Class of 1975
Black Williams Reflections
…….NOTES for my 5 Minute ZOOM presentation
I would like to introduce myself…
My name is Jackie Laughlin, some of you know me as Jackie Meadows and when I came to Williams in 1971, My name was Jackie Strachan. I was born in January of 1954.
I would like to open my time with a poem, a prayer and meditation to welcome all of you to this call and to thank you for joining us this evening.
….
O Great and Gracious Creator
Again this day we rejoice
You are the Host and the Meal
The Shelter and the Hearth
Abundant prosperity we bring to all your people
May All feel that wealth of knowing you
By Grace
Our Creator of More than Enough
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Today you hear our passion in serving
You promise us this day our daily bread
Obedience to your command that we love one another
As you have loved us
We shall be known by your love
Impoverished no more
We know we are your most prized treasure
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also
Therefore my beloveds….sisters and brothers
May we be always steadfast and unmoveable
always excelling in our work as we know it is never in vain
You answer Our prayer this day in YOUR Name and in all that is HOLY!
Jordan Meadows, Violette Duckett Strachan (mother) Lois Antoinette Craig (grandmother) Williams Graduation 1975). Sam Bronfman class of 1975 tall guy with glasses in the background
Close your eyes for a minute, think of three memories of Williams your time that immediately come to mind?
Jot them down, tell the tale…
As we build and transform the black legacy at Williams, how did we survive, thrive, perish and endure what it meant to integrate the highly selective liberal arts New England College?
We all believe that what happened at Williams was important; however, it may indeed be that it is largely what happened before we arrived at Williams that set the stage.
…. The foundation for what we might become and accomplish while there. This is about how we were seen as human and present and accounted for.
What do I remember most about Williams?
How did we get through?
As we ramp up for the celebration… for over 200 years of Williams Alumni supporting Black Education with our time, talent and treasure.
When I reflect on my personal memories of Williams… I try to think about how it shaped my current world view.
Our stories today shape the African American narrative. It’s not new, it’s contemporary, what are the stories of the black students raised during the civil rights movement?
My top three:
1. I became a wife and mother at Williams.
Sex, Love, & Creating Family
2. I was a Woman at Williams deeply shaped by pleasing my parents and having that foundational experience of a rigorous same sex education at HCHS (Hunter College High School) in New York City entering a rural white male dominated school designed to help them initiate coeducation
3. I was an Am Civ Major with a Concentration in Afro-Am Studies. We celebrated 50 years in 2019. Our black faculty early in their careers are here because our classmates had the bold audacity to occupy Hopkins Hall.
Professor Joe Harris. And others like him, Professor Stepto and Professor Exum all early in their careers, shaped afro-am studies for the academy, the world, and the nation. They were teaching and learning here at the same time, just as we were as their students.
Being a woman may have been more significant than being of black!
What is truly unique about our class is that we were born in 1954 and we were made for these times.
What is significant about Williams and what was significant about us and what we did know and didn’t know about Williams and each other!
We are going through a period of discovery, reacquainting ourselves with one another and reclaiming parts of ourselves lost in our youth and reinterpreting our experience through a personal historical lens
In 1954, the same year I was born, the Supreme Court declared that separate couldn’t possibly be equal and it would be our generation that would desegregate the nation’s schools.
I have only been back to Williams twice, Once for the Career Mentorship weekend in 2009 and then again in 2019 to celebrate 50 years of Africana Studies.
https://magazine.williams.edu/2016/spring/muse/progress-through-struggle/
Jackie (class of 1975) Rocky (class of 2019) Suji (class of 1974) April 2019
This third time has been a charm…
Our virtual visits to reflect on our experiences as black students and to celebrate and to plan this Gathering & share the history of our time there.
65 years-after-supreme-courts-historic-brown-v-board-education-ruling-we-are-right-back-where-we-started ByValerie Strauss Reporter. April 30, 2019 at 2:08 p.m. EDT
Add to list
The historic Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education turns 65 years old May 17. The decision ordered the desegregation of public schools in the United States while declaring segregated schools “inherently unequal” and unconstitutional.
What were the consequences?
Do you know who Ruby Bridges is? When her mother and the legions of armed police brought her at 6 years old to school. The other white mothers ran in and took their children out!
Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (born September 8, 1954) is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African-American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, 1960.[1][2][3] She is the subject of a 1964 painting, The Problem We All live with…
Parents, Family, Love, church, friends and those guardians who shared the importance of this moment
We are Williams too!
The Class of 1975… Who are we?
Unapologetically black, what can we share about our experience as alumni about what it takes to nurture all of our students.
Williams has a long and consistent history of linkages in creating and building historically black institutions, working to abolish slavery and to lead with a legacy of supporting black education.
What protected you? What nourished you? Who were your parents? Where did you grow up? What history & circumstance brought you to this place? How do we honor the black lives that matter that are no longer here?
What was your experience like in high school and middle school? How did your classmates get to know you? How did you get to know them? How can we transform the institution to be a place that continues to get it right and grow?
How do we honor those that joined us that were viciously or even unintentionally harmed by their time at Williams? All lives and experiences are not the same, nor is Williams the right fit for everyone!
We are here at a unique moment in time, yet we have been here before. In the period of Reconstruction following the Civil War, Williams rose men of high ideals who sought to serve, teach and preach as a moral imperative. We can do the same for these times! We were in fact made for these times. If Williams alumni led and promoted Hampton and Howard as enduring institutions for freedmen; can those same alumni work with black alumni today on equal footing for shared goals.
We strive to see that the post-apocalyptic Williams College continues to fervently seek ways to serve, preach, teach, and lead our efforts on what it would take to allow that our country & black lives can fully prosper.
What is our legacy?
How was it different this time going back virtually vs in-person?
I came to Williams when I was 17 years old, the books I read there were important ones selected by professors who wanted mostly to engage me and pour wisdom into my head. I am 67 now.
I am re-reading those same books now with new eyes. Many of those books are still on my bookshelf, some have creeped on my nightstand.
Those professors at Williams were learning and writing, and doing research (as was I) about what information and experiences I might / would need for the next 50 years and perhaps for the next century not for me personally but also what I would need for my “people” and humanity.
When I tried to remember the names of one or two white classmates that were pivotal in my time at Williams. I could only remember one or two by first and last name. Thank you…Jim Jensen, Thank you Don Dubendorf at ABC House.
(written February 23, 2021)
speaking prompts for my 5 minute presentation on panel for Class of 1975 BLACK ALUMNI ZOOM meeting celebrating 200 years of Williams alumni history)
Williams College Admissions Brochure 1975 Produced by WBSU or black student recruitment cover graphics Jerome Meadows. Mural (portion of Wall panel) from Mears House Basement WBSU
Jordan Meadows, our son born September 20,1974 of my Senior Year Jackie (Meadows) and Jerome Meadows thanks to them, I graduated right on time!
