University of Minnesota Alumni Association : Letters


Search

University of Minnesota Alumni Association


Alumni Association Home > Past Issues > 2003 > January-February 2003	Print View

Letters
1/23/2003 10:15 AM

Belated but Welcome Recognition
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! At last, a focus on my black predecessors who, for these many decades, have been ignored or, at best, appeared as footnotes in the history of the University of Minnesota ['“Almost Perfect Equality,”' September-October]. Recognition of their accomplishments is long overdue. I look forward to reading your next two installments.
Kathryn Gagnon (M.A. '62, M.S.W. '67)
St. Paul

The Story Behind the Photo
An alumnus of the University of Minnesota gave me the edition of your magazine sketching out the experiences of African American students there in the early 20th century because my uncle, Roy Wilkins (B.A. '23), is prominently mentioned in it. My interest peaked at the sentence, “Helen Jackson of Minneapolis was a Phi Beta Kappa student in 1928.” Then it skyrocketed when I turned the page and found a picture of my mother I had never seen before, taken four years before I was born.

In 1930, Helen Jackson married another Minnesota student, Earl Wilkins. My father was Roy's younger brother and he, like Roy, wrote for the Minnesota Daily. After graduation, my father joined Roy in Missouri on the Kansas City Call, where he established himself as an exceptional journalist, including for his exclusive interviews with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and running mate John Nance Garner in 1932. My mother worked for the Negro branch of the segregated YWCA in Kansas City until my father's death in early 1941. She then headed the new race relations office of the national YWCA in New York. During her years there, she fashioned the Y's antidiscrimination policy and traveled extensively through the South working to desegregate local Ys there.

After she remarried and moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1944, my mother became a pillar of the local YWCA, ultimately becoming its board president-the first black to do so-and a pioneer in antidiscrimination work in Grand Rapids. She then moved to the national level of YWCA governance, rising to become the first black to head the national board, from 1967 to 1974. My mother was active in civil rights and civic work across Michigan for 50 years. She has also been a lay leader of the Episcopal church in western Michigan.

Helen Jackson Wilkins Claytor is 95 now and living in Grand Rapids in the house we moved into 58 years ago.

One footnote: Largely because my father's journalism career was cut short by his death, I entered journalism in my late 30s and was persuaded to leave the Washington Post for the New York Times by another Minnesotan, Harrison Salisbury (B.A. '30). When I got to the Times, Harrison became my friend as well as my mentor. One night, long after I had joined the paper, Harrison looked at me quizzically and said: “Roy is not your father, is he?”

“No, he's not,” I said.

“Was your father a fastidious man with a deep love for language?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Earl!” Harrison exclaimed. “I thought Earl must have been your father. I broke him in on the Minnesota Daily.”
Roger Wilkins
Fairfax, Virginia

Painful Memories
Thank you for being truthful enough to print the article entitled “The Way Spaces Were Allocated” [November-December]. Having arrived on campus in 1948 and being from rural Minnesota--where we were taught segregation and racial discrimination were not found in northern states-we were very sad to learn that those practices were part of U of M policy. Truly, education must be open to all persons, and the facts should be presented no matter how painful. Keep up the good work.
Ruby (B.S. '52) and Matt Madsen (B.B.A. '56)
Bloomington, Minnesota

Top This
I read with amusement the First Person essay [“Slow Learner,” September-October] by Burl Gilyard (B.A. '92), which was followed in the November-December issue by two letters to the editor from other “perma-students.” One of them had spent eight years as an undergraduate. The other wrote of an 11-year journey to graduation.

Shall we initiate a little competition?

I was enrolled in the College of Education at the University of Minnesota for 13 years. Prior to that I had earned an associate in education degree. While teaching elementary school and raising three children, I took summer school and evening courses not only to keep my teaching certificate current but to keep my transcript in the “active” file.

When my adviser urged me to finally pull it all together and graduate, I did so. I was the only person left following my curriculum, but I received my degree, miraculously with no loss of credits. I'm now active on the board of the Friends of the Kerlan Collection.
Norma Bondeson Gaffron (B.S. '76)
New Brighton, Minnesota

A Taxing Time for Higher Ed
One can understand the need for wishful thinking in the face of a $4.5 billion state deficit, and one can easily argue that Jesse Ventura did not appreciate higher education. Still, I do not share [UMAA National President] Deborah Hopp's view that “Tim Pawlenty (B.A. '83, J.D. '86) . . . has far greater appreciation for higher education than outgoing Governor Jesse Ventura” [“Please Write,” November-December].

During his campaign, Pawlenty took the outrageous position that the entire deficit could be erased without raising taxes. Anyone with even a limited appreciation of higher education (Minnesota alumnus or not) should know that this pledge could potentially devastate University programs. Of the candidates vying to be governor, Tim Pawlenty was the worst possible choice-for all of higher education.

Former State Representative Peggy Leppik offers solid advice about telling the University's story to legislators. Unfortunately, because of the irresponsible positions of her party's governor, it's more likely these stories will be ignored.

Richard Mensing (M.Ed. '01)
St. Paul

Trouble seeing the text? | Contact Alumni Association | Privacy