ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 1, 1997 TAG: 9703030013
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
Those involved in the project say assembling a Virginia Tech black history timeline on the Internet was an exercise in self-awareness.
Now, members of the Tech community - or anyone else with an interest in the subject - can get information and a sense of what the black experience at the university has been like.
Anyone with a computer, Internet access and an inquisitive mind can call up http://scholar2.lib.vt.edu/spec/arc/bltime/intro.htm to learn about past and present black Hokies, their achievements and their experiences.
For example, included at the site is the text of a recent interview with Marguerite Harper Scott, one of six women who became Tech's first black coeds in 1966.
Scott says she had "no idea" what lay ahead when she came from her Norfolk home to Blacksburg that fall.
"I just felt I was being watched to see if we were right for the job, so to speak."
"A Timeline of Black History at Virginia Tech" also includes photographs spanning more than a century of campus life, other oral histories and some brief biographies of Tech's black "firsts" as employees, students, faculty members and administrators.
There have been more than a few lumps in the racial mix at Tech, the former all-male military school founded by ex-Confederate officers. Scott tells of being jabbed in the back by a drunk white student and told to stand when "Dixie" was played at a football game. (She refused.)
Nonetheless, blacks have been a presence at Tech throughout its history, first as laborers, now as leaders. Yet those involving in building the timeline say it was challenging to construct.
"It was a job of digging," Elaine Carter said.
"We really didn't have a central location for any information. It was all bits and pieces," said Michele Holmes, an equal opportunity specialist at Tech who is one of the university's veteran black employees.
At first, when the project was launched last year, Carter said she was told no records of Tech's black story existed. It was a matter of bringing the story out of the shadows, a process that's familiar to anyone who seeks to chronicle the lives of common people.
For her part, Carter - an Elliston native and one who proudly identifies herself as Tech's oldest black student (she's 58 and working on a doctorate in public administration) - was motivated because of the connections she discovered to her own life.
When the first black women students talked of being shunned, insulted, threatened, inconvenienced or misunderstood, "I got excited. Our experiences were so much alike," she said.
At the time, amid the national tumult of desegregation, the everyday experiences of individuals such as Marguerite Harper Scott were overshadowed or ignored. They weren't recognized as heroic, Carter said.
Yet these and other young black students were Virginia Tech's own civil rights pioneers. And it's appropriate for the university to collect, preserve and tell their story, said Tamara Kennelly, Tech's archivist.
From its founding in the 1870s, Tech had a black presence. In the early days, they observed the era's rigid caste system by working as laborers, custodians, barbers or cooks, all anonymous to history.
Only by assuming the servile role of court jester could blacks achieve a sense of notoriety. That's Floyd "Hard Times" Meade's story. A Blacksburg native, Meade paraded along the sidelines at football games, dressed in an orange and maroon suit, tapping a trained turkey with a whip so the bird would "gobble" to celebrate touchdowns.
Changes began to come during the 1950s. Tech's first black student arrived in 1953. Charles L. Yates, presently an engineering professor at Tech, was the school's first black graduate in 1958.
Interviews with two Blacksburg ministers, Ellison Smyth and Phillip Price, tell of desegregation's early days on campus and in the community. Another timeline component is the Black Women at Virginia Tech History Project, where Scott's remarks can be read, along with interviews with two other women who were among the original six, Jacquelyn Butler Blackwell and Linda Edmonds Turner.
During the 1970s more blacks came to campus as scholarship athletes and university employees. A black student, Cheryl Butler, was among the first women to join Tech's Corps of Cadets.
Greater visibility came during the 1980s, with black students joining the cheerleading squad and becoming homecoming court candidates. Social and professional organizations, such as the National Society of Black Engineers, were formed.
During the past decade, the timeline tells of blacks gaining greater access to positions of power and responsibility at Virginia Tech.
But Tech's black story is still evolving. Carter said the timeline will expand, too.
It's already had a catalytic effect on campus by bringing together students - such as Dan Moran, who set up the timeline and its web site - faculty and staff, Kennelly said.
Carter and others involved in the project hope placing it on the web will spread awareness, and lead to other programs or events that follow the theme of linking past, present and future.
That's the process Scott has used to reconcile the positives and negatives of her college days. These days she says, "No, I have no regrets about going to Virginia Tech."
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALan Kim. 1. "A Timeline of Black History at Virginiaby CNBTech" was assembled from various sources spanning more than a
century of campus life. Dan Moran (above), who built the timeline's
web pages, was among a group of students, faculty and staff who
worked on the project. 2. Tech doctoral student Elaine Carter (left
in photo at right) and University Archivist Tamara Kennelly hope the
project will be a catalyst for awareness and pride. color.