Each of us has unique experiences, but I will report in part on mine, acknowledging it is limited.
I entered Tulane U. in New Orleans as a freshman in Sept. 1956. In my Sociology course on race relations, during the half year course, there was only one lecture on black-white relations in New Orleans. It was presented by Dr. Dan Thompson of Dillard U., also in New Orleans, a HBCU. That lecture was not presented in person, but on tape. Had Dr. Thompson delived it in person, he might have been arrested for violating the state's segregation laws. Tulane's Arts and Science College was all-male. Females attended Newcomb College, similar to the sexual divisions at many private universities like Columbia and Harvard. The uni. administrator for the Interfaith panel wanted each group to develop a basketball team or the like; leave politics alone. But there were exceptions; a pastor at the Wesley Center (Methodist) quietly circulated a petition to free Morton Sobel, convicted with the Rosenbergs.
When very conservative publicist William Buckley came to address us in our large auditorium, some of us bood his points, but everyone could hear the points he was making. Perhaps in club on foreign affairs, I recall debating a friend, son of Christian missionaries who had worked in China, on happenings in Laos. I argued, using NY Times articles, that the Pathet Lao was winning elections and should be recognized; he that it was communist and they don't run elections fairly. Both of us could present our arugments without trouble, but the audience was perhaps 20. For the oratory contest, there was a larger crowd. My topic, "Look Not to Outer Space." Sci-fi films sometimes portrayed kindly aliens who would get all the nations of earth to work together. I mentioned that idea, and those who looked to religion and God to bring peace on earth. My point - if we were to have peace, we would have to make it, not outer space aliens or angels. I won the gold medal. More on this topic to come
