I often get accused of having agenda, a bias that shows up in my writing and the newspaper's coverage.
I usually dismiss those arguments.
Not this time.
As I stood in front of this college class, I had to admit I had an ulterior motive.
Professor David Leonard had invited me to speak to his Political Science class. They have been discussing the decades-long problems that have dogged the Chester Upland School District.
But before we talked about Chester-Upland, I had another message I wanted to deliver to these kids.
Where does the time go?
This was a homecoming of sorts.
That's because I was speaking to a class at Lincoln University.
The very same school I attended for my first two years of college.
I do a lot of these kinds of speaking engagements, very often talking to high school and college students. But I also speak to groups such as the Lions and Rotary, usually about the increasingly dire straits of the newspaper business.
But I always preface those talks with some information about myself, my background and upbringing, and the things that formed me and really are the reason I do what I do for a living.
And one of those seminal life experiences is without question the two years I attended classes at Lincoln University.
The kids don't usually get it, but every time I tell the adults that I attended Lincoln University I notice a quizzical look on their faces.
Their heads tilt a little bit. I know they are dying to ask me a question, so I usually go ahead and answer it anyhow. So why do you think some people might have considered it a bit odd for me to have attended Lincoln University?
The kids usually stare at me with a blank expression.
Usually a couple of adults smile, but seem too embarrassed to raise their hands.
So I answer for them.
Lincoln University is one of the nation's oldest, most renowned, most prestigious, most acclaimed, most recognized, most honored institutions of higher learning traditionally dedicated to the education of African-American students.
Or, as we called it on campus, the "Harvard of black schools."
So why was that so important? Why did it have such an effect on me?
I'll tell you exactly why.
I always ask the groups I'm addressing to look around the room, tell me what they see.
They usually don't get it.
They see exactly what I saw just about every day growing up in Oxford, Pa. They see a lot of faces that look just like mine - and theirs. Always the majority, never in the minority.
I had lots of black friends growing up, but it was always in a situation where whites were the majority.
Then one day I walked into a classroom at Lincoln University, took a look around, and realized mine was the only face in the room that looked that way.
What an eye-opening experience. I always urge those I'm speaking to - especially the kids - to try at some point to have that kind of experience at some point in their lives, maybe at work or in some type of social setting.
We would be light years ahead of where we are today - still fighting the same old battles - if everyone could have even that small slice of a minority experience. I use every day the lessons I learned at Lincoln University, how to treat people and how I hoped to be treated in return.
I had not been on the Lincoln campus since the spring of 1975. Just getting onto the campus was a bit of a chore. Security is a little tighter than it was back in those days, when people were pretty much free to come and go as they pleased.
The campus is a lot bigger today. I quickly noticed the football stadium, there was no football team back then.
It took me awhile to find Grim Hall.
But as I stood in front of the class, I repeated my Lincoln story.
When I got to the point about my experience at Lincoln and why some people might find it a bit odd for me to have attended classes there, every face in the room lit up. They smiled and raised their hands.
Yes, every face in that room was black, aside from mine and Professor Leonard's.
They knew exactly why it would have been odd for me to have attended classes there.
We had a great discussion about the problems confronting Chester-Upland.
But that's not why I was there.
I was going home.
It only took me 43 years to get back.
Thanks for the invitation, Professor Leonard. Hopefully, it won't take me that long to get back again.
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