Town Hall Meeting

Since his appointment as Jackson State President, Ronald Mason, aided with the funds provided by the botched Ayers settlement, has lead the most ambitious and massive campus/building development since the tenure of Dr. John A. Peoples. Though most view the progress as a positive, many worry that the renovations have not adequately taken into consideration the historical legacy of the JSU campus. For instance, their has been the demolition of the Green Building, which was part of the historic Campbell College that allowed Lanier High School students to enroll in college after the State College Board attempted to prohibit the students from attending college because of their senior year protest. And now it is rumored that JSU has plans to either renovate or demolish Alexander Hall. I have spent four days trying to get clarity of JSU’s intentions, having contacted the Office of the President, the Director of Housing, and the Office of Public Relations, but as of yet I have received no answer. Most, including Peoples, agree that Alexander Hall was poorly constructed and needs immediate attention, but the concern is that often renovation of HBCUs means an erasing of history. In 1970 the Jackson Police Department and the Mississippi Highway Patrol fired hundreds of shots at and into Alexander Hall, killing two and wounding seventeen. The miracle is that more were not killed. Since its creation as the main female dormitory, it continues to be a major meeting hub for the JSU students. And such was the case on that May evening, when for no reason at all, other than white leaders deciding that the education of African Americans is a crime, officers of the City of Jackson and the State of Mississippi fired upon unarmed students whose only crime was being black and intelligent.

Even today, when my students write papers about the incident, I send them to view the holes that are still embedded in the building. This generation needs to be anchored to their history to know that JSU exists not because whites wanted them to be educated but because African Americans refused to be denied their proper place in this society. However, another reminder of African American struggle, endurance, and survival may be demolished, erased, and marginalized. Dr. Preselfannie W. McDaniels Professor of English at JSU asserts that “historically black colleges and universities, in their push forward toward improvements on campuses across the states, are also diminishing the mission of our institutions to preserve black pride, history, and purposefulness. If we forget from whence we’ve come, we shall never reach our intended destinations.” Today, we love to assert that the children have changed, that they are worse today than yesterday. But, that is a mistruth. It is not the children who have changed but the adults, who are a generation of pseudo-integrated Negroes who have sold our souls for class status, cars, and chump-change. So, if we as African American elders do not respect our past, archive our past, and teach it to the next generation, how will they know who they are? But, of course, progress for African Americans is always driven by what Langston Hughes calls an “urge…toward whiteness…to be as little Negro and as much American as possible” (Hughes 1267). In short, a complete demolition of Alexander Hall will be a whitewashing of black history? According to Dr. Jacquelyn C. Franklin, Curriculum Coordinator for the Center for Urban Affairs and the editor of the JSU Academician, “Alexander Hall is important because of the professional work of the professional for whom it is named, but more importantly Alexander Hall is significant to the history of Jackson State University because of the actions of students who were critical thinkers and effective citizens. Our students through a series of positive decisions challenged de jure segregation and unfair practices and treatment of black people in America, especially Mississippi and the South in the early 1970s.” So to delete Alexander Hall is to delete a large amount of Mississippi’s black history.

I have not voted since the Ayers case settlement, and did not think that I could feel anything as deeply as the pain of watching African Americans being betrayed by their own elected officials. So, I have been pretty numb about what can be done to achieve first-class citizenship for African people. And yet somehow the notion of demolishing Alexander Hall cuts even deeper, to a place where I thought there was no more feeling. It may be the stinging realization that African Americans relinquish so much for the rewards of integration and get so very little in return. And we wonder why our children are vile and wild. There must be a way that African Americans can move forward in a manner that does not demand that they relinquish the essence of themselves. Without the roots of the past, we become a blind branch flapping indiscriminately in the wind. Gailya Porter who was wounded during the 1970 shooting asserts, “I understand the need to renovate properties, especially one as old as Alexander Hall, but there is a way that we can renovate the building and preserve the identity and integrity of the building. It is done with antebellum homes and government buildings all the time. The face or the front of Alexander Hall should remain intact, bullet holes and all, so that the next generation will know what happened there.” Former JSU President John A. Peoples affirms Porter’s statements and provides historical and economic clarity. “There was a history of the State of Mississippi poorly funding HBCUs in the area of campus development.” In his book To Survive and Thrive: the Quest for a True University, Peoples details and documents his battles with the College Board to gain proper funding for building projects. He continues, “Former President Reddix did the best he could to maintain Alexander Hall, but due to poor funding the building was poorly constructed. Not only does it leak, but its design makes it difficult to monitor or control traffic, which creates a major safety issue. If I were still president, I would not want to burden the university budget with trying to repair or maintain it. However, we must preserve and maintain the memory of what happened there so that those who come after us will know our history of triumph. Since the building is in such disrepair, a good idea would be to take the façade or the front of the building that faces toward Lynch Street and place it within a new building with the proper markings to commemorate the event.” Reflectively, Peoples continues, “President Mason is in a difficult place of balancing budgetary issues with the need to preserve history.”

The question arises “Why is it important to preserve monuments like Alexander Hall?” According to the Director of the JSU Margaret Walker Alexander National Research Center Dr. Alfredteen Harrison, “All societies need examples of their past, and Alexander Hall does have historical merit because it marks the spot of an historical event.” Let us not forget that there are those who deny that Africans had a civilization before Caucasians arrived in Africa, and there are those who deny that slavery was an evil institution—just check Gone with the Wind. And, there are even white scholars who argue that slavery was a justifiable means to a beneficial end of Christianizing and civilizing the savages of the Dark Continent. Accordingly, there are still officers of the law who claim that there was a sniper inside Alexander Hall when no one has ever been able to prove or find this alleged sniper. And if JSU demolishes Alexander Hall, there will be those who will attempt to deny that the incident happened, or they will be able to minimize the seriousness of the event because there will remain no physical, tangible evidence. Some things, like a lynching exhibition, need to be seen and touched so that liars cannot deny what happened, so that our children will understand from whence they come. Dr. Franklin declares “The crack in the ‘Liberty bell’ has meaning for Americans because it represents the work of people toward freedom, and the bullet holes in the bricks of Alexander Hall have meaning to every Jackson State University student and professional because we believe in the mission of Jackson State University. How long will it take for us, black people in America, to maintain our past? Why do we allow others to erase and change the facts about our past? We cannot embrace ‘right reasoning’ and ‘the tenets of a participatory democracy’ if we allow ‘select’ historical symbols to define us and our past. We are action oriented Mississippians and Americans. We must control our lives, and we must produce leaders who are committed to assisting us improve our social conditions. Effective leadership does not mean changing history for an honor of a select few; effective leadership means ‘knowing who you are and from where you come.’ It also means correcting the present for a brighter future. The history of JSU has meaning, and we must teach the meanings of our complete historic past to our children’s children. Maintaining Alexander Hall helps us to know who we are, and to never allow similar mistakes in the present or future.” So if we do have young people on college campuses masquerading as students, it is because we have elders masquerading as scholars and educators. Failing to protect and maintain Alexander Hall is a failure to protect the history and legacy of African American struggle. If you would like to express your concerns or gains answers about the plans for Alexander Hall, call the Office of the President at (601) 979-2323 or the Director of Housing at (601) 979-2316.

Works Cited

Franklin, Jacquelyn C. “Personal Interview.” August, 2007.

Harrison, Alfredteen. “Personal Interview.” August, 2007.

Hughes, Langston. “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Henry Louis Gates, Ed. New
York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997.

Peoples, John A. “Personal Interview.” August, 2007.Porter, Gailya. “Personal Interview.” July, 2007.

McInnis is the author of seven books, the former publisher and editor of Black Magnolias Literary Journal, and his poetry and fiction have been published in several journals and newspapers. He can be contacted through Psychedelic Literature, 203 Lynn Lane, Clinton, MS 39056, (601) 925-1281, psychedeliclit@bellsouth.net.