Perkins Led The Way Summary

Was Desegregation Really Integration: SMU as a case study?
After slavery was abolished, blacks became free men but were segregated in society. Restrooms, bus seats, restaurant and virtually every public building and institution were separated based on race. As time progressed, blacks were tired of discrimination and began to demand treatment with equality. After several court cases, for example the notoriously famous Plessy vs Ferguson case, the separate but equal rule was legally established. This was not enough however; blacks demanded their rights as they were also American forcing integration. Ideal integration, as those who fought in civil rights movement must have imagined it, involves the acceptance of the black community for who they

are including their culture, perspective, and personality and not being judged or grouped by the color of their skin, which is basically the thesis of Martin Luther Kings’, “I have a dream” speech. However, the integration of educational institutions, SMU in this paper, did not seem to be based on black acceptance or racial inclusiveness, but instead preserving the image of the institutions and steaming pressure from the black community. Therefore, blacks felt isolated even though the institutions were integrated. Years after integration, less obvious limits and boundaries are still set for blacks through stereotyping and an understandable desire to fit in, which leaves blacks feeling like the “other” on campus.
When integration of educational institutions is discussed, the Brown vs Board of Education case is one of the first milestones in integration of schools that is usually mentioned. The case represented the end of the separate but equal rule, and was the official declaration of desegregation of educational institutions. However, the ruling was not enforced, and it would take decades for all schools, from elementary to higher education ,to become fully integrated. However, even before Brown vs Board of Education, the Perkins school of Theology had enrolled five black students into its school as regular full-time students integrating the school of theology. Ten years after, in 1962, Southern Methodist University (SMU) will admit its first black student. The experiences of the black students were anything other than smooth in their transition from, for most of them, segregated high schools to a supposedly integrated but predominantly white Southern Institution. Though many decades have passed, and the doors of all schools are open to black students, the percentage of black students enrolled at institutions is still low. The proportion of black faculty is even less and black students still feel like the “other” on campus. The black history project at SMU is an oral history project archived in the Degolyer libraries. It features interviews from several black alumni of SMU, who attended SMU from as early as the 1960s, therefore playing significant roles in the integration of SMU, to the 2000s. These interviews allow us to see their viewpoint, feel and learn from their experiences at SMU.
The acceptance of integration by the University administration was based on the idea that black students would assume the roles that they created for them and not reach beyond the boundaries that they created.

Merrimon Cuninggim was the dean of Perkins School of Theology who successfully integrated Perkins by admitting five black students. In Merrimon Cuninggim’s book, “Perkins Led the Way: the story of desegregation at Southern Methodist University,” he describes the collaborative method that was used to settle issues that the presence of black students will raise. Rather than giving them a list of rules of what they could and could not do like the students expected, as he states in his speech at an Alumni convention, the students and the dean would discuss concerns, and he would provide advice that the students may or may not

follow.
While this consultation reflected respect for the students and their independence, it also shows that the students were only regular students and accommodated by the university if they stayed within certain limits. Therefore, while the school was deemed as integrated, it was reflective of segregated society. Blacks could ride on the bus if they stayed in their section; they could build houses if they were not in “white” designated areas. Just as the black students at Perkins could participate in only intramural sports that involved little physical contact, and because of concerns raised by the board, live in the dormitory only share rooms with each other. While the actions of the university were pioneering, it was not reflective of the idea of integration that Blacks wanted, which was to be given equal rights and privileges as their white counterparts.
This outlook on integration as acceptance with boundaries demonstrated by the limitations the Perkins Black students had to succumb to is shown by the attitudes and motive of the university at desegregating SMU or the Perkins school initially.

Cuninggim, the dean who championed the admission of the first black students at SMU, seemed to have a personal conviction that there should be equality between black and whites. This can be denoted from his address to the board of trustees, he said “This way of education is the direct and honorable way… the only way we could testify to the continual working of God’s grace among us.” Also, when president Lee asks him to become the dean of the Perkins School of Theology, one of the questions that he asked that was instrumental to his acceptance was if “the way was open for black students,” and the response was yes. However, President Lee’s response was only half-true. The board had agreed that students can be accepted to SMU, but had not necessarily embraced the concept of integration. In “And so we moved quietly,” Cashion states that “the board had allowed to let blacks in and nothing more.” They were still uncomfortable with the lodging of black students and if they would be allowed to live in the same dormitory or eat in the

cafeteria.
In addition, when the first three part-time students enrolled in the university under Dean Hawk, according to the article “Breaking the color bar at SMU, “ a newspaper quotes the vice president Willis Tate to have said that the board allowed the school of theology to enroll students when it was seen as opportune, and the building of a new quadrangle that was separating the school of theology from the university provided the right opportunity. This introduction of black students therefore seems less like integration, but an expansion and more lenient form of separate but equal. Therefore, the administration’s decision to desegregate the university was not necessarily because it was seen as an action that was right. Or that white and blacks are equal, which is the premise true integration would be based on, but instead because of their interest in presenting the University’s image as progressive and pioneering, since integration was considered inevitable anyway.