INTENSE BONDING All students tend to gravitate toward others like themselves, but for these black women, the bonding was even more intense. While none of them recall facing any open hostility or overt racism, all agreed that they felt very isolated at Mercyhurst. “I think mainly there was some passive aggressive behavior but little overt hostility,” recalled Sharon. Alicia said, “I didn’t feel hostility or negativity, but I did feel isolated. Coming from D.C., it was lonely at Mercyhurst. Erie was very, very diferent. It may have been more of an adjustment to Erie than to Mercyhurst.” “I did not feel discriminated against, but socially we were isolated unless we found a way to make our own fun,” Carol (Mohamed) said. “I didn’t experience bigotry, but sometimes there can be some racism just from a sense of superiority. Like, ‘I feel sorry for you because you are in a minority race.’” “There weren’t situations at Mercyhurst that nurtured social life for minority women. There would be mixers, but the people who attended them were majority race,” Carol (Mohamed) noted. Rochelle agreed, “They were dating. We weren’t dating – who would we date?”
SPRING OF 1968 All the women mentioned spring of 1968 – following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. – as a tough time for black students on campus. Sharon said, “I vividly recall MLK’s assassination and how a number of us were gathered in the dorm lounge watching TV and were devastated by his death and the riots that followed. And I also remember the insensitivity of one individual in particular who said out loud as we watched, ‘I’m so glad my family lives in the suburbs and away from all that.’ A heated discussion followed and I’ll leave it at that.” Rochelle’s memory is even more wrenching. As images of burning cities flled the newscasts, she says a white classmate asked her, “If they told all black people to start killing white people, would you do it?” Peggy said she noticed a change in her friends during their sophomore year when their identities as black women were becoming stronger. “It was hard on me because I didn’t understand why I felt alienated from them,” she explained. “I wanted things to be the way they were. I didn’t think there was anything wrong, which shows just how naïve I was coming from my background.” It fell to Alicia – who described herself as the militant of the group – to try to explain the situation to the university as a whole. “The university was attempting to become more sensitive to issues going on in America, and that was one you couldn’t overlook,” she said. In a speech to the college community, she tried to relate what Dr. King’s death meant to African-Americans, and why riots were breaking out in so many metropolitan areas. Before Alicia arrived at Mercyhurst in 1966, she said, administrators polled the cadet teachers who were on campus that summer to see if there was someone who wouldn’t mind rooming with an African-American. Candy Sporer volunteered and the two got along well, sharing a room for two years until Candy left campus for her full-time teaching assignment. “If there was anyone described as being militant, it would have been me,” Alicia said candidly. “I gave all my professors a hard time because I didn’t think they were emphasizing the black experience enough.” When her art survey course failed to mention African-American artists, she did her own report on Henry Tanner, one of the frst African- 11
around more African-Americans. She organized the Association of Black Collegiates (ABC), which included students at Gannon and Villa Maria colleges as well as her friends at Mercyhurst. ABC sponsored social events; hosted an Erie appearance by comedian and activist Dick Gregory; did tutoring and other service projects in Erie’s inner city; and even staged a production of Jean Genet’s provocative drama The Blacks for the Mercyhurst Drama Festival. LEAVING THEIR MARK AT MERCYHURST Though their number was small, the black women were making an impact at Mercyhurst as well, including Rochelle, who was elected the frst African-American president of Mercyhurst student government in 1970-71. At that time of growing student activism, the government was known as RUS – the Representative Union of Students – and had a voice in the College Senate. “Mercyhurst had a way of wanting us to experience certain things, to be an ofcer, to be involved in politics, to be a leader, and to be responsible for someone other than yourself,” Rochelle mused. “They encouraged us to run for ofce and I really found out about politics – about how things could get done if the right person said the right thing to the right people.” She noted that her white classmates encouraged her to run and supported her in the election. Sharon recalled, “Mercyhurst truly developed and cultivated my complete love of theater to this day. The Blacks was the frst time I was involved with and actually acted in a play. I would go on to be involved in several other theater productions, both onstage and working behind the scenes while there. My interest in politics and voter registration issues also began and fourished there.” Carol (White) Mohamed recorded another frst – the frst African-American student to receive the Carpe Diem Award, the highest award presented to a graduating senior.
At times they felt overlooked, even invisible.
In a piece for the Merciad , Rochelle tallied the number of images of black students in the 1968 yearbook. “Out of 312 pictures in the yearbook, black girls were only in 3,” she wrote. “And out of eight of us on campus, at that time, only 4 managed to qualify for ‘candid’ photos.” She added, “Just for the record, we read books in the library. We sleep in class. We talk with teachers. We participate in Italian Night. Polish Night. Halloween Night. We lay on our beds in our rooms and study. We wear curlers in our hair. We laugh – we cry.” Alicia came up with one solution to the isolation she felt at Mercyhurst and to her need to be
At a 2013 lunch in Washington, D.C.: (from left) Alicia King Redfern, Peggy Fox Lape, Sharon Ford Watkins, Carol White Mohamed, Carol Blue.
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