The Miracle of Malcolm X

Author(s): Sharon Johnson

Source: Change, Vol. 3, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1971), pp. 18-21
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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review Harvard policy after the strike of 1969, included the

investment question as a part of a more comprehensive
deliberation on the university's financing.
Reports from both committees have been published in
recent weeks, and each group admitted that the investment
issue is full of difficult questions: Can the university learn
enough about the net social impact of scores of potential
investments to make informed judgments? Can 15,000
students, 5,000 faculty members and 150,000 alumni ever
reach agreement on what stocks to buy or avoid and how to
vote in a proxy fight like Campaign GM? Can a university
with a direct impact on the housing supply in Cambridge
and Boston rightfully stay out of the low-income housing
field on the grounds that it is not profitable? Should the
university wait for Ralph Nader to take the lead in
challenging corporate practice or act on its own initiative?
Should it join other universities and foundations in such
moves? Should the university- given its financial condition
risk alienating alumni and corporate donors by awarding
or denying its version of the Good Housekeeping Seal?
The Austin committee did not develop any magic
formula to apply across the board to the university's
decisions on buying new shares or voting those it already
owns. "Rough rules of thumb might evolve with experience," the committee said. "But for the immediate future
we see no escape from the necessity of making decisions ad
"
hoc. The group did provide some suggestions, however, in
areas where there seemed least room for argument. The
committee said that in making new investments the
university generally should strive for "maximum return"
because of the sheer necessity of raising as much money as
possible to defray rising costs. But there are exceptions, the
committee said, where "moral factors" take precedence:
Harvard does have an obligation to invest in projects that
benefit its immediate neighborhood, and it should avoid
stock in tobacco- companies, South African corporations
and firms that practice "racial and other invidious forms of
discrimination."
There is no need for the university to buy stock in a
company with an eye to reforming its management, the
committee said, but in those firms where it already owns
shares it "need not remain passive in the face of substantial
evidence that the company is acting in an antisocial way."
The university should not take the lead in soliciting proxies
in favor of a given policy nor should it join with other
tax-exempt institutions in such moves, but it might vote its
stock "on occasion in favor of change for the symbolic
effect. . ." Because of the difficulty of reaching collective
decisions, the committee urged appointment of a single
university officer who would invite suggestions from the
Harvard community on the social aspects of investment
policy and seek out investments that might be both
profitable and socially beneficial.
Left unanswered was how to deal with cases where
"investment purity" is less clear-cut than in the case of
South African firms. What, for example, should a university

do about investing in a corporation that does business in

South Africa, has a good race relations record at home and
whose founder has just contributed several million dollars
to a fund drive?
Because the Austin committee provided no guidance
on questions like this, many students who read the report
felt it was not worth arguing much about. The Harvard
Crimson, noting that the investment issue is clouded with
complexity, said bluntly: "The committee chose to leave
the clouds undisturbed." Then, too, the atmosphere at
Harvard has cooled as much as elsewhere, so when the
report came out in early March there was little of the
heated debate that characterized discussions about Campaign GM a year earlier- no letters to the alumni magazine,
no organized student debates, no faculty endorsement, no
Corporation announcement of changes in policy, no commitments from the university's new president, Derek Bok.
Probably the first test of whether the report has had any
impact will be the Corporation's reaction should Campaign
GM, which is organizing a second drive this year, mount
another serious campaign on the campus.
Both committees- Austin's group and the Committee
on Governance acknowledged that their effort had produced a compromise that was not likely to satisfy everyone.
"Certainly (this) paper will fail to satisfy those few who
believe that the best thing Harvard could do with its
endowment would be to give it away to poor people, and
the next best, to dump it in the Charles on the ground that
Harvard is a servant of evil in an evil society and the sooner
it goes out of business, the better," said the Committee on
Governance. But it might be added, that both reports will
likewise fail to satisfy those who believe that the responsibility of universities in corporate conduct includes nothing
more than picking up dividend checks.
- Larry Van Dyne

The Miracle of Malcolm X

As colleges and universities across the country struggle to
make their institutions relevant to black students, Chicago's
Malcolm X College is proving that the black community
can be educated without a massive influx in funds and staff.
Although only two years old, Malcolm X has given hope to
thousands of black students who have never experienced
anything but failure and frustration in the city's iethargic
school system and has become the spearhead of the
downtrodden West Side community's attempt to rebuild
itself. It has worked these miracles in spite of dilapidated
quarters, a well-entrenched teachers' union that has resisted
change, and quarrels with the city's educational and
political establishment over charges that it had become a
black power training school.
Larry Van Dyne is an education writer for the Boston Globe.

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Until 1969, Malcolm X College was known as Crane

College, the oldest junior college in the city. Crane's
prestige fell after World War II when the Jews abandoned
the West Side for suburbia, and blacks, many of them
newcomers from the rural South, replaced them. The
college was housed in a few dismal rooms in Crane High
School, a sagging building with boarded-up windows and
peeling paint. Although foreign language courses and
second-year science and mathematics courses were required
for transfer to four-year institutions in the Chicago area,
none were offered here. Most of the students were 25 to 30
years old and had spent as long as five years trying to get a
two-year degree. In 1968, only 15 of the 1,000 students
completed their year of study.
Much of the credit for transforming the college from a
dead-end school into a vital institution must be given to Dr.
Charles Hurst, president of the college, who accepted the
$25,000-a-year post in 1969. Hurst came to Chicago from
Howard University where he was dean of speech and
director of the university's communication science research
center. Before earning a doctorate in speech at Wayne State
University, Hurst had been a high school dropout, ditch
digger, railroad laborer and crane operator, and had served a
jail sentence in North Carolina for possession of untaxed
liquor.
One of Dr. Hurst's first acts was to move the college
out of the high school and into two equally dismal
buildings that had been abandoned by other schools.
Artistic students decorated the buildings on the theme of
black pride and soon paintings of old slaves in chains, portraits of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and drawings
of disheartened ghetto children covered the walls. The sight
unsettled Chicagoans long accustomed to seeing stark white
walls throughout the city school system.
The exodus of white faculty proved equally unsettling.
Eleven white faculty members were transferred to other
campuses in the Chicago City College system during the
first six months of Dr. Hurst's term. By the end of the
academic year, 60 teachers- half the faculty- had left the
college. The exodus left the impression in the minds of
many of the remaining white teachers that they were
unwelcome at Malcolm X.
"Many of us are sympathetic to what they are doing at
Malcolm X, but we wonder how we would be accepted by
the black faculty members and students," said a white
University of Chicago graduate who teaches in another
junior college.
The friction between the white educational establishment of the city and the evolving black coalition at the
college simmered over the departure of white teachers and
finally exploded into a confrontation over the change of
name from Crane, honoring a white manufacturer of
plumbing fixtures, to Malcolm X, a black civil rights leader.
A committee of students and community leaders had
selected Malcolm X. The Chicago Junior College Board
refused to accept the name of Malcolm X and hired a

market research corporation to find out what name the

community wanted. The survey showed that Booker T.
Washington was the choice of the community. The junior
college board disliked the finding and appointed a committee to make a final selection from a list of eight names four proposed by the college board and four proposed by
the college and community. Malcolm X was the final
choice.
"It was fortunate that the junior college board tried to
stop the change of name because it brought the community
together," said Dr. Hurst. "It gave me the support I needed
to make other changes."
The confrontation also gave Dr. Hurst the autonomy
he needed to make changes in curriculum and philosophy.
Urban survival courses such as issues in law enforcement
and problems of education in major urban centers were
added to the curriculum. A black studies institute began
offering courses ranging from remnants of African culture
to post-1865 Afro- American history.
One of the biggest changes was the revision of the
grading system. Failure grades were eliminated. To get a C
or better, students must fulfill a series of "behavior
objectives" formulated by the student and teacher. The
more behavior objectives fulfilled, the higher the grade. If
students don't attend class, they are not dropped. They are
retired temporarily from the class roll while the teachers
and other staff members continue to work with them and
try to develop their self-confidence and capabilities so that
they will be able to complete the courses.
"For the first time in my life, I didn't have the fear of
flunking out hanging over my head," said a girl who had
dropped out of high school rather than face a failing grade.
"I learned a lot more from my courses, too."
The faculty had a harder time than the students in
adjusting to the new grading system. Many of them
opposed the change because they said it made the students
less accountable for their actions and put teachers on the
defensive. Some left the college.
Other changes, such as the elimination of remedial
courses, the development of a learning skills center, and the
granting of credit for life experiences have proven controversial.
"Remedial courses are very demeaning to the student
and have been used to confirm the racist educational
system," said Dr. Hurst. "We are trying to introduce a new
view of potential at Malcolm X. We say that it is more
important to look at where a student can go than where he
has come from."
The learning skills center implements this philosophy
by offering intensive tutoring for students who have
difficulty with regular class work.
The center operates on the philosophy that all students
can be helped if only given enough time. This philosophy is
especially helpful in teaching English to college freshmen
who attended Chicago high schools. The average graduate
of an inner city high school in Chicago stands more than

CHANGE/May-June 1971

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three years behind the national average in English. To get

credit for English 101, a student works until he passes-for
eight weeks or two years. Attrition has been one of the
problems of the center. During the first year, the center lost
50 percent of its students. The rate has now decreased to
20 percent, primarily because of peer pressure.
"Kids just aren't used to that kind of freedom," a
sophomore explained. "They're used to the traditional
approach where the teacher browbeats you into writing all
kinds of themes. The kids who have kept up with the
English classes are telling the others all the good they got
out of them so the others are starting to go again."
Flexibility also is offered in the granting of credit for
life experiences. Students have received credit for teaching
themselves accounting, working on newspapers, and
operating small businesses.
The West Side of Chicago is one of the most forlorn,
improvised and undereducated parts of the city. Malcolm X
College has tried to alleviate these community conditions
by offering a wide variety of programs that will prepare
graduates for entry jobs in technical fields. Courses in
inhalation therapy, medical laboratory techniques, medical
transcription, and other allied health fields are offered.
Two-year, semi-professional programs in accounting and
computing, art and advertising display, graphic arts, plant
engineering, and nursing have been started. For those who
cannot attend classes during regular school hours, the
college sponsors week-end classes. Students from 16 to 60
attend classes ranging from typing to electronics. Many of
these courses are taught by volunteer professionals.
White establishment support of the college has been
slow in coming. After the death of Black Panther leader
Fred Hampton - a Malcolm X student - in a raid by
police, there was an outcry for the ouster of Dr. Hurst and
a tighter rein on the college. Dr. Hurst supported the Black
Panthers' story of the death of Hampton, and said at a
memorial service that he would train a black army to fight
for Hampton's ideals and objectives. Shortly thereafter, the
junior college board held an executive session and discussed
firing Dr. Hurst. Insiders say that only the large number of
petitions from the black community and broad concern
over a possible bloodbath in the West Side community
saved the young administrator his job.
"The media missed the metaphor," said Dr. Hurst. "No
one bothered to ask me what I mean by 'army' because the
Chicago power structure thought I would train people to run
around with pistols. What I needed then and now is an
army of black professionals who can rebuild the black
community's sense of commitment. The black community
needs physicians, teachers, and others to develop its
resources."
Because of the controversy over Fred Hampton's
death, many Chicagoans believe that Malcolm X is a school
that teaches hatred of white people. Although all the
students are devoted to a program of uplifting the black
community through individual vocational efforts, their

politics run the gamut just as they do on any college

campus. Like most college students, they voice opposition
to the Vietnam war, concern about the environment, and
support of programs to upgrade the cities.
Moreover, since they have never had vacations in
Europe, or any of the other benefits that a well-paying job
brings, Malcolm X students are more willing to give the
business world a chance than many white students
their age. Almost every student I met had a vacation in
mind and spoke of what he planned to do when he
graduated.
"Let's face it," one girl said. "Most of these people have
been drop-outs all their lives. Now they have a chance to
make something of themselves and they aren't going to do
anything to mess it up."
The teachers were equally committed. "The Chicago
Board of Education kept sending me to Stanford and other
schools to learn new teaching techniques," said Mrs. Verda
Beach, dean of learning and instructional resources, who
taught in the Chicago elementary school system for 14
years before joining the Malcolm X faculty. "They gave me
lots in input, but never any chance for output. I've found
challenge here."
Malcolm X College faces numerous challenges in the
coming years. It recently moved into a $26 million campus.
Next fall it will have 6,500 students, and at capacity the
school will house 10,000. What effect the influx of large
numbers of students will have on the school is yet to be
determined. Not only will the student body enlarge in
numbers, but it also may alter in racial composition.
Malcolm X plans to undertake a special recruitment
program to attract Spanish-speaking students. In the past,
few Spanish- speaking students have attended the city's
junior colleges. The school also expects white enrollment to
increase. But Dr. Hurst observes, "The student body is
committed to the concept that this will remain a predominantly black school and has formed a committee to recruit
blacks."
The college also faces financial problems. In spite
of its many innovative programs, it has not received much
federal aid. In 1970-71, it received $86,000 in National
Defense state loan allocations and $228,000 in equal
opportunity grant funds, sums hardly unusual for a Chicago
junior college. Many of the funds for innovative programs
and new equipment and supplies have come from Dr.
Hurst's manipulation of the budget. Last year the college
spent $1.1 million for books and supplies because he
eliminated numerous full-time salaries to part-time faculty
members.
Another challenge facing Malcolm X is accreditation.
Malcolm X is now accredited as Crane. This spring it will be
visited by an accrediting team of inspectors from the North
Central Regional Accrediting Association. Will the inspectors react favorably to such courses as "institutional
racism" or the school's police training program or the
teaching of Swahili? Dr. Hurst is confident that the

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inspectors will accredit Malcolm X.

The ultimate question, however, is how Malcolm X
College graduates do in four-year institutions. The first class
that will have spent two full years in the college will
graduate in June. Many of them plan to continue their
education at four-year colleges in the Chicago area. To ease
the transition, Malcolm X college officials have met with
officials of the Chicago Circle campus of the University of
Illinois and other institutions to discuss the students' needs.
To better prepare future students for such transitions,
Malcolm X and Chicago Circle recently entered into an
agreement that will permit freshmen in engineering and
other technical curricula to register concurrently on the
two campuses.
Malcolm X hopes that many of the courses and
philosophies of educating black students will be adopted by
other schools, and that Malcolm X College will become a
prototype for other institutions. If it does, it might be a
crucial change for Chicago, urban education, and perhaps
even the races.
-Sharon Johnson

Associate Professor of Maoism

Although the San Francisco Bay area is almost universally
pictured as the storm center of academic activism, Stanford
University has contributed relatively little to that image.
This is not because Palo Alto has been a sea of tranquility,
but because the loud confrontations there have often been
drowned out by real explosions at nearby Berkeley and San
Francisco State College. If close observers of the troubles of
academia are right, however, in holding that the emphasis
nearly everywhere is slowly shifting from student discipline
to faculty discipline, Stanford can now be considered the
leader of the vanguard. Recent events at Stanford place a
powerful focus on central questions about faculty and
institutions, including whether the actions outside the
classroom of a self-professed revolutionary should be
considered relevant to his regular duties-and thus subject
to the kinds of questions that may be asked about his
classroom performance and scholarship.
Stanford has seldom asked any questions at all about
its tenured professors. Like most universities, its policies are
marked by what the President's Commission on Campus
Unrest termed "reluctance to enforce codes of behavior
other than those governing scholarship" and by the
assumption that "a minimum of regulation would lead to a
maximum of freedom." That puts a sharp point on
President Richard Lyman's suspension of an associate
professor of English, H. Bruce Franklin, for his part in a
campus confrontation. Lyman has informed Franklin that
Sharon Johnson is a Chicago freelance writer.

he faces possible dismissal and has obtained a preliminary

injunction barring him and some of his supporters from the
Stanford campus. In the academic world, such actions seem
breathtakingly decisive, but summarizing them that way
obscures the lessons they may teach as well as the tortuous
path by which they were reached.
Franklin, 36 years old, is a fairly recent convert to
revolution. The son of a poor family in Brooklyn, he went
to work at 14 to help support his family. He attended
Amherst on a scholarship and was graduated magna cum
laude in 1955. After working briefly as a tugboat mate in
New York harbor, Franklin served as a navigation and
intelligence officer in the Strategic Air Command. Then he
went to Stanford for graduate work, earned his PhD. in
1961, and immediately became an assistant professor of
English. He went to Johns Hopkins in 1964, but the
Stanford Department of English thought so highly of him
that Franklin was lured back with a promise of promotion.
He was a Melville scholar, and the documents supporting
the promotion cite his "unusual intellectual drive" and say
that his many publications "show evidence of his originality
and ingenuity." He was made an associate professor with
tenure.
Until that time, Franklin had been a fairly
conventional academician. He has described himself as a
"Stevenson liberal" during his term as a SAC officer. His
year at Johns Hopkins coincided with the 1964 Presidential
election, and Franklin was a precinct captain in Baltimore
for Lyndon Johnson. But not long after his return to
Stanford, Franklin made it clear that his belief s-or at least
his way of expressing them- were changing rapidly. In
March 1966, he and about 70 others opposed to the
Vietnam War were on hand to protest when the port
commission of Redwood City, near Stanford, began
consideration of leasing 2.1 acres to the United Technology
Center for a napalm plant. When Franklin spoke
vehemently and at length in opposition, he was gaveled
down and eventually removed by force from the meeting.
During the ensuing confusion, the port commissioners
voted quickly to grant the lease. Hearing of the decision,
Franklin raced back and shouted into the microphone:
"This is what America has come to! This is our
democracy!"
But Franklin did not become a genuine revolutionary
until he went abroad several months later to teach at the
Stanford campus in France. Reading Marxist literature and
talking to Vietnamese Communists visiting in France, he
has said, helped persuade him of the Tightness and
inevitability of the people's revolution. He and his wife,
Jane, established a Marxist-Leninist study group in a "free
university" in Paris. They returned to Stanford in 1967 as
fervent Maoists. Franklin has led many confrontations and
demonstrations since then, has been arrested several times,
and in 1969 was barred from the campus of the nearby
College of San Mateo.
The climactic events at Stanford began on Jan. 11

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