Martin D. Jenkins lecture, "A Retrospective and Contemporary View of the Higher Education of Blacks," at the University of Iowa, April 19, 1977

Speaker 1: The following was recorded on April 19th, 1977, as part of the Black Kaleidoscope lecture series, a retrospective and contemporary view of the higher education of blacks is the subject of this talk by Martin D. Jenkins, former president of Morgan State University. He is introduced by Dr. Darwin Turner, chairman of the Afro-American studies program at the University of Iowa. Darwin Turner: It's almost trite for a person who's making an introduction to talk about the pleasure and honor of making such an introduction. But I am sincere in making that statement tonight. I think most people who know me know that I am not very easily inspired by human beings, particularly not by those in the academic world. It is therefore an exception for me to be able to introduce someone who has been something of an inspiration in my own life, Dr. Martin D. Jenkins, the former president of the institution that's now known as Morgan State University. Darwin Turner: In just a moment or two, I'll be reading you some of the details of his biography, but what is more important to me in the introduction of Dr. Jenkins is the manner in which he has for me been a symbol of the best in black education. Quite often, we hear about Negro colleges and most of what is heard is negative. There is a suggestion of inferiority of education. There's a suggestion of lack of scholarship. I was quite fortunate early in my teaching experience to be able to serve at an institution where Dr. Jenkins was the president and the attitude that was developed at that institution was quite different. It was an attitude which enabled me to understand what can be the best of black education. Let me just say a couple of things that happened. Darwin Turner: It is sometimes said that many black teachers at black colleges didn't get degrees and they didn't publish. Dr. Jenkins, undoubtedly has long since forgotten this, but the first time I had an opportunity to talk with him on the campus of Morgan State College, within about five minutes his question was, when do you plan to get the PhD? You realize, of course, that we will expect you to have it. I came to the campus without the degree and began to get the rumblings that first year, that as soon as one got the degree, one was supposed to publish. Well, I got the degree and the next thing I knew I was receiving from Dr. Jenkins, a photocopy of my grandfather's bibliography with a gentle suggestion that might be a standard that I might set for myself. Darwin Turner: This was not an institution at which games were being played in education. It was an institution instead whereas, one walked through the holes, one heard teachers talking about their research. I did not know at that stage, that that was a bit unusual for a black college. And I think that attitude was largely due to our lecturer tonight. Dr. Jenkins received a bachelor's from Howard University and AB from Indiana State. He received a master's and a PhD from Northwestern. He has served as director of Urban Affairs for the American Council of Education from 1970 to '74. And from 1948 to 1970, he was president of Morgan State College and later Morgan State University. Darwin Turner: Prior to that, he had served as a professor of education at Howard University from 1938 to 1948. During the time that he was at Howard University, publishing some of his more than 80 books and monographs, he was particularly publishing on such subjects as case studies of Negro children of B'nai IQ, 160 and above. Studies of current trends and events in Negro education. I mentioned that first as I warned Dr. Jenkins, I would because as the Jensen's and Shockley's of the world, emphasize the poor scores that some blacks make on IQ tests. There is in my opinion, too little emphasis on the fact that there have been blacks who have done quite well on the tests. Dr. Jenkins in his career has studied blacks who were gifted according to the standardized tests of America. Darwin Turner: At Morgen, he was instrumental in developing a number of innovative programs, including urban affairs and compensatory education programs, which gained national recognition. At the American Council on Education, he established relations with colleges and universities throughout the nation. His guidelines for institutional self-study of involvement urban affairs has been widely used in colleges and universities. He's lectured widely in the United States and abroad at educational institutions in France, Norway, Sweden, Greece, Italy, and Lebanon. Darwin Turner: He has been a member of numerous boards and commissions, including the board of trustees of the National Urban League, president of the Baltimore Urban Coalition and chairman of the District of Columbia, Maryland committee of selection for Rhodes scholarships. He's currently a member of the District of Columbia Commission on post-secondary education. Listed in who's who in America leaders in education. He's a diplomat of the American Board of Examiners in professional psychology. He has received numerous awards among them, the Andrew White Medal of Loyola college of Baltimore, the department of the army, outstanding civilian service medal, and a commendation for model cities, activities by the departments of health, education, and welfare and housing and urban development. Darwin Turner: He's also been decorated by the Liberian Humane Order of African Redemption. It is my pleasure this evening to introduce to you, Dr. Martin D Jenkins. Martin D. Jenk...: Take back to 1865 closer to Civil War. This country was faced with the question of how do we handle education of this large slave population, illiterate almost all together illiterate, unschooled. Between 1865 and 1867, the solution was, we'll establish colleges and universities. Could anything be more presumptious, colleges and universities teaching Latin and Greek. In 1896, the Supreme court of the United States handed down the famous noted or infamous if you'd like to look at it, Plessy v. Ferguson. The issue here was on accommodations for them colored or Negroes, but we would use blacks throughout here on railroad trains. The Supreme Court of the United States handed down the decision as long as coaches were equal, it was constitutional for them to be separate. What does that have to do with the higher education of blacks? Martin D. Jenk...: About the year 1900, I'm a native of Terre Haute, Indiana. I'm sure all of you have been to that large city. And about the year 1900, my mother had finished high school, a part of my family Folklore that her mother and father, horse-and-buggy over the little Catholics college Saint Mary-of-the-Woods to enroll her. And that little Catholic college says, "No blacks." And she never got to college. About early 1930s and when I mentioned a dollar figure here, you'll have to think in terms of dollars in the late '20s or '30s. And then the president of the University of Florida was making about $8,000, which was a lot of money in those days, hardly pin money for your students. Martin D. Jenk...: And so, the president of Florida, A&M College, the separate and equal black college in Florida at that time, presumptions enough to put a item in his budget for his salary for $4,000. And the member of the legislature got up and said, "Ain't no nigga worth $4,000." I began my college teaching career in 1930. At that time, there were only two fully accredited black colleges, Howard University and Fisk University. While I was teaching at Virginia State College in the 1930s, I was from Indiana is bad enough up there I assure you racially because this racism was everywhere, it was just worse down in Virginia. I never forgot the president of Virginia State College, he entertained the board of trustees, which was white in his home and served them dinner, but he could not eat with them because the mores of Virginia at that time would not permit a black to sit at the same table with whites. Martin D. Jenk...: I would [inaudible] my doctorate at Northwestern University in 1935. One of the questions asked me after my doctoral examination was, "Well, I suppose you're going to teach at Tuskegee?" Now, the implication of that was that here was a leading big ten university and nationally famous educators, but the assumption of person who answered that question, there's only one black college and that was Tuskegee and he had heard of that through reading Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery. When I was at Northwestern, there were no blacks were allowed in these dormitories or in the swimming pool. As a matter of fact, there was an incident because Northwestern University is located on Lake Michigan. There's a beach there and some blacks had the temerity to use Lake Michigan and Northwestern University didn't like it. Martin D. Jenk...: We've come up a more contemporary way. What do you know about the Pratt decision, which is handed down just last week, ordering the department of health, education and welfare to force a more rapid desegregation of colleges in six Southern States, Which may or may not result in either the enhancement or the abolishment of the black colleges in those. How many of the case of Bakke v. the Regents of the University of California? And this is now before the Supreme Court of the United States. This case is concerned with what's called reverse segregation. The question is under our constitution, can you at the University of Iowa, those happened to be a University of California means the same thing. Martin D. Jenk...: Can you say, we're going to reserve 10 places in a medical school for blacks and therefore cut off and not admit some whites whose qualifications on paper may be superior to those blacks? Well, these anecdotes and occurrences are fragments of my topic tonight, which is a retrospective and contemporary view of the higher education of blacks. Now, what is the purpose of this retrospective and contemporary view of the higher education of blacks? Everyone in this audience is a part of contemporary higher education. Since you have blacks, you're a part of the ongoing historical process of the higher education of blacks in this country. And my purpose is to lead you to an understanding of where the higher education of blacks has been where it is, and to some extent where it may be going in the future and I regard this lecture as a part of your general education to cover items that are not likely to be included in your formal courses, even your formal graduate courses in higher education or higher education. Martin D. Jenk...: Now, so often college students are aware only of the present, unaware of their heritage and their roots, unaware of problems and issues that must be resolved. I was struck by that very much during the late '60s during the activists movements among college students, where college students generally thought that the civil rights revolution began, with a sit in of the A&T College students in the early 1960s, not knowing at all the whole setting for the activists, civil rights revolution had a history of some 50 years of court actions and other things. I will cover here in 40 minutes, then less than 40 minutes from this point, I hope the content that would require a semester course at least for coverage. An in-depth treatment consequently is not possible and many questions remain unanswered. Martin D. Jenk...: The further limitation is that I will emphasize conditions and problems that are primarily related to the higher education of blacks, with little attention to those problems relating to all of higher education but which also affect all of the higher education of blacks. The higher education of blacks may be divided into two sets. First, the predominantly black institutions and second, blacks in predominantly white institutions. And we will cover both of these steps. Martin D. Jenk...: I want to set forth here, a basic postulate, which you may superimpose everything I'm going to say. And that is the higher education of blacks, like other societal institutions reflects the general society in which it has its setting. Consequently, it is ever-changing rather than static and among them part and conditions affecting the higher education of blacks are attitudes of education, attitude about education, attitudes of the general population about blacks, economic conditions of the country, developments generally in higher education, policies of federal and state governments, decisions of federal and state courts, civil rights, activities of organizations and students. Martin D. Jenk...: Consequently, the higher education of blacks as it exists today is not what it was yesterday nor what it will be in the days ahead, of this we can't be certain. Now I want to devote a few minutes to a retrospective view, which is not a historical treatment. But giving you some facts here, but not many statistics. Dwight Holmes states in his book, the Evolution of the Negro College, "At the beginning of the Civil War, the Negro generally considered began his academic education at zero" You must remember that as a result, remember my basic postulate about higher education of blacks, reflecting a general society. As a result as the Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner slave revolts in 1822 and 1831, all the southern States had harsh laws forbidding the instruction of blacks and reading, writing, arithmetic. You didn't know that if you saw Roots you'd know that now. Martin D. Jenk...: Of course there are exceptions, three black institutions are founded before the civil war, the Institute for Colored Youth now Cheyney, Lincoln and Wilberforce. There were a few black graduates of white Northern colleges, a number of literate free blacks in the North and a few Southern cities, such as Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans, but in general, Holmes statement is true. And so I said at the outset is consider the romance, the impossible dream of the beginning of black higher education, which you're a part right now in 1977. The establishment of universities, in name and with the classical curriculum of the New England colleges to serve and illiterate newly freed people and impossible dreams that worked. Martin D. Jenk...: These colleges and universities were taught largely by white New England missionaries and bore names, which according to Holmes says in Holmes words, "Do we use the expression of distant hopes rather than actual descriptions?" And the terms university are usually dreamed of liberal arts college and theological instruction, Fisk university, Shaw University, [inaudible] University, Southern universities. During the next 75 years, these institutions developed very slowly and all of them, their enrollment was largely sub collegia and until believe it or not, the 1930s, they provided the only opportunity for secondary education for blacks in the South. In 1916, the total enrollment of black students and black colleges was 2,600. Martin D. Jenk...: In 1921 when I headed college is only a little over 5,000. And so, prior to the 1930s, we had talking here about very, very few students in black colleges and even fewer as I will point out in white colleges, not the hundreds of thousands we have today. And that's may regard the period following 1930 is the beginning of a serious collegiate education of blacks in the South. Now, I have lived and participated in this total development because I began my teaching career in 1930. A look at the social setting during this period and beyond the caste and class and I won't have be able to extend these other than name, the headings of racism, of strict racial segregation, both in the South and the North, but stricter in the South of course, little respect for blacks as persons, restricted occupational opportunities. Martin D. Jenk...: These colleges until almost the 1940s were almost entirely for the preparation of teachers, 85%, not the wide variety of occupation with which you may choose. During the period of 1930, the present, the black colleges came of age. A number of them in quality rank, at least above the median of American four year colleges anywhere. And they currently enroll about a third of the total black college student population baccalaureate, but more than half of the graduates wanting to bring that as a problem later, more than half of the black graduates come from these colleges. So currently, we have about 250,000 students in black colleges of the total of some 750,000. Martin D. Jenk...: The predominantly black colleges have a relatively brief history as I've pointed out of institution of truly collegiate level, they've always had inadequate financial support and they are as a set non prestigious. As Darwin Turner said an introduction that many people look down their noses at black higher education in the South. Well, let me tell you, nevertheless, these institutions, and remember I'm talking about your roots. Nevertheless, these institutions that provided the cultural roots of the black experience in this country, without these colleges in their products, the black revolution of the 1960s and '70s would not have been possible. And the changes and the racial attitudes of the majority population would not have occurred. And this is because the purpose of the black revolution was to bring blacks into the main stream of American life. And this is possible only if there is a large number of well-educated blacks, ready to take their places in the mainstream of American life. Martin D. Jenk...: Further, the black colleges constitutes the political and cultural centers throughout the South in the sense of University of Iowa will never become a cultural center for blacks. Let me take just time's going on, just one little item. Two or three years ago at Morgan State College, I was honored by having a building named for me. Three and a half million dollar behavioral sciences center. In this one college enrollment of about five to 6,000, there are 15 buildings named for blacks, and I haven't made any study of this, but I doubt that there are 15 buildings named for black in all of the white college and university of this country. Martin D. Jenk...: You might think to the implications of that. What you mean at the University of Iowa, the state university in terms of respect and prestige and power. These institutions, these black institutions during this historical period, I'm talking about, have reduced the bulk of the black middle class and a large majority of blacks in the professions and other occupations requiring a college education through the black leadership. Of the black leadership, 95% of the black elected officials graduates of these black colleges, not University of Iowa about 75% of the blacks officers in the military service, including a majority of the 15 blacks who are now generals, 75% of the black PhDs are from these 80% of the black physicians and dentists. Martin D. Jenk...: If we look at the current leaders, well, just our past leaders as Martin Luther King and Whitney Young products of black colleges. I we look at our current leaders, Vernon Jordan, Hooks, the director elected NAACP, Thurgood Marshall in the Supreme Court, Senator Brooke, a student of mine incidentally, Pat Roberts Harris, graduate of Howard University and other former student of mine, Andrew Young, all of these and I could go on and on are graduates of black colleges. This is what the black college, black higher education [inaudible]. Of course, if they hadn't had a higher education, they wouldn't be any black on the Supreme court, There wouldn't be any black head of in the cabinet and [inaudible], there wouldn't be a black who is our ambassador of the United Nations. Martin D. Jenk...: The point, I want you to understand the contribution of these black colleges. Further historic [inaudible] because they provide the major opportunity for black students before affirmative action brought most of you say the Iowa and the other Northern colleges, large, low or low income students to gain a College education, the sole opportunity for black college teachers and researchers and administrator. I mentioned in a moment when I say sole opportunity that prior to the early 1940s, there was not a single black teacher, black faculty member or black administrator in a Northern white institution. Martin D. Jenk...: And of course, none in Southern white institutions. And so, when you now study black history of black, anything black, the scholars who have produced that material have been almost altogether in black institutions. Well, what about the other set? Blacks in white college and universities. Some blacks have attended Northern white institutions since before the Civil War, but relatively few prior to the 1930s, it's estimated that between 1865 and 1895, 194 blacks graduated from 52 Northern colleges and universities and 75 of these 194 were from Oberlin, not many, 1916 and an estimated 500 black students in Northern institutions. Martin D. Jenk...: When I say Northern white institutions, I'm referring to places such as Iowa, Chicago, Harvard, all the rest the whole gamut. Historically, there were no racial barriers to admission in Northern white public institutions, but many private institutions would not admit blacks prior to the 1930s and 1940s. And I could name institution after institution, private institution, which like Saint Mary-of-the-Woods my mother said that no blacks allowed, but discriminatory and discriminatory practices were common. Blacks were almost never admitted to the dormitory, the swimming pools, they were prohibited from swimming, wrestling, and basketball, believe it or not almost prior of the 1940s. Now you heard University of Iowa great football player when I was at youngster Duke Slater, if you didn't have any basketball players but he had close contact, you might rub off on the wife. Martin D. Jenk...: There was little financial aids in medical schools and very few blacks historically went through white medical school. One reason is that the social situation would not permit black men to look at white women in a clinical situation. It was not permitted. One reason that we have so few relatively black physicians now, and as I've mentioned, there were no black faculty members prior to 1940. Very interesting story of how the first black faculty members went to the University of Chicago from the faculty of Howard University. And I was on the faculty at Howard University at that time. And it got there because the Rosenwald Fund, a philanthropic foundation said to the University of Chicago, "If you will take these two blacks, we will pay their salaries. Martin D. Jenk...: Of course, there were no blacks in Southern white colleges and universities, except by court order prior to the 1950s. And even then there was great resistance and you certainly must remember in reading, they met [inaudible] at University of Mississippi and governor Wallace standing in the school house door at the University of Alabama saying segregation forever. And this year, and the University of Alabama basketball team, five black starters. The Northern white institutions don't provide the sole opportunity for graduate work or leading the doctorate because except for Howard University, which had law, architecture, engineering the white institutions where the only opportunities for this graduate work. Martin D. Jenk...: I don't have a statistic, but of all the white medical schools in the country prior to the 1950s had only an infant testable number of black students. And so, the day the great book that I pointed out physicians, dentists are graduates of Howard and Meharry, black medical schools nor were blacks generally encouraged to take advantage of opportunities in these fields. As a result historically, and to the present day, there's an under-supply of black professionals. The black professionals we have, as I pointed out are produced. Martin D. Jenk...: Now, there were large increases in the black enrollment in white colleges in 1946 as a result of war of the GI benefits in the mid 1950s and in the mid 1960s, as a result of student activism and resulting in affirmative action programs. So that by 1970, there were 500,000 blacks in white institutions, but a more majority of these in community colleges. So now, well you were here in 1977 and heir to all it has gone before and heir to the black experience and black colleges and heir to the black experiences in white colleges. Now, I'm going to devote the rest of my time to current problems and issues so much for the retrospective view. Martin D. Jenk...: Current problems and issues in the higher education of blacks. And while at first glance, you say, Oh, I'm not interested in current problems and issues, you are the generation that has to grapple with these problems and issues, whether as citizens or whether as a faculty members or whatever your particular occupation. And here, I'm just going to present a large number of problems and issues in order to have you understand the complex nature of the higher education of blacks. And this listing is the no means complete. To be understood, there are many additional problems and issues related to higher education in general. And I will comment only briefly because of time on these problems. And I will usually not present my own solution and views, but I hope you will have views at least if not solutions. Martin D. Jenk...: There are a number of problems and I remember what I'm going to list now are current problems and issues in the higher education of blacks. Remember, my topic is, higher education of blacks, a retrospective, which I've completed and the contemporary view and the contemporary view is now coming up. I've listed a number of problems here under philosophy. The first of these first as I have listed is integration versus separatism. This country has for the moment at least through federal court decisions have said, it's a policy of this country not to have racially separate institutions of higher education and know what it can be 10 years from now, that's the official view and it's very important, but that doesn't solve a problem. Martin D. Jenk...: The question of integration versus separation is a problem right here at the University of Iowa. You are a students at the University of Iowa but philosophically from your view as individuals and not all of you have the same view. Many of you are an insisted group, insisted you are a black group in a white college surrounded by a whole lot of whites. Some of you would be much better off, down at Tuskegee and Morgan State College and [inaudible]. Because your view is that you are, if that is your view, and I'm not saying I'm not even saying I'm not giving my view, I'm saying, if you have that view, your view is that you are in favor of separation. And that's what I say as a problem is that integration versus separatism Martin D. Jenk...: So that when we observe in white colleges, the black students say, "I want separate dormitories. I want separate classes." We have a reflection of the issue I'm presenting to you of integration versus separatism. Now, if we had a whole semester for this and then I invite you to invite me back at about $50,000 to give this semester course, we could explore this. All I'm doing now is calling it to your attention. Another a second, I won't list these. The next problem is the justification foreign roles of black colleges. Now, here we have, remember going back to this basic postulate, the higher education of black reflects what's happening in a general society. Like the general society has set in Supreme court decisions beginning back in the 1930s and culminating in 1954, where the Brown decision and reinforced that the constitution is color-blind that you cannot segregate people on the basis of race. Martin D. Jenk...: Remember Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, that you can segregate people as long as they're equal, but they were never equal, it was just a fiction of a state. Yeah, [inaudible]. Now, the justification for enrolls of black colleges, the question is, will and should they survive? If you have a society which is not racially segregated, how do you justify a black college? And this is a tremendously important issue that right now before the courts, right now before the American people, right now before you. There's a question of the objectives of black colleges, should they be the same as the objectives of higher education generally? Or should they be different? The black colleges, should they educate black students for a black culture or for the American culture or for a world culture for that matter, that's a question argue viable, or what are the objectives of black students in white institutions? Martin D. Jenk...: At the University of Iowa? Is it your objective to master the American culture or is it your objective to learn only about blacks. I'm not giving the answers to these. I'm saying that these are current contemporary problems, which are important. And it's important to you as a part of your general education, particularly if you're black, that you know that these problems exist. And for some of them that, I mean, no right answers, the right answers are from your point of view. Then there is the effect of the mood of the country re blacks, mood of the country changes. We had the issues. I mentioned back at the post Civil War. We had the issues in the early part of this century and the arguments typified by Booker T. Washington and Du Bois. We had the arguments among whites. Martin D. Jenk...: The white leadership immediately following a Civil War and on through a reconstruction period, those white leaders who said, "If you educate these blacks, they're going to get out of control." They were right, but they lost that argument, had they won that argument, which was the mood of the country, you wouldn't be here today, not in higher education. There is the effect of policies of the federal government. I have mentioned... Well, let's take this one aspect of financial aid where the Congress and federal government appropriates hundreds of millions of dollars for the education of blacks through loan programs, through basic opportunity grants. Now this legislation doesn't say blacks because under our constitution, you can't say black, but you set up for blacks. Martin D. Jenk...: And those of you who are borrowing money, if you're at the University of Iowa or who are getting federal grants or state grants to go to the University of Iowa are likely beneficiaries of policies of the federal government, under a new mood of the country, developing in the 1950s and '60s, that we've got to upgrade the black population. Then the effect of decisions of federal and state courts. And then these fragments, I mentioned at the outset beginning with Plessy v. Ferguson with Murray v. University of Maryland in 1935, Murray was admitted to the law school Gaines v. University of Missouri in 1938, which Gaines was admitted the law school University of Missouri Sipuel v. University of Oklahoma, Sweatt v. University of Texas, 1950, culminating with Brown in 1954. All of these legal actions brought by and supported by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, were all necessary prerequisites to the student activism of the 1960s. Martin D. Jenk...: The second major areas of contemporary problems I've termed access to post-secondary education. Now, I have listed first under this, the effect of elementary and secondary education. I think the most important problem in higher education of blacks is the low quality of urban elementary and secondary education. Most blacks from urban schools, urban schools have gone to hell, many of you from urban schools, where there is a concentration of low income people, where there is a lack of emphasis on academic achievement. Great emphasis on athletic achievement, dancing, no emphasis on going to lectures like this. God, man. Martin D. Jenk...: And so what we find, I mentioned to you that while only a third of the black college student enrollment is in black colleges. Well, over 50% of the graduates of them, black college, this a reflection in part of this junior college thing, I would say, but it was also true that a smaller proportion of blacks in universities persist and get through. And some of that is a result of these substandard urban elementary and secondary schools, which I say, I think the most important problem in the higher education of blacks, then there's a question of access and the use of standardized tests and matter of eligibility for access. And if you know you're going to get into medical school, dental school, law school, graduate school, you have to take tests, architecture to see if you can qualify for admission. Martin D. Jenk...: Now it's well-established that low-income people, the people who've gone to the kinds of high school and elementary schools, the bulk of blacks have gone to score low on these tests. It's all been sold, been demonstrated and I'm one of the people who demonstrated that blacks score at the very top of these tests also, some blacks. It's not a racial thing, and yet this is a problem. And so when questions presented to use your test be used, it goes into the courts. This becomes an issue. Another issue in access to post-secondary education is the under attendance of blacks at undergraduate and professional levels. Martin D. Jenk...: I will cite one of the few statistics I am using in this lecture that while blacks comprised better than 12% of the population in the United States, 12%, only 8% of the total college enrollment is black. Only 1% of all colleagues, lawyers and optometrists, less than 2% of all, remember we start on a 12% base of all dentists. Less than 4% of those obtaining a master's degree, less than 2% of those receiving a PhD degree and infinitesimal number in executive positions in business, which runs this country business. Under curriculum there are problems such as these. How's should black students be educated for what we term two cultures. All of you unless you are visitors are Americans. When I say you, there may be some African citizens, but otherwise all of you are Americans, all you are also black. Martin D. Jenk...: And you are a product of a black culture inside the American culture. And the question is, how should your higher education be organized in terms of curriculum to help you accommodate to both of these cultures? And I'm not giving the answer to that, but as a part of the sub problem, there is one of the role of black studies. What is the role of compensatory education, remedial education, which I call contemporary education? Which we find a great deal of resistance and in the white colleges, the blacks or whites for that matter, come in, not really prepared and yet rejecting emotionally the kind of help that the university ought to provide. And I may say that at Morgan State College, we did provide to bring students who through no fault of their own and had a substandard elementary and secondary education. And yet we find throughout the country, many black students, not even or me, that's racial segregation. How are you going to get to be in the mainstream of American life unless you're prepared to do it? Martin D. Jenk...: Well, I have several other problems here but my time has run out. And so, let me mention just one or two others of these, of what I would term the special problems of predominantly white institutions in predominantly white institutions, which in the matter of recruitment, and admissions, a matter of financial aid for students, in the matter of affirmative action for faculty and staff, where they are in very few white institutions, are there as many black faculty and administrative people as there should be statistically and in community outreach. And so, I come to my concluding statement. I have here looked at the higher education of blacks almost as though this phenomenon can be viewed in isolation. It cannot, of course. Martin D. Jenk...: As I have postulated the higher education of blacks reflects the general society in which it has its setting. On the other hand, the higher education of blacks has also affected the general society. Perhaps the most important conclusion to be drawn from this retrospective and contemporary view, is that the progress of blacks in this country from a state of slavery, to a promise, not on arrival, a promise of equal citizenship would not have been possible without the higher education of blacks. To be free a people must be educated and an educated people can not be enslaved. Martin D. Jenk...: Secondly, the higher education of blacks is a part of higher education in this country, not separate both white and black colleges and universities have the same objectives, namely preparing students for living, for making a living and for constructive citizenship in a democratic society and through research and scholarship, developing novel ideas and techniques. That's what higher education is all about, whether it's black, higher education, whether it's white higher education. So, whether a particular student is a product of a black or white institution, he or she has been educated in accordance with similar objectives. Third, historically, a very large majority of the black leadership and professional class have been produced in an essentially racially segregated society by the black colleges. I pointed that out. Martin D. Jenk...: It is probable that in future years, the black-led leadership and professional class will come increasingly in an essentially desegregated society from students produced, students like you produced by predominantly white colleges and universities. For each of you black students, is a part of the ongoing stream of higher education of blacks. The history of the higher education of blacks is a part of your inescapable heritage, your roots. The future of the higher education of blacks will be in part what you make it, you students now in college and universities. And what you make it by your achievements, your continued interest and efforts. Darwin Turner: Would you have time for questions [inaudible]. Martin D. Jenk...: Well, if I have answered all the questions, thank you very much. I wish for each of you a very successful career. Darwin Turner: I would like to ask you and I have more [inaudible] in this matter. Would you comment [inaudible] about the Jensen-Shockley [inaudible], the general attitudes [inaudible]? Martin D. Jenk...: I think Darwin, I would prefer to tell you some of my some of my early research on gifted blacks, gifted in an intellectual sense. I took my first course in educational psychology in about 1927 and what students were taught in those days, by the way, I'm 72 years old, but I have young ideas. So you young ladies better watch me I'm wolfish. What they taught in those days was racial differences in intelligence because intelligence tests kind of test are referred to a while ago, always showed that blacks were X number of points behind whites. And the interpretation was that that was due to race. Now there's not time here to go explore all of that. Martin D. Jenk...: But it's within that context, it's the studies I made of black children, 1935, '33 to '35 first for my doctoral dissertation and then later other research, which demonstrated that blacks, although the median was below the white median, some blacks are found at the very highest test level that came in part from a review of studies which all the studies which had been made, showed that some blacks way up there. And in part from my own studies. Professor Turner had warned that he was going to bring this up. I wanted a quote from what I consider the most important of my own research. And this is in the Scientific Monthly for in 1948, entitled the upper limit of ability among American Negros. What this shows that this is a study of a large number of black youngsters of B'nai IQ 160 and above where you would get this normal distribution of about one in a million. One case having an IQ of 200, one of the highest IQ ever recorded. Martin D. Jenk...: And so, the conclusion from these studies was that some population group there'd be found a normal proportion of Negro subjects are very superior psychometric intelligence. Now the relation of this to the Jensen and Shockley is that, well, maybe I'd better go back and state the hypothesis. We may hypothesize that if race in itself is not a limiting factor in intelligence that among Negroes whose total environment compares favorably with that of the average American white, there should be found in normal proportion of very superior cases. The upper limit of ability should coincide with that of the white population. And I said that this hypothesis especially attractive from a negative aspect that is if superior individuals are not to be found in Negro populations. Martin D. Jenk...: The environmental explanation would clearly be inadequate to account for the phenomenon. And so here we got the relationship, which I will not discuss here in which due to the fact that I quit being this kind of scholar back in 1948, the Jensen Shockley which it seems to me and seems to many that these studies which I've just cited controvert the Jensen Shockley hypothesis of racial differences due to race. Speaker 4: First question, what do you see from your perspective being the future of the black colleges? I know a lot of it would be assimilated- Martin D. Jenk...: Yeah, number one, not so many are being assimilated, but there is a trend in that direction and a great possibility. My own feeling is that the black private colleges will continue to exist and serve primarily blacks that in some of the States, the black public colleges are going to be encompassed under a state system of higher education and finally absorbed into becoming a non-black institutions. I feel that while I'm certain of this, that all of the black colleges whether private or public are going to continue to attempt to attract white students. And so, I feel that in the future, somewhere off in the future, we're going to think of all of these colleges as American institution of higher education serving their particular clientele. But that's my crystal ball. My crystal ball is cloudy. Speaker 4: All right. Well that, I think a court order asked that Tennessee State Assembly, or the Board of Governors at Tennessee state take over University of Tennessee naturally would seem to be moving in the opposite direction. I don't know if you know anything [inaudible]. Martin D. Jenk...: Oh yeah, no, I know that exactly. And it does seem to be a move in the opposite direction. And it has a very heartening thing. Also, in the Pratt decision, I mentioned just 10 within the last two weeks, the Pratt decisions handed down health, education and welfare. You see that the colleges are desegregated, but he says, do not do it to the disadvantage of the black institution. How they're going to do this? I don't know because you see the whole, the basic postulate health education welfare, the federal government was to have a desegregated higher education institutions, "must not be racially identifiable" what's that mean? That means you can look at them. They're largely white. That's all right. But you look at them, they're largely black, they're racially identifiable. Martin D. Jenk...: And the black colleges have fought against this particular interpretation because a matter of fact, the black colleges many of them at least are more racially integrated than any of the white college. At Morgan state they have about 35% white faculty, University of Iowa doesn't have 30%, 35% of black faculty tell you that. I think the average black college that has somewhere in five to 10% of white students, there not many white colleges have five to 10% black college. But you see it all. As I said, at the outset, when I was talking about contemporary problem, very complex, and it really goes back to the question, if you have a truly integrated society, can you have essentially segregated, essentially racial identifiable colleges? Of course, the trick is we don't have a racially integrated society. Not yet. Speaker 5: In your experience, as more black American has received [inaudible] as the purpose, function and style of American education and universities change, have you seen them [inaudible] over the years? Martin D. Jenk...: I don't think American higher education objectives have changed or their basic purposes in what I have stated and when I said the purpose of our education, living, live with yourself, making a living, being a constructive citizen democratic social [inaudible] I don't think that that has been changed by virtue of an increased proportion of black students. I think that an increased proportion of black students increasing in white institutions from a 1% in the 1940s to a 7% in 1975 and certainly changed some of the [inaudible] objectives of white institutions. And the fact in the matter of developing programs, which would be helpful to accommodating black students. I don't know whether that answers your question. Speaker 5: Yeah. Is this something, I mean, role model in the black institutions? Martin D. Jenk...: I didn't hear your first statement. Speaker 5: Yeah. You said something in your lecture about the role models [inaudible] as being one of the incentives for the students. Is there something in the curriculum that is a little bit different than what [inaudible]? Martin D. Jenk...: Well, you understand what I meant by the role model, now you're talking about curriculum and of course that a great individual differences in colleges and black colleges and what they teach, I think it is certain that the black student in a black college is going to get more of the black experience than he would get if he were in a white college, because he taught by predominantly black people, he's taught by black researchers and over the generations have built up this black experience. But he also, let me make this perfectly clear that ain't all he learns. And in the better black colleges, he learns the American culture. He learns chemistry, physics, English, psychology, as well as you learn it here. And so it's the part of the answer to this question of how do you educate for the two cultures? Speaker 5: [inaudible]. Martin D. Jenk...: Yeah. Well, the Bakke case remember as brought by a white student at the University of California who applied for medical school. Now, University of California part of their affirmative action program, to which I could only refer in my lecture has said about set aside I think 16 places I may be wrong about the 16 and they're entering medical school class for blacks on the assumption with the right realization that for generations, we have excluded blacks and now we've got to make up for that. So, let these 16 blacks, most of the 16 blacks do not have the same academic qualifications as the whites who were accepted. You just face that some of them did, but most of them, their grade point average is lower. Their medical aptitude test scores are lower, and yet they're admitted and experience shows that they will finish medical school and be successful. No more of them will drop out in the general population of medical students and so on. Martin D. Jenk...: Now, this white student and you put yourself in this white students place, you try to forget your blackness and look at it from his side. He wants to be a physician, nothing in the world he wants to be better than a physician. His grade point average is better than that of most of these blacks who were admitted, his medical aptitude test is higher and yet the university says, "I don't have room for you." So he goes to the court and said, the constitution of the United States did not permit the University of California to discriminate against me because I'm white no longer, no more than it does permit the university to discriminate against people because they are black. The state Supreme court of California by a vote of six to one, agreed with Bakke. And that question is now before the Supreme court. Martin D. Jenk...: Now, if the Supreme court rules that this is reversed discrimination, then when the University of Iowa wants to, if it does, I don't know what is done here. So I'm simply saying in any white institution to set aside places in graduate school, law school, medical school, or to give students advantage any kind of advantage, as far as loan fund, they will say, "Well, now, we'd like to do that, but that's reverse discrimination. And we cannot do that." Of course, the answer from our view is that this nation must compensate for generations of exclusion. And it could be done only this way, but in fact, that Bakke decision, the Supreme Court is tremendously important because you see, in fact, not only higher education, it affects Ford motor company, which we didn't have a certain proportion of black workers, affects, public school systems, affects any labor organization. Martin D. Jenk...: And it behooves you black students as a part of your general education to know what's going on although you can't influence that at the moment, maybe the solution will be to substitute culturally disadvantaged for race. Yeah. Speaker 6: [inaudible]. Martin D. Jenk...: Could you stand up so everybody can hear what your voice is coming... Speaker 6: [inaudible]. Martin D. Jenk...: No, I know that the NAACP attorneys and other attorneys as you have stated, who are opposed to the decision made by the supporting Bakke felt that the University of California case was a weak case, and that it's not a good case to go to Supreme Court because the way the Supreme Court operates in any kind of case, it operates on the arguments that are presented to it. I didn't go outside of that argument say, "Well, listen, you might've argued something else." They don't operate that way. And I do not know enough in detail of why this was not a good case. Although as you have stated the there's a feeling of, it's not a good state case. And with the predominantly Nixon appointed Supreme Court I am not enthusiastic about the kind of ruling we may get from the Supreme Court, although I'm may be surprised and I hope I will be. Martin D. Jenk...: And incidentally, this is something too that college educated young people ought to understand is how tremendously important the Supreme Court of the United States is preserving the rights or destroying the rights of blacks and other minorities. As far as the blacks are concerned that's the worst thing Nixon did was appoint those four very conservative justices, maybe in there the next 20 years. You ought to know that as a part of your general education. Act on it. Thank you, Dr. Turner. Darwin Turner: Thank you Dr. Jenkins for lecturing to us this evening and I'd like to thank all of you for attending.