RACE, ACTIVISM, AND HILLARY CLINTON AT WELLESLEY

[BlueMTexpat]

Note to mods: the headline is in caps. I merely cut and pasted.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/race-activism-and-hillary-clinton-at-wellesley

Really nice story from someone who knew Hillary at Wellesley ....

The two things that are said perhaps most often about Janet Hill—that she is a lawyer and that she was Hillary Clinton’s roommate at Wellesley College, in the late sixties—are not true. “That legend was started by the sportscaster Dick Vitale, in 1991,” she said recently, of the Clinton story. Hill’s son Grant was then a star at Duke; he would become a star in the N.B.A. as well, and is now a basketball analyst for Turner Sports. “He focussed all the time on Calvin,” Hill continued, referring to her husband, a retired N.F.L. star. “Then, one day, his cameraman widened the shot—and there I was. Dick said, ‘Oh, my God, there’s Grant’s mother! She went to Wellesley with her roommate Hillary Clinton! She’s a lawyer in Washington, in the Bush Administration!’ The only correct part is: I’m Grant’s mom and I went to Wellesley. Hillary and I were just good friends there.”

Janet Hill has known Hillary Rodham Clinton since 1965, when they were freshmen at Wellesley. “She played a big role in encouraging me not to leave that first week of college,” Hill, who serves on the boards of Dean Foods, the Carlyle Group, and Duke University, said. “It was culture shock: being in an all-female, predominantly white environment. I grew up in segregated New Orleans, and suddenly I’m at Wellesley, with only five blacks in my class. But my mother told me I couldn’t come home, and Hillary told me I couldn’t leave school.”

Hill and the other four African-American women who graduated from Wellesley’s four-hundred-and-twenty-person class of 1969 remember Clinton, with whom many of them still communicate, fondly. (A sixth African-American student in the class transferred after her sophomore year, and has since passed away. There were also two black students from outside the United States.) “What I liked about her was that we did not seem to be novelties to her,” Nancy Gist, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., said recently. “There were a lot of white women at Wellesley who hadn’t really had much contact with black people, especially people like us. They didn’t quite know what to make of us. Hillary did not communicate any of that. I don’t know that she had spent time around black people, but for whatever reason she did not seem to be so mystified.”

“I remember us correcting each other’s art-history essays in her room,” Alvia Wardlaw, a leading expert on African-American art, who lives in Houston, recalled. “It was me, Hillary, and Lillian Miller. I remember I had used a phrase that Lillian tried to correct, and Hillary said, ‘No, that sounds good.’ She was a very approachable and positive classmate. That’s what I appreciated about her. She was very open. And you could hear that big laugh of hers all through the dining hall.” Freshmen were required to carry heavy trays of milk, water, and food to tables where students ate together, family-style. “It was some heavy lifting,” Wardlaw added. “But Hillary would joke about it being good exercise.”

[DURHAM D]

1. What a fantastic read.

Everyone please take the time to read the entire article. I am close to Hillary's age and remember well the treatment of minority students over room mate assignments and lack of AA faculty and staff. If you are not of her generation this article will help you understand the times and subsequent change.

Thanks for posting.

I gave this 100 thumbsup.

[BlueMTexpat]

7. I am from just before Hillary's undergrad era;

I graduated from college in 1964. Having attended a small lily-white undergrad college in the West where no AAs were resident in the single dorm that existed then, I never really knew about the experience of AA women students in dorms.

In my private Catholic high school of 600 students when I attended in the late 1950s-early 1960s, however, there were approximately four AA students (two females and two males), whose fathers worked for the Great Northern RR. One of the girls was very active in speech, drama and music and I knew her well - and admired her very much because she was extremely talented; I wasn't really in any classes or activities with the other girl but she seemed to have a fairly devoted circle of friends. Both of the guys were active in sports and, so far as I know, were basically integrated quite well insofar as classes and activities went. I can't speak to other experiences they may have had.

This was very moving, IMO, and makes me like Hillary even more.

[ismnotwasm]

2. Oh my God that's good

By the spring of 1967, Gist, Williamson, Wardlaw, and Wilson—with the help of one student from the class of 1968 and a handful of students from the class of 1970—had officially founded a student group called Ethos. Williamson, the organization’s first president, announced its mission in a letter to the Wellesley News: “To represent the Negro students on campus in matters which concern and interest us.” Those matters took on even greater urgency after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968. “We had been meeting and voicing concerns,” Wardlaw said. “But the assassination of Dr. King caused us to really set out a platform with all the issues.”

A number of the white students on campus were also visibly upset by the assassination. But only one of them called Williamson. “I remember the evening he was killed,” Williamson said. “Hillary called me to express her sympathy, how upset she was. And I don’t know that any other white student did that. I was very touched.”

“What I respected about Hillary was you could see a gradual evolution,” Gist said. “She started out—for whatever it’s worth to have supported any candidate when you were seventeen years old—supporting Goldwater. And most of the girls in our class did come from homes that were Republican, whatever that meant at the time. But you could see her thoughtfully moving away from the ways and strictures and politics with which she’d been raised. By the time she started focussing on Eugene McCarthy and viewing the world through progressive and race-conscious and peace-conscious lenses, it was the result of a process. I always thought of her as somebody who is real, for that reason. She didn’t just jump into something without thinking it through.”

This story is told mostly from a black perspective, a valuable and necessary perspective.

[BlueMTexpat]

4. That is why I loved it!

I also love this part from the section that you posted.

But you could see her thoughtfully moving away from the ways and strictures and politics with which she’d been raised. By the time she started focussing on Eugene McCarthy and viewing the world through progressive and race-conscious and peace-conscious lenses, it was the result of a process. I always thought of her as somebody who is real, for that reason. She didn’t just jump into something without thinking it through.”

[caquillo]

3. Kismet!

Her former classmates are not surprised, in any case, that Clinton is on the verge of the nomination—they could see that coming a long time ago. “There was a sheet of paper in our elevator at Freeman Hall, during senior week,” Hill said. “People wrote the name of a senior and predicted what would happen to her. Several said that I’d marry a football player; that wasn’t a stretch. But we predicted Hillary would be the first female President of the United States.”

[BlueMTexpat]

5. Even then!

Good highlight!

[caquillo]

6. Some more things to ponder...

- The mother of the first woman nominated for president by a major political party was born on the same day (June 4, 1919) that the Senate passed the 19th Amendment, allowing women to vote.

- The eldest daughter of the first black president, who coincidentally was born on July 4, turning 18 this year and casting her first vote for the first woman nominee.

- Hillary winning the nomination on the same day (June 7) she conceded her campaign in 2008.

- And if it all goes according to plan, the first black president passing the presidential baton to the first female president on January 20, 2017. (Both courtesy of the Democratic Party, thank you very much!)

I'm not generally a superstitious person, but it's hard to ignore these 'coincidences.' Remember when Obama gave his acceptance speech at the DNC on August 28, 2008? Coincidentally, it was 45 years to the day that Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the March on Washington (August 28, 1963). Some saw that as a sign at the time, since many feel that MLK should've/would've been a great president.

[BlueMTexpat]

8. As you say, there's lots of

kismet ...

[Henhouse]

9. K&R....nt

[Her Sister]

10. Very interesting article! Glad that articles like this are coming out!

Like how we see HRC's personality already in place while at the same time growing, changing and evolving in a deep and thoughtful way! Interesting also because it shows how things have changed in America when it comes to Race and Woman's roles!

Also it shows that her comfort with African Americans came naturally to her! Not a show! Just her!

Her former classmates are not surprised, in any case, that Clinton is on the verge of the nomination—they could see that coming a long time ago. “There was a sheet of paper in our elevator at Freeman Hall, during senior week,” Hill said. “People wrote the name of a senior and predicted what would happen to her. Several said that I’d marry a football player; that wasn’t a stretch. But we predicted Hillary would be the first female President of the United States.”

They knew!

[BlueMTexpat]

11. It's quite telling

that so many different people from so many different stages of her life have such wonderful memories of her!

[Her Sister]

12. Yes! I concur!! Every story that comes out tells us what we know plus adding beautiful layers...

and I like confirmation that she always had that laugh!!!