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College news, November 4, 1966
Bryn Mawr College student newspaper. Merged with Haverford News, News (Bryn Mawr College); Published weekly (except holidays) during academic year.
Bryn Mawr College (creator)
1966-11-04
serial
Weekly
8 pages
digitized microfilm
North and Central America--United States--Pennsylvania--Montgomery--Bryn Mawr
Vol. 53, No. 08
College news (Bryn Mawr College : 1914)--
https://tripod.brynmawr.edu/permalink/01TRI_INST/26mktb/alma991001620579...
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation.
BMC-News-vol53-no8
Friday, November 4, 1966
THE COLLEGE NEWS
Page Five
- BMC Chorus to Join Columbia Speaker Predicts Clergy Dropout,
The Bryn Mawr College Chorus
will join with the Columbia Uni-
versity Glee Club November 12
for a concert at 8:30 in Goodhart.
Together the groups will per-
form the major work of the eve-
ning, Juan Bautista Comes’ ‘‘Bea~
tus vir.’? Director Robert Goo-
dale edited the music of this
Spanish Renaissance composer for
the concert.
The Bryn Mawr Chorus alone
will perform several shorter
works, including ‘‘Laudate. Pueri
SAC to Sponsor
Vigil for Vietnam
At Bank in Ville
The Social Action Committees
of Bryn Mawr and Haverford will
sponsor a vigil for peace in Viet-
nam Saturday, November 5, at 4
p.m,—in_front_of the Bryn. Mawr
Trust on Lancaster Avenue. The
use of the sidewalk has been ap-
proved by the local police.
The vigil will be part of a na-
tional movement called the Pro-
gram for Mobilization, This pro-
gram will be carried over No-
‘vember 5-8 as a last stand for
peace and peace candidates be-
fore the election.
Participants in the vigil are
asked to bring signs which will
express their own feelings about
the war. The vigil will last an
hour, but all are welcome to stand
as long as they wish.
SAC hopes the vigil will be an
effective way of expressing con-
cern about the war in a solemn
tone which the community will
respect,
There will also be a demon-
stration in Philadelphia on the
morning of November 5, begin-
ning at 11;30 at City Hall. Stu-
dents and faculty from Temple,
Penn, Swarthmore, and other col-
leges, as well as members of
various organizations, such as
Women’s Strike for Peace, SNCC,
and the Committee For Non-Vio-
lent Action, will join this rally.
The three peace candidates from
this area will speak.
Other activities have been
planned in conjunction with the
Program for Mobilization. Tem-
ple will sponsor a day of films
on November 7. Films will be
stiown “all day and Will include
documentaries on Vietnam, aSNCC
production, and a film about a
German concentration camp among
others.
Sunday, November 6, Swarth-
more will hold an evening of talks
and discussion called ‘‘War, Draft
and Civil Rights.’?. Penn is also
planning a teach-in.
If anyone is interested in any
of these activities, she should
contact Kathy Murphey in Merion.
Percival Goodman
To Lecture Next
In Alliance Series
Percival Goodman, city planner
and co-author of a book called
COMMUNITAS, will be speaking
Monday, November 7, on ‘‘A Plan
Is A Forecast.’’ i
Goodman, a registered archi-
tect in New York City, is profes-
sor of urban design at Columbia
University.
The brother of Paul Goodman,
Author. of GROWING UP ABSURD,
he is a member of the Institute
for Urban Environment at Colum-
bia University.
The lecture, sponsored by Al-
liance and Arts Council, will be
held in the Common Room at 7:30
p.m.
Dominum’? (‘‘O Praise the Lord’?)
by Mendelssohn, four Russian pea-
sant ‘songs by Stravinsky, and
Haydn’s ‘‘Song of Thanksgiving.’’
“Ojos claros y serenos” (‘‘Eyes
so clear and filled with beauty’’)
by Francisco Guerrero, another
Spanish Renaissance composer,
will also be on the program, as
will four love songs by Brahms,
these latter to be done by a small
section of the chorus,
The Columbia group will also
present several selections, The
boys will arrive Saturday morn-
ing, and have a picnic lunch and
dinner in the halls before the
performance, Director of the
group is Bailey Harvey.
Officers of this year’s chorus.
are Helen Stewart, president; Mar-
tha Beveridge, vice president and
treasurer; Margaret Byerly, sec-
retary; Mary Schrom, librarian,
and Ann Shelnutt, publicity.
Admission to the concert is
free,
Colgate Operates
Calendar System
Under 4-1-4 Plan
One of the most intriguing as-
pects of calendar revision is the
so-called January plan, This has
been alternatively called the Col-
gate or Glickman plan, the
former because Colgate has
adopted it, and the latter because
Mr, Glickman of the Haverford
Political Science Department of-
fered his conception of it
to Bryn Mawr and Haverford stu-
dents twf years ago.
The purpose of a January plan
is to introduce some intellectual
freedom, life and creativity into
the usually dead month of Jan-
dary, This..is done. by. fin-
ishing first semester before
- Christmas vacation, and then not
starting second semester until
February.
Paul Weckstein, a Haverford
transfer from Colgate, has pro-
posed this calendar:
Classes begin: Sept, 12
Thanksgiving: Nov, 23-7
Christmas: Dec, 28 - Jan, 3
Intercession: Jan, 28 - Feb, 1
Spring vacation: March 24 -
April 12
Exams end: May 13 ~
This not only allows for the Jan-
uary plan, but also provides
for practically the same number
of schooldays,
The creativity and freedom
comes with independent work of
some kind, There are several
systems that could be adopted,
but basically it would entail each
student working with a professor
on a project or papar of his
choice,
Bachrach Offers Solution
To Overcrowded Classes
Mr, Bachrach of the Political
Science Department has found one
solution to the crowded classes
problem that is presently .annoy-
ing both students and faculty
members,
His Constitutional. Law Class
has about 40 members, He con-
siders this far too large’ for his
purposes, It is a ‘‘nigh level class,
but just too large,’’? ne said, Up
to this point the class has been
considering the recent Supreme
Court decisions which have been
revolutionizing the area of crim-
inal justice,
So now he has sent half the
class out into the field in five
groups of three or four students,
They are doing research at
-Penn’s baw. Library, and. then
spending time in Philadelphia
courtrooms, district attorneys’
offices, and.police stations, learn-
ing the exact nature of the
impact of the Supreme Court
decisions, Each of the five groups
is working on a specific topic-
forcement _ practices,
by Janet Oppenheim
On Monday night, October 31, a small number of
Bryn Mawr. students. and faculty members heard
two alarming predictions: that within ten years
members of the clergy would be abandoning their
calling in droves, and that the racial inequities
of our society could only be solved by machine
guns and concentration camps for Negroes.
The grim, realistic speaker was the Reverend
Layton Zimmer, and his address, entitled ‘‘God
Bless Slums and Police Brutality,’ was sponsored
by the Alliance for Political Affairs and the Inter-
faith Association.
Behind his lengthy title of ‘‘Urban Missioner of
the Protestant Episcopal Church and Special Con-
sultant to the Bishop on Areas of Social Tension’’
lies the Reverend’s demanding, frustrating, im-
possible job. Dealing with ‘gangs, junkies, pros-
titutes,’? the poor and discriminated against of
North and South Philadelphia, Mr. Zimmer must
try to arouse the white community, must attempt
to open communications between haves and have-
nots, between whites and blacks.
So far, he feels he has accumplished nothing.
He describes his task as a ‘‘bridge-building job
with both shores moving further apart.’’ To his
despair, both shores are building obstructions
agains< any means of spanning the gap.
* Reverend Zimmer was a parish priest for ten
years in Wilmington, Delaware, and then inSwarth-
more before starting his job two years ago under
the new bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Penn-
sylvania. His job, which he terms ‘‘experimental,”’
brings him into the lives of have-nots as. friend
and sympathizer.
He participates as a protester in picket lines
and serves as a minister for many who have had
no contacts with the church. He must bury a
child, killed by the falling ceiling of a slum tene-
ment. He must perform the marriage ceremony
for the unwed parents of four or five children.
He can bring no promises or program money with
him. Less than 50% of his expenses are paid by
the diocese. His job runs on money from the bis-
hop’s discretionary funds.
White power is, according to the Reverend,
the dominant factor in the western world, if not
in the whole world, behind racial injustice. He
knows it is the factor which allowed him to reach
his present position. Mr. Zimmer attended the
University of William and Mary when it was closed
to Negroes and then entered an Episcopal Seminary
which had separate and terribly unequal facilities
for them. When he left his position of curate in
Wilmington, a Negro was allowed to replace him
only with the unequivocal stipulation that his term
of office last just one year. Clearly, the Church
does not offer a solution to the problems of dis-
crimination and prejudice.
This failure by the Church brought Mr. Zimmer
to his prophecy for the fate of clergymen. Today,
he finds them-a group of ‘‘defensive, demoralized,
hostile, morally stricken’? men. They are com-
mitted to an ideal which has not, in the words of
Stokely Carmichael, ‘‘been able to deal with the
blasphemy that the poor deserve what they get.’’
Yet to break from the meaningless ideals would
mean to break from security, respectability. Cler-
gymen hear their WASP congregations object to
spending tax money on slum improvement. Opposi-
tion to the community stand would mean loss of
popularity for the clergyman, and loss of any com-
munity influence. Many members of the clergy
,really fear that God is dead, but are compelled
to use His name daily. They abhor the ambiva-
lence of their position, are frightened by the col-
such as the relationship between
civil rights and treatment of ju-
venile offenders, the way the
test for insanity works out in
practice, and generally the way
the law enforcement business has
reacted to the Court’s decisions,
The first half of the class will
return in three weeks to give oral
and written reports of -their
findings, Meanwhile the second
half. of the class’will have been
learning about the definitions and
compliéations of free speech in
American jurisprudence, After a
few joint sessions, the second
half will go into the field to re-
search the ways in_ which
Court decisions on free speech
have affected Philadelphia law en-
They will
center on criminal libel, ob-
scenity and the right of
demonstration,
This will solve the problem
until December, said Mr, Bach-
rach, ‘‘and by then the sem-
ester is almost over anyway.” ‘Friday. :
*
For Performance in November Concentration Camps for Negroes
lapse of their supports, and will, in Mr. Zim-
mer’s belief, reach the breaking point within
the next ten years.
We cannot count on the Church, then, for re-
lease from our tremendous problems. Nor does
Mr. Zimmer think the answer lies in political
structures. He emphasized that the bridgebuild-
ing must start with us, At the same time, however,
the basic problem originates in ourselves. Most of
us want to keep doors shut to black people, the
Reverend said. The black man knows how much the
white man despises him, and the white man does not.
We do not realize that we are involved in an attitude
that allows us to be something which we would
vehemently deny to be.
Mr. Zimmer is convinced that civil rights bills
are passed, projects are undertaken, not out of the
whites’ fear of black riots. After all, as President
Jéhnson said, whites form 90% of the population
of the United States. No programs of social re-
form are undertaken in order to keep the white
man from coming face to face with his own atti-
tude.
Is there any validity, therefore, in projects
and programs? Reverend Zimmer says emphati-
cally no. Perhaps they bring some limited material
profit, but that profit ends with the program, when
the participants go back to their hell, What is
worse, the participants have been allowed to see,
no matter how briefly, some aspect of that life
which they will never be able to attain. The result-
ing bitterness and frustration has led many Negroes
to accept help only from blacks. They feel cer-
tain that whites give gifts only to manipulate the
blacks in some way.
The meaning of Black Power lies in this rejec-
tion of the white man’s aid. For the average Negro,
hope for life in an integrated community is dead,
They don’t want to waste their time in hating and
fighting the whites. They want to take what is their
due and just leave. Mr. Zimmer is not afraid that
the Negro will topple white society, but he is
desperately afraid that the Negro will give that
society the opportunity to use the evil within it,
It is this evil that could lead to the construc-
tion of concentration camps for Negroes.and the
placement of machine guns in the streets by police
forces. The Reverend believes that we are little
more than one breath away from that state now.
Is there any hope at all for future integration;
for a harmonious, balanced black-white society?
If separation of the two peoples is not only sin,
but death, as Mr. Zimmer believes it to be,
aren’t we faced with sin and death on both sides?
Why, if he feels. that the Church is useless in the,
struggle, does the Reverend continue to serve it?
How can he say, ‘‘If I only hoped in man, I would »
go home and kill myself,’’ and still maintain his:
efforts? ‘
He answers that he enjoys the battle, that he
enjoys challenging the terrifying situation with his
own abilities. He must do what he can, and he
did when he removed his daughter from a private
school because he considered private education a
separating factor in society. His daughter now at-
tends a public school with 90% Negro students.
Not just isolated individuals, but everyone must
do what lies within his abilities. Above all, we
must not sit at home and merely worry over the
state of affairs. Whatever hope can be found in
the Reverend’s message, and there was precious
little, must be found in his refusal to accept the
situation as it now stands, and in his search to
open channels of contact in an almost totally. un-
communicating society.
Allen Ginsberg, with friend Peter Cilouske, read from his works
to a Bryn Mawr-Haverford audience on the latter campus last
Photo by ‘Don Frankel
5