I read an excellent book on race in America entitled Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson. It got me thinking about my experiences of racial incidents. Here are a few of them.

Perhaps not today but when I attended college in the late 1950s, for many students fraternities and sororities were essential to the college experience and often a material element forwarding one’s career. They were not just places where we ate and slept — they were integral to the social life of the college or university. They provided their members with valuable contacts not only during college years but thereafter. They contributed significantly to the success of many of their members in getting good jobs and starting businesses in the years after college. They were also part of the caste system. I pledged Lambda Chi Alpha (LXA) at Hamilton College. There were a few black students in the class of 1961, I did not know any of them. One day in 1958, Timothy Scholl, LXA chapter president called a meeting to discuss a provision of the charter of the national fraternity: the policy barring black people from membership. I had not given any thought to race at Hamilton; the subject simply did not come up. We were unanimous in agreeing with Tim Scholl that we should not be bound by such a rule. We voted to extend membership regardless of race or color. The national fraternity revoked our participation in LXA and we became a local fraternity named Gryphon Society.  

During my college years I had two other incidents that involved matters of race. 

The late 50s saw civil rights activists marching and picketing against racist practices. In 1958 or early 1959, after we became a local fraternity, Tim Scholl again called us together, this time to go into nearby Utica and picket the F.W. Woolworth store because of its segregated lunch counters in the South. There was no reaction by the store manager or by the passersby as far as I remember.

The other incident occurred in 1965 on my way home by bus from a Peace Corps training assignment in New Orleans. I had to change buses in Jackson, Mississippi but there was something like nine or ten hours to wait for the connection. I checked into a hotel. When I got to my room I looked at the paper that came with my key and was surprised to see that I was a “member” of the hotel. I guess this was the way that the hotel thought it could evade the 1964 civil rights act prohibition on discrimination in public accommodations.