Excerpt from Book
Chapter 1 Introduction To Segregation


A few weeks after school began, I had a strange experience I cannot explain, even today. Foster Hall was the student union building and center of social activity, housing meeting rooms, table tennis and pool tables on the second floor, with a soda fountain and restaurant in the basement. As I reached the top of the stairs in the Hall, a large handmade sign came into view. It read "NAACP MEETING 7:00 P.M. TONIGHT" with an arrow pointing to my right.

Every evening, I came here after dinner to play table tennis with my friends, which is what I planned to do this night. As I stood looking at the sign, a strong feeling came over me that I must go to the NAACP meeting. There was no justification. I seldom went into town nor was I a member of the NAACP and never thought about it. The ping-pong tables were to my left and down the hall in a room where my friends waited. I'll just go to play ping-pong until the meeting time, maybe by then this compulsion will go away. Looking down at my watch, it read five minutes to 7:00 P.M., not enough time to play. Reluctantly, I gave up fighting the feeling, turned right and entered the meeting room. Although I didn't know it at the time, this decision would dramatically change my life.

I thought it strange in an all Black college, only 12 students would show up in the spacious meeting room for a NAACP meeting. I sat down and decided I would just listen and as soon as the meeting was over, try to catch some of my friends back in the table tennis room.

At the podium in the front section of the room, a dark-skinned student, enthusiastic and dedicated to the principles of the NAACP, chaired the meeting. It was obvious he had no idea of "Roberts Rules of Order" about how to run a meeting. He had no knowledge of how to bring a motion to a vote or keep the meeting flowing. Fortunately, during my sophomore year, I became a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity and all our structured meetings ran effectively. Based on that experience, I found myself raising my hand continually to lead the audience into making motions and voting on important issues.

To my total shock and surprise, an hour after the meeting started I was the new President of the NAACP college chapter. The student who chaired the meeting became my vice-president. He filled me in on the history and present status of the chapter. Officially called the "Virginia State College Youth Council," so our correspondence did not have NAACP written on the envelopes. Mail addressed to or from the NAACP ran the risk of their mail opened and sometimes even destroyed by the postal workers.

I was surprised to learn the total membership in the college chapter of the NAACP was only 48 out of a total student body of over 1,200 all Black students. However, it should not have been a surprise since I was not a member either until that meeting. My "Priority One Goal" was to increase our membership.

After some consideration, a goal of 500 members was set. To do this would take much marketing. First, I thought we needed a symbol for the organization. Al Dawson, a friend and art major became a cartoonist for the school newspaper. Al was a student with an infectious laugh and a whimsical look on life. He taught me how to draw basic cartoons. This new skill came in handy when I decided we needed a symbol for the campus NAACP Youth Council. "Freddy Freedom, a hip exaggerated cartoon figure became my symbol. He had a checkered jacket, shirt and tie, and big feet. The first time I used him was after discovering there were students who paid for a membership last year, but never got their card. I talked to all 30 of them in this category. After deciding they were telling the truth, I arranged for them to get their membership card. When the cards came in, I inserted them in an envelope with a drawing of "Freddy Freedom" having a tear coming from one eye saying, Here is your membership card, Im sorry it took so long!

This smoothed over the ill will that built up due to the mismanagement of the membership enrollment. That was the beginning of the turn around of the membership problem.

Next, I used Freddy Freedom to tell his message, I WANT YOU To Join the NAACP on the back of a program I designed for fans of VSC basketball games. There were no programs for fans at the school basketball games, so I created one with names of both team players, scoreboard, and other convenient items, along with Freddys messages. Memberships began to increase dramatically.

In February 1960, a student came up to me and asked, "What are we going to do about the sit-ins?" "I don't know," I replied, "What's a sit-in? She showed me a newspaper article with a picture of four Black students from North Carolina A & T College sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, N. C. Because this protest appeared nationwide in the news media, it seemed clear to me this incident, and the interest it was generating, would create a demand to do something in Petersburg. Ive never been involved in something like this before. But, where would I start?