A Thesis

Makenzee M. Brown

B.A. Jackson State University, 2014

May,2020

Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv

Project Overview .................................................................................................................1

HBCUs & the History of Dillard University .......................................................................3

Research Method ..............................................................................................................10

Literature Review...............................................................................................................14

Audience ............................................................................................................................34

Bibliography ......................................................................................................................35

Vita .....................................................................................................................................37

Images

Digital Exhibit, Within These Walls .......................................................................... 26 - 32

Figure 1 ..............................................................................................................................26

Figure 2 ..............................................................................................................................28

Figure 3 ..............................................................................................................................29

The proposed public history project, Within These Walls (WTW), will be one component

of a larger exhibit produced by Dillard University’s, Library Archives and Special Collections

entitled The Star Burns Bright: History of Dillard’s Theatrical and Musical Arts, Faculty and

Students. WTW will focus on Dillard’s historic African American faculty, students and alumni

who became prominent painters, musicians, writers, actors and directors among them Adella

student resilience and empowerment in the face of segregation and the racial struggles of the

1930s through the 1970s. The exhibit is scheduled to open at Dillard University’s Will. W.

Alexander Library in Gentilly in June of 2020 and will run through September 2020.

Keywords: African American, musical theater, Dillard University; New Orleans Louisiana, black

culture; black actors; black writers; black poets; education; Civil Rights Movement; Historically

Black Colleges and Universities; Xavier University.

The Star Burns Bright

...all seeking and seeking together the same ends-disciplined minds, disciplined spirits, and

disciplined manners....an achievement entirely consistent with most creative leaps of the

imagination and one that is necessary to that ordered pursuit of insight which is the foundation

American students and faculty from Dillard University, as documented in the holdings of the

Dillard University Archives and Special Collections. Within These Walls (WTW), a subsection of

the larger exhibit, focuses on the university’s arts programs, namely theatre, poetry, painting and

music. The exhibit will document the struggle and determination of a small African American

liberal arts institution to excel in a challenging environment, starting with the opening of Dillard

through Dillard University and had a profound effect on the university and the world. Many of

these former students not only became locally recognized, but also gained national acclaim in

Hollywood, and within the, black entertainment realm. The work will make available primary

source materials for future research, especially projects focusing on twentieth-century African

American theatre (playwrights, musicians, actors) and the humanities.

of African American expression primarily those within art, music, theater and poetry and stresses

the importance of the arts to African American education. Locally and nationally these

entertainers created the blueprint for future African Americans with ambitions to work as

professional artists. In the 1940s, in fact Dillard was one of only two historically black colleges

in the South with an advanced theatre program.

One of Dillard University’s primary aims is to

The institution's legacy of providing a liberal education for African Americans spans 150 years

and will be reflected in WTW. The Dillard University Archives and Special Collections house a

diverse collection reflecting over a century’s worth of efforts to ensure educational opportunities

for African Americans and for the city of New Orleans. These collections serve as the foundation

for this project.

how African Americans gained access to education. With these schools many African Americans

found access to higher education for the first time, and with that access to skills needed to

succeed economically. These schools fostered a culture of activism that included not only

science and literature but also the arts and entertainment, becoming activist within these fields by

breaking barriers within academia and their professions. HBCUs created an environment

poetry and theater, which served to foster community among students and faculty.

meaning of blackness in a post-slavery society.

agencies to concern itself with the conditions of the newly emancipated people during and

immediately after the Civil War. On July 8, 1869, The Union Normal School was incorporated

under the auspices of this society. The school opened in New Orleans on November 1, 1869. The

scope of the work was enlarged in 1873 when the Louisiana Conference of the Methodist

Episcopal Church authorized the organization of New Orleans University, the charter dated

founded by the Sisters of Blessed Sacrament which was a Catholic order established to serve

African Americans through the Roman Catholic Church. Xavier as a high school in 1915 and

transitioning into a four-year university that attracted African American Catholic students in

1925. The opening of Xavier offered higher education to those African American students

interested in pursuing the religious life but over time it also became a leader in medical

African American nurses. Dillard’s medical department opened on November 4, 1889, together

with a nurse training department. The medical school was given the name “Flint Medical

College” in 1901, honoring John D. Flint, one of the school’s benefactors, and offered instruction

in medicine, surgery, and pharmacy. Although the Medical College closed in 1911, the

school has made to the city of New Orleans, to education and to black culture. In addition to

general information on the history of Dillard University, the many archival holdings shed light

on specific periods of time throughout the university and the city’s history. The collection that

includes much of the source information for this project contains the Dillard University, and

Straight University catalogs. These catalogs, in three volumes, tell the rich history of Straight,

who educated them. Some of the most valuable collections within the Dillard University

Archives and Special Collection were student-authored publications. These include The

Courtbouillon Newspaper Collection, and the student yearbook Le Diable Bleu which contains

articles and reviews on the arts within the black community and the city of New Orleans.

Looking at these documents, I see people who wanted more for themselves; and more for their

education despite daily adversities. Student- run publications also focused on the vibrant social

life of Dillard students. Many of the stories being told offer, insight on how African Americans

survived life within the segregated South. One opinion piece written for the Courtbouillon by

student a student named Arthur Zebbs in the 1949, for instance, called for the “complete

on these racist forces of “fascism,” which threatened the freedom that many African Americans

before him had achieved. African Americans should unite to protect their civil rights, he wrote,

and assure decent housing, economic security and peace for black communities. Indeed, Zebbs

implied that even though they were students, they were not blind to the great injustices African

Americans continued to face. He noted that even then African Americans were being lynched-

fight a system that was keeping them marginalized.

that is, as a way to claim space for themselves in a society that gave them little room for freedom

and expression. In the 1964 Le Diable Bleu, for instance, an entry titled “Sadie Hawkins Day,”

showcased how arrived in some of their best dressed attire and courted one another on the dance

young ladies and ask them to dance. These students would dance the night away (usually until 12

midnight) but for them this was their time to break free of the outside world and just enjoy each

other. For these students, this would be a night to escape and unwind. This was one of many

Many items within the Dillard University Archives and Special collections are donated

pieces from families of past alumni who attended Dillard University. One item that stands out, is

the full outfit worn by Matthew Henson, the first African American explorer to reach the North

Pole, on his 1909 excursion to the pole. This item, a full fur suit, was donated by his great-grand-

daughter to the university but is not on display. Even though it is a symbol of African American

for funding to be used to showcase and highlight the history of the suit.

Americans demanded access to education and did not rely solely on the assistance of white

northern abolitionists, missionaries, and philanthropists. They sacrificed their lives and their

families lives in order to design and fashion a school system that would best fit their vision as a

newly freed people. The work of scholars such as Hilary Moss and Heather Williams, focused on

the antebellum period, has documented the efforts of African Americans to educate themselves

advantage of the black labor force. But African Americans saw education as a cornerstone of

citizenship and a means to strengthen themselves politically. Similarly, Williams uncovers the

struggles of enslaved and recently freed people in the South to ensure that they and their children

achieved literacy, as a means of both political survival and autonomy from their former

enslavers.

philanthropists and missionaries and African American activists, some of the latter without

formal education of their own. While many white northerners supported the idea of the industrial

education, African Americans pressed for both practical “industrial” training and schooling in

would give them advantages over the poorest white population across the South. The method of

industrial education, according to Anderson, “was inherently opposed to the political and

economic advancement of black southerners and therefore oppressive.”

according to Anderson’s research, trained the formerly enslaved for a life of subordination.

Anderson argues that through this emphasis on industrial education, white northern

education to the success of African Americans as the fought to define freedom for themselves

from the late nineteenth into the twentieth century.

Venessa Walker’s work highlights the challenges to rural black schools under

segregation. In Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the

Segregated South. Walker demonstrates how the operation of rural southern schools transformed

learning.

teachers making an affordable wage, black children’s education was inherently unequal.

Ironically, Walker argues, the scarcity of material resources pushed black children to learn in

and prepare their students for the social atmosphere of the segregated South. Community

involvement and faculty involvement served as another source for students to transform their

prospects for the future.

Dillard’s history underscores both Walker and Anderson’s argument about local black

communities’ efforts to shape the educational system to their needs. The most useful history of

Walls highlights the determination of freed black families after the Civil War in New Orleans to

seek an education, and how many of these same families longed for their children to receive a

classical education. The authors describe the origin of the university in 1869, when the American

Missionary Association founded Straight University. This moment marked the beginning of

higher education for African Americans in New Orleans, when a dire need existed for African

Marybeth Gasman and Roger L. Geiger’s Higher Education for African Americans

before the Civil Rights Era 1900-1964 focuses on the efforts of HBCUs to establish themselves

institutions founded and created out of racist ideologies. According to Gasman and Geiger, white

educators went out of their way to hinder African Americans from obtaining the same level of

education as whites. Gasman argues that southern HBCUS, especially in urban areas, were the

impetus for achievements in black higher education while also being influential in the move to

desegregate public schools, through court cases like Sweatt v, Painter (1950) and McLauren v.

time.

In America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities: A Narrative History, 1837-

2009, author Bobby Lovett provides a deep narrative of HBCUs. He chronicles the founding of

the first black college, Cheyney University, in 1837 and the role that HBCUs played in higher

education and the improvement of the lives of African Americans despite economic hardship.

and shared ideas. Lovett discusses how black students relied on each other and on local

communities, the latter of which shored up HBCUs with a focus on improving for the well-

being of African Americans. With the faculty and collaborative spirit of its scholars, HBCUs

advancement of African Americans, but these institution also served as a source of guidance for

African Americans during times of oppression. Notwithstanding their dependence on the support

of white philanthropic and political agencies, the survival of HBCUs relied upon creative

responses, from generation to generation, of their administrators and faculty who helped shape a

culture for black expression in higher learning.

within the Archives and Special Collections housed at the Will W. Alexander library, where I

worked as archival intern. The Archive’s mission statement and protocols for exhibitions and

digital collections stipulated, the design and framework for The Stars Burn Bright. The Archives

mission statement is “to support the University in all endeavors of producing a quality

educational experience.”

the history of those students who have matriculated from Dillard University and made a name for

themselves in art, music, theater, and poetry. This website, which can be found at The Stars Burn

Bright, consists of four tabs featuring the exhibit, resources related to Dillard University, a

gallery of historical pictures showcasing photos of happenings at Dillard University and an

entertainment industry. After the completion of the digital web exhibit, it will be donated to the

Dillard University Archives and Special Collections and sustained by the Will W. Alexander

Library on campus.

Since its opening in 1935, Dillard University has pioneered many major innovations for

African Americans. From its earliest years, Dillard created and nurtured a spirit of excellence

among students, including students of the arts. This spirit of excellence is what gave birth to the

Dillard University Players Guild and Drama Department and many of the accomplished artists

who graduated from Dillard University For eighty years, the Dillard University Theatre and Arts

excellence and commitment to the arts that Dillard has fostered. These major pieces are featured

in the exhibit.

Panel #2

Randolph S. Edmonds: Father of HBCU Theater and Drama

Playwright Randolph S. Edmonds contributed much of his life to the creation of

dramatic arts. In the 1930s the United States saw a burgeoning of educational theater and

Edmonds played a key role in that growth. In 1936, he organized African American colleges

across the South and Southwest into the Southern Association of Dramatic and Speech Arts. The

interscholastic theatre organization he created for Louisiana High School drama groups joined

the Louisiana Interscholastic Athletic and Literary Association. Edmond’s experience extended

African Americans have had, historically, within the arts and entertainment industry in New

Orleans and worldwide. It is important to Dillard students to learn about these black artists,

painters, poets, musicians and actors and the role that Dillard played in their success. With this

exhibit, the archives at Dillard University showcases a glimpse of the past, with narratives from

affluent leaders, students and the community around New Orleans. The goal of this project is to

sense of pride. Educating those who are not familiar with historically black colleges and

universities (HBCUs), serves to showcase the sacredness of the education of African Americans,

who at a times advanced all the while struggling with racism and segregation that were a daily

part of their everyday lives. This exhibit, in physical and digital form, will engage the general

public and shed light on the history of those who have transformed Dillard University into a

University. Written for a tenth-grade reading level, this also allows for the exhibit to be

understood by visitors who are high schoolers and above. The topic of historically black colleges

and universities is interesting for past HBCU students and future HBCU students and for the

citizens of New Orleans. The Dillard community is dedicated to keeping the history and tradition

alive. Working with Mr. John Kennedy, head archivist at Dillard University, we will bring The

homepage of the Archives and Special collections. This web presence will also inform scholars

researching on historically black colleges, and the history of education and entertainment in New

Orleans. The exhibit and the digital website will appeal to a diverse audience from areas of the

city interested visitors from across the nation seeking insight on the history of black

University of North Carolina Press, 1988.