THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 4, 1995 TAG: 9503040409
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
The executive editor of JET magazine Friday encouraged Elizabeth City State University students to take an active role in carrying on the school's historic mission.
``You are fighting for survival while the politicians are trying to dry up the resources that would shut this school,'' said Robert E. Johnson, the featured speaker at ECSU's Founders Day convocation. ``You're fighting to keep building this institution.''
Johnson, 72, is associate publisher and executive editor of the national weekly published in Chicago. A 1948 graduate of Morehouse College and a contemporary of such civil rights activists as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Johnson said society has improved over his lifetime.
``Things are good, but they're not where they ought to be,'' Johnson told a near-capacity crowd of ECSU affiliates and community leaders in Moore Hall. ``The creed and the practice are not yet in sync. The Constitution and the practice are not yet in sync.''
ECSU students, Johnson said, are proving that ``a black institution can be good, better, best. You are living proof that something good can come out of something black. . . .
``The white students and the black students at Elizabeth City State University,'' he said, are ``going to be the first ones to get the job no matter what, because you know both cultures.''
In explaining how he came to be a speaker at ECSU, Johnson brought in another name that has bolstered the university's prestige in recent months: actor-singer Clifton Davis.
``I became the victim of salesmanship,'' Johnson joked, explaining how Davis had contacted him and talked up ECSU. ``The next thing I knew, I was saying `yes' to something I should have said `no' to.''
Davis, the university's interim vice chancellor for development, was one of several platform guests who sat onstage in academic robes as a parade of speakers and greeters addressed the crowd in the 2 1/2-hour ceremony.
Also onstage was actor Whitman Mayo, best known as Grady on the television show ``Sanford and Son.'' Mayo has recently joined the Chancellor's Board of Advisors. His brief statements near the conclusion of the ceremony drew roars from the audience.
``When you look to the east and you see the rising star,'' Mayo said, latching onto the university's motto, ``you might see me on top of that thing.''
``I'm gonna be shouting at you if you're not doing your j-o-b,'' Mayo continued. ``Your job, henceforth, is ECSU.''
The university awarded three honorary doctor of humane letter degrees Friday, its 13th, 14th and 15th such awards. The recipients were Dorothy Elliott Thomas, a former faculty member who has served ECSU for 47 years; Elizabeth City Mayor H. Rick Gardner, a major financial contributor to the university; and Pasquotank County Commissioner W.C. Witherspoon, former ECSU director of student personnel.
The ceremony was followed by a traditional pilgrimage to Oak Grove Cemetery, where wreaths were laid at the graves of ECSU leaders Hugh Cale, Peter Weddick Moore and John Henry Bias.
Friday's events closed the weeklong 104th anniversary celebration, which began Monday with the unveiling of a state historical marker honoring Hugh Cale at the corner of Cale and Road streets. ILLUSTRATION: Words of wisdom
DREW C. WILSON
Staff
[Color Photo]
Actor and singer Clifton Davis, right, talks to Chancellor Jimmy R.
Jenkins as they and W.C. Witherspoon, former director of student
personell wait for the Founders Day ceremony to begin at Elizabeth
City State University.
by CNB