{"id":2801,"date":"2016-09-25T21:30:42","date_gmt":"2016-09-25T21:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=2801"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:56:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:56:32","slug":"a-light-that-cannot-be-hidden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2016\/09\/25\/a-light-that-cannot-be-hidden\/","title":{"rendered":"“Light That Cannot Be Hidden”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Charles<\/em>\u2014When Kevin Griffen \u201918 first joined the Communications & Marketing team as an intern in May, I wouldn\u2019t have guessed his work would re-shape the Summer issue of Wabash Magazine,\u00a0<\/em>“A Light\u00a0That Cannot Be Hidden.”<\/a><\/p>\n

But Kevin\u2019s genuine respect for\u00a0alumni and ability to put them at ease during interviews\u00a0for the Scarlet Yarns audio project at this year\u2019s Big Bash in June drew out a previously unheard series of anecdotes. That narrative\u00a0offers a glimpse of student efforts to desegregate fraternities in the 1960s, the legacy of that work\u00a0in the 1980s, and what life\u00a0in those turbulent times\u00a0was like on campus.<\/p>\n

Paired with Associate Director of Communications Richard Paige\u2019s conversation with David Kendall \u201966 that weekend about his attempt to desegregate the Kappa Sig house in 1965, they comprise a storyline so compelling we dedicated eight pages to it. And much of the rest of the issue is infused with the spirit and vision of those early student efforts, along with\u00a0Father Vince Druding’s inspiring Baccalaureate Sermon\u00a0<\/a>from this year’s Commencement.<\/p>\n

When we first asked Kevin\u2014a political science major and associate chair\u00a0of the Malcolm X Institute<\/a> of Black Studies (MXIBS)<\/a>\u2014to lead the \u00a0interviews, he was most eager to talk with grads from the classes of 1966 and 1971.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to get a good understanding of what it was like to be here in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly during the Civil Rights Movement\u00a0and the found of the MXI,<\/a>\u201d Kevin said. \u201cBut I wasn\u2019t expecting so many connections. That surprised me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most startling moment for those of us recording and photographing the interviews\u00a0came when David Kendall \u201966 read aloud a letter he had received in 1965 from a Kappa Sig chapter in Texas objecting to his desegregation efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you are running a purebred herd, you don\u2019t want to mess things up by having a neighbor\u2019s stray come over and service your cows,\u201d<\/em> the writer of the letter\u00a0states. \u201cLikewise, I do not feel like we should let strays into our fraternity\u2026 I could never call a Negro a brother.”<\/em><\/p>\n

For the older folks in the interview room, it was a sickening reminder of the blatant racism of that era. For the students recording the project, it was eye-opening. For Kevin, it confirmed attitudes he\u2019d heard about from his grandmother about going to high school in Indianapolis during the 1960s.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u00a0shocked me that someone would call anyone that\u2019s not like them an animal\u2014to refer to them as not<\/em> human. It was repulsive, and awful to hear,\u201d Kevin says. \u201cA week later I listened to it again on the recording, and it saddened me, made me\u00a0a little confused. I didn\u2019t live in that time\u2014it confirmed what I had been reading about racism and white power ideologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear from my grandmother sometimes that her experience growing up wasn\u2019t the best, and that letter and some of the things I heard during those interviews reflected that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin was impressed by Kendall: “It was\u00a0shocking to me\u2014that everybody knew these policies, but there weren\u2019t a lot of people pushing for change. To see David Kendall really invested in civil rights\u2026 his passion to fight for his black brothers to be admitted [into the fraternity] speaks volumes about the character of a Wabash man.\u201d<\/p>\n

He enjoyed hearing 1971 grad Garrett Paul’s perspective on\u00a0events surrounding the early days\u00a0of the MXI.<\/p>\n

“It was so unexpected\u2014I didn’t\u00a0think I’d hear about the formation of the MXI<\/a>.\u00a0But Garrett Paul comes in, this cheerful guy, talking about his experiences being on campus after the Civil Rights Movement, during the Black Power Movement. He talked about meeting the Black Panthers when they came to campus. Experiences he’ll never forget. He talked about the underground newspapers of the time\u2014I had to ask what those were!<\/p>\n

“You see all these documentaries on TV, but it’s nothing like hearing it from a person who actually lived in that time.”<\/p>\n

He\u00a0admits it took him a couple interviews to relax, but Kevin says once he got comfortable he thoroughly enjoyed the conversations.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my heroes is [the late Indianapolis radio journalist] Amos Brown,\u201d Kevin says. \u201cHe was so energetic\u2014he\u2019d get to the tough questions, but he made issues approachable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin had been interviewed by Brown\u00a0in 2013 when the then-high school junior was helping to establish at Crispus Attucks Medical Magnet School the state\u2019s first high school chapter of the NAACP.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo\u00a0these alumni, I wanted to be energetic, personable, making sure they\u00a0felt comfortable,\u201d Kevin says. \u201cAt the same time, I wanted get to the heart of what it meant to be a Wabash man during their time here.”<\/p>\n

Kevin succeeded, and in the process, captured some personal histories of Wabash men that make this \u201cA Light That Cannot Be Hidden\u201d the best Summer issue of WM<\/em> we\u2019ve ever published.<\/p>\n

Listen\u00a0to Kevin’s, Tu’s, Ben’s and Rich\u2019s <\/em>Scarlet Yarns interviews here <\/a>and here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steve Charles\u2014When Kevin Griffen \u201918 first joined the Communications & Marketing team as an intern in May, I wouldn\u2019t have guessed his work would re-shape the Summer issue of Wabash Magazine,\u00a0“A Light\u00a0That […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":2806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-works-in-progress","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2016\/09\/kevin-laughs-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2801"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2877,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions\/2877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}