Social Life at Dartmouth
Colby Junior College
Dartmouth was an all-male school in the 1960s, and there were few women students — and no Black women — around at the time. James and a group of boys would head to Colby Junior college which was an all-girls school. They would also take trips to New York, Boston, Hartford, CT, and wherever they could find fun.
Community Inclusivity Among Students of All Races
One thing that I believe was considered important was the interactions between Black and white students at this time. When asked about the inclusivity of Black students in these white spaces, James felt comfortable speaking, approaching, and interacting with white students. There were no outward acts of discrimination of exclusivity but there were also no acts of inclusivity either.
“No one was actively trying to exclude you and as far as the general population was concerned, there wasn't any type of overt efforts to try to include you either.”
One problem James believed prevelant was the lack of Black resources that adhered to Black students in terms of the kind of food they ate, barbers who knew how to cut black hair, and the lack of black spaces in general.
"I went to the barbershop and the barber, his eyes got wide and he said as he was cutting my hair, he told me, he didn't know how to cut my kind of hair. When I came to Dartmouth, there was no one.”