Black Alumni Weekend Champagne Brunch - Saturday, August 30, 2008
Good Morning!
Usually when I speak to alumni groups, I look out into the audience and see at least a few elderly people who look like they received their bachelor's degrees before I did, back in the Stone Age. But, it doesn't look like that today.
We have no septuagenarian or octogenarian black alumni who earned diplomas as young men and women. Why? This is the legacy of segregation. Until a half century ago, black students were forbidden from attending the University of Florida.
With Barack Obama becoming the first African American to receive a major political party's nomination for president, this week is a watershed moment in black history. Senator Obama's nomination is a leap up a long staircase that starts with the slave ships, winds through the Civil Rights era, and climbs skyward from here.
Brave people have singled themselves out to climb each step up that staircase -- including people right here at the University of Florida. This year, our 50th anniversary of integration we are honoring these pioneers with this brunch and a year-long series of events called "Celebrating the Firsts."
It took a lot of courage to come to UF in the late 1950s and early '60s, when it was still a traditionally Southern institution in a small Southern town. Fraternities paraded in Confederate uniforms at Homecoming. The Alachua County courthouse had segregated water fountains. The first black students threatened a type of "southern" way of life. To come here, they had to have conviction and grit.
When George Allen was standing in line to register for classes, another student walked up and said, "Move out of the way, boy." Mr. Allen knocked him down, jumped on his chest, and told him 'Do not ever call me boy, do you understand?" That was tough!
When Stephan Mickle arrived on campus, no one spoke to him, and no one would sit by him at lunch or in class. He remembered, and I quote, "I did not intend for them to see me sweat. You wanted someone to speak to you and be friendly and talk, and that just did not happen."
Mr. Allen became UF's first black graduate when he earned a degree from the law school in 1962. Three years later, Stephan Mickle became our first black student to earn a bachelor's degree. Other brave students broke the color barrier in other colleges and, eventually, in the once exclusively white UF athletic program.
These brave, tough young people persisted against a racist culture and institution. They changed our campus and our nation.
This year's celebration is important and appropriate. But, I am reminded as I stand here today that there are more steps to climb on the staircase.
We have become a more racially diverse institution. But anyone who tours our campus can see that it does not match the colors of our country.
We have reached out to more students from poor backgrounds or families not headed by professionals with college degrees. But the reality is that most of our students are middle-class or privileged.
We have created full scholarships, stepped up outreach and are recruiting in urban high schools. But it's clear we need to do more.
This is an issue of fairness and equal access to education. But it goes deeper than that. We must give University of Florida students the chance to get to know peers of different races, cultures and American experiences.
It is part of our duty of providing a well-rounded education, one that will serve students for a lifetime in a diverse country.
George Allen was accepted to the Harvard, Berkeley and UF law schools. He chose to come here to UF because, in his words, "That was where all the integration was going on, the agitation, the quest for equality."
Every other pioneer we celebrate this year made a similar choice, climbing a step that made life harder for them, but better for the rest of us. You should all be immensely proud to stand with them on this staircase.
I hope you have a wonderful morning and a terrific visit to your alma mater.
Thank you.
Go Gators!
Bernie Machen