Page 8 - Spelman50thReunionBook
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Introduction
by Bettieanne Childers Hart, Michelle Smith, & Merchuria Chase Williams
In September of 1965, a freshman class of 300 counterparts were being noticeably diminished in
entered Spelman College, “prim and proper” young numbers. Our high school years had been
ladies; products traumatized by assassinations—John F. Kennedy,
for the most part Malcolm X, Medgar Evers—and though we also
of a southern, witnessed the beginning of the Space Age with the
segregated launch of the first space shuttles, no human had
society, eager yet set foot on the Moon.
for a new day,
but uncertain as to what it would mean. We Our fashion sense was simple. We all came with
happily joined a melting pot of young women, one black dress,
urban and rural, from the Northeast, West and a white dress,
Midwest and two students from as far away as stockings and
Kenya and of course, from Atlanta. We settled into straightening
Morehouse North and South, Packard, and combs. Since
Chadwick, meeting new friends and roommates. pants were only
The successes of the Civil Rights Movement, newly allowed on
integrated lunch counters, hotels and other public weekends at
accommodations, and passage of the 1964 Civil breakfast and after dark, most of our
Rights Act, and 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the trunks accommodated only one or two pairs of
Supreme Court decision regarding birth control slacks; skirts and sweaters were the norm. Our
heralded new, but yet untried adventures for us. belongings fit into one footlocker. Home hair
Lyndon Johnson was President of the United relaxers were not yet on the market. Learning to
States and the Vietnam War had not yet escalated apply make-up, trying new hairstyles and buying
to the point that the ranks of our Black male grown-up clothing styles not permitted at home
