- Dr. John Buckner '62
Dartmouth was an all-male institution until 1972. As the '50s and '60s progressed, it was well-understood that coeducation was not on Dartmouth's agenda; the president, John Sloan Dickey, "made that plain in April 1958 when he declared, "There is no possibility of coeducation at the College in the foreseeable future"" (Malkiel 2017). Before the spirit of protest at Dartmouth added coeducation to its list of grievances, the College would bus in women from nearby all-female colleges for mixers and events. Dr. Buckner recalls one such mixer:
We did have one mixer. But I didn't really know how to dance [laughter], so I probably faked it a little bit. I forgot which college it was. It may have been Radcliffe.
- Dr. John Buckner '62
On November 21, 1971, President Kemeny announced on College radio station WDCR that "the Trustees voted in favor of the 'Dartmouth Plan' for year-round operation and the matriculation of women, effective September 1, 1972" (Dartmouth College).
Social Involvement
For those with both the free time and the moral impetus, getting involved with student groups was another popular social outlet. With the nation's issues pervading campus, there was no shortage of orginizations to join when seeking a more issue-oriented fraternity.
The Afro-American Society
Dr. Buckner found himself at the cusp of student movements as they formalized in the years to come. One such group would become the Afro-Am Society, as stated by the Council on Student Organizations (COSO) in 1975 to be "comprised of Dartmouth students who are devoted to the concerns of Afro-Americans and who seek to use their individual and collective talents and aspirations for the fulfillment of the Society’s members" (COSO 1975).
Well, at Dartmouth, there was the African American Society, in which we had some discussions. They wanted to have a visiting professor and we talked about it. We demanded a Black studies curriculum so we could get a Black studies professor at that time.
- Dr. John Buckner '62
Members of the Afro Am Society in 1968
But the division felt across campus often seeped into individual student groups; conflicting opinions regarding how to handle the organization's initiatives put the group's members at odds. In a 1984 interview, John Kemeny (President 1970-1981) described the Afro-Am Society as "partly peer support... but it was also sort of a political action kind of group... depending on what the leadership was like...a power base for ambitious students, both men and women" (Kemeny 1984). The President Emeritus also recalled "once late in [his] presidency a major revolt within Afro-Am when students felt they had become too political and they were not representative of most of the membership of it, and they managed to throw out the leadership and put in still strong but more moderately oriented leadership" (Kemeny 1984).
Left to right: Earl Shaw, Assistant Director of the ABC summer program and Research Fellow in Physics at Dartmouth; Charles Dey ’52; and Jim Simmons, ABC Recruiter at Dartmouth during the summer 1964 ABC program.
“Black demand, white awareness, [and] riots in the cities” as well as “a fundamental contradiction between an asserted opposition to racism” and the low numbers of black students on campus, pushed Ivy League institutions into action"
- McGeorge Bundy (a Yale alumnus), President JFK’s (Harvard alumnus) and LBJ’s National Security Advisor
In the latter half of the 1960s, Dartmouth admitted more Black students than ever. In an effort to encourage such enrollments, Dartmouth sought out promising candidates, specifically from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. While other Ivy League institutions also established recruitment pathways, Dartmouth's outreach efforts were particularly extensive. As Stefan M. Bradley delineates in his work, "Upending the Ivory Tower: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Ivy League," Dartmouth's "isolation, in contrast to its peer competitors, forced its officials to be more intentional and work harder to recruit black students" (Bradley 2018). In 1963, Dartmouth authorized the establishment of its pioneering "A Better Chance" (ABC) program, which operated during the summers as one of the first initiatives of its kind in the Ivy League.
A student at Dartmouth as these developments were burgeoning, Dr. Buckner was involved in the ABC program:
I used to do the interviews for the students that were being applied for acceptance at Dartmouth... [in] the ABC or A Better Chance program, which gave students from African American communities extra skills in Math and English. A fella named Jim Simmons led that.
- Dr. John Buckner '62
Barry Jones ’73 was the youngest participant among the fifty-five students in Dartmouth's A Better Chance program during the summer of 1964. At graduation, Jones was chosen to deliver the class oration, which he closed by saying: “The experience of this college may or may not be idyllic. In either case it does not take place in a vacuum. To eradicate racism in all its forms on a worldwide basis demands a constant, concerted and personal commitment from each one of us, because no one is uninvolved" (Jones 1973).
Dartmouth Christian Union
"DCU: Three letters, meaning Dartmouth Christian Union, that have a pervasive influence not only on the College but on the whole Hanover region"
Although Dartmouth appeared to support the Civil Rights Movement as a leader in higher education, its students still had to confront segregationist sympathizers on their own campus. Groups like the Political Action Committee and the Dartmouth Christian Union attempted to counter segregationist ideology by "donating money to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and by traveling to Mississippi to work with the organization" (Bradley 2018). When George Wallace made his second appearance on campus in May 1967, the Dartmouth Christian Union "passed out handbills urging silence and about ten students in the Afro-American Society planned to heckle Wallace and stage a walkout." (Thomas 2019).
While student groups were tasked with responding to seemingly never-ending commotion and conflict, some chose to temper their activism with benevolent acts, like those Dr. Buckner recounts from his time with the DCU:
[At] the Dartmouth Christian Union... we used to do things like shop firewood for farmers or collect clothing for people who needed it.
- Dr. John Buckner '62
Student groups were an important form of social interaction and political activism for Dartmouth's campus. Segregationist sympathizers clashed with groups fighting for equality at the grassroots level, all while Dartmouth's administration struggled to navigate the changing landscape in the Ivy League and education at large.
