Mary Church Terrell: An Original Oberlin Activist

My Dear President King

When Mary Church Terrell wrote to Oberlin College President Henry Churchill King on January 26, 1914, regarding the disturbing conversation she had with the Secretary of the College, George M. Jones, she was addressing someone quite familiar to her.  King graduated from Oberlin with an A.B. in 1879 and was a Latin tutor for the Preparatory Department when Terrell started as a student; they were also both members of First Church.

Terrell opens her six-page typed letter by expressing her “surprise and shock” at the letter she received from King.  Terrell does not mince words in her point by point rebuttal of King’s protestations.

In response to King’s suggestion that Terrell had misunderstood Jones’s position with regard to “colored” students she writes: 

It was utterly impossible for me to misunderstand Mr. Jones’s position in the matter.  He did not try to conceal his views in any way, shape or form….Every word that he said concerning his own personal feeling toward Colored people was quoted to you absolutely correctly.  It was impossible for me to misunderstand Mr. Jones. He did not want me to do so, or he would have been a bit vague in his statements, but this was not the case.  (page 1)

The letter reveals that Jones, a powerful figure on campus (he served not only as Secretary, but also Chairman of the Committee on Admission of Students, and Clerk of the Faculty), had become an obstacle to the progress of "colored" students at Oberlin. Terrell had good cause to believe that Jones’s racist attitude was known to the Administration, leading her to fear that her beloved Oberlin had changed. Terrell was so infuriated with Jones that she penned a poem about their conversation. 

Terrell addresses King’s statement about “the problem is a difficult one, and I should be sorry to have it made more difficult in any way” by agreeing with him about the difficulty of the problem but advising him:

Sometimes, however, it is well to discuss difficult situations to see if things can not be improved, particularly when the opportunities, privileges and advantages of a heavily handicapped group of human beings are involved. (page 2)

Terrell takes up a point that, as a current parent of two "colored students," was particularly painful:

And now I wish to express the deepest regret that there are only two of the dormitories for girls in which Colored girls may be found.  One of these is a substitute for the old Stewart Hall, as I understand it.  There is not a single Colored girl in Talcott or Baldwin, or Keep Cottage and Keep Cottage is named for the man who on Feb. 9th 1835, gave the casting vote which admitted Colored students to Oberlin College. If Colored students are to be segregated at Oberlin with such a wonderful record as it once made for itself even in the dark days of slavery, it seems to me it would be wiser and kinder to exclude them altogether. (page 2)

Referencing Stewart Hall and contrasting it with Talcott, Baldwin, and Keep Cottage, Terrell is decrying the deterioration of the racial climate on campus, calling attention to the fact that not only are “colored” students segregated from white students in a way they had not been during her college years, but also that their housing was inferior.  

Terrell refutes King's insinuation that she had "associated so much with the white girls that I might not have gained the right point of view, while I was a student here" when she says "I had so many close friends among the Colored girls that it was strange I found time enough to associate with white girls at all." She adds that she was invited by a white male student to attend a social but declined his invitation because of her relationship with "Colored" classmate Ida Gibbs, who did not have a date for the event. She also reminds him that of the nine years she spent in Oberlin six of those were spent residing in the homes of "Colored" persons and that she was so engaged in the "Colored" community that she taught Sunday school faithfully, even during times of great duress.  

However, Terrell assures King that the friendships she formed with her white classmates were equally important:

I am glad that nobody ever impressed me with the fact that segregating myself or allowing myself to be segregated was an evidence of 'self respect.'  When I think what the friendship of those fine young white women meant to me in college, and what it has meant to me thru many trying years, when I have been beaten and buffeted about by American race prejudice, how their former kindness, courtesy and breadth have at times almost preserved my faith in the white man's Christianity, I am glad I did not have the kind of self respect which induced me to associate exclusively with Colored girls.  I am sure, on the other hand, that no white girl with whom I associated ever accused me of 'forcing' myself upon her. (page 3)

Terrell concludes by giving King a glimpse of what it is like to be "Colored" in the United States:

Although I try to be optimistic in this wicked and cruel country, in which everything is done to crush the pride, wound the sensibilities, embitter the life and break the heart of my unfortunate race, nothing has come so near forcing me to give up hope, and resigning myself to the cruel fate which many people are certain awaits us, than the heart-breaking back-sliding of Oberlin College. If there had not been brave and generous-hearted men who believed in opening the door of opportunity and hope to Colored people, there would have been no Oberlin College at all. (page 4)