This month in History: March 1966 response to NAACP resolution

On February 23, 1966 the Delaware State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, issued a resolution stating "We contend that education provides the fundamental medium for the perpetuation of segregation and discrimination in our society. Delaware State College continues as this medium of injustice."  It accused DSC of "tokenisum" by virtue of the small number of white students. Furthermore, the resolution calls for the closure of Delaware State College in order to perpetuate the integration of University of Delaware which was begun in 1950.

The letter bearing the resolution was sent to DSC President Mishoe by Littleton P. Mitchell, President of the Delaware State Conference of NAACP.  Mitchell had been a member of the NAACP since he was thirteen.  In the 1930's he completed high school at Howard High and spent two years at West Chester University of Pennsylvania on an athletic scholarship. His collegiate education was cut short when he joined World War II as a flight instructor for the Tuskegee Airman.  I personally wonder how these experiences, attending a segregated high school and serving the US Army in a segregated unit, must have impacted him. Mitchell became a formidable force for the NAACP and served as a conference president for more than thirty years. Among his many accomplishments he successfully led the movement for the desegregation of Delaware hospitals.

In March of 1966, after receiving the NAACP resolution,  President Luna I. Mishoe was obviously dismayed with its message. He drafted a thirteen page special report to the Board of Trustees and painstakingly responded to every accusation Mitchell had publicly laid against Delaware State College.  His chief message was "From all evidence available to me, this College is at least 10% integrated and the chart is still moving upward.  This cannot be accurately called tokenism when most of this happened within the past THREE years...Our faculty is more than 30% integrated."

To me, what is interesting is that today's society commonly perceives the NAACP as fighting against white institutions that barred blacks. What this resolution reminds us is that the NAACP fought against all segregation. In fact, the NAACP resolution states, "It is our position that each of Delaware's institutions of higher learning is segregated...As a result, therefore, Negro and white students of both institutions continue to receive an inferior education." I don't wish to speak for Littleton Mitchell, but what I would like to think he was conveying is the idea that students of any race cannot learn from each other's experiences if they do not learn together. 

The NAACP resolution may be viewed in the Harriet R. Williams Collection; box 2; folder 5, part 2.  If you would like to study the current statistics on the make-up of the student body you may be interested in the Delaware State University Factbooks viewable at https://www.desu.edu/academics/academic-affairs/institutional-effectiveness/institutional-research-planning-analytics/fact-book. 

Department of Nursing Records Acquired

This month the archives acquired a substantial number of records from the nursing department. I am very pleased to say that this is a valuable and surprisingly complete acquisition. 

Up to this point in my tenure at DSU I have acquired the bulk of the archives' records from basements and abandoned closets.  Consequently, I am accustomed to working with collections that are frequently disjointed, have large gaps in data, lack provenance, or are disheveled to the point that they cannot be pieced together. I am pleased to say that in the case of the Department of Nursing records it was the quite the opposite! The records were shockingly well-ordered and made my job nearly effortless.

The nursing collection is complete in the sense that it contains a nursing degree program proposal from 1972 when the idea for a nursing course was first conceived. The development of the department through the 1970s may be clearly seen through written proposals, funding requests, and supporting documentation.  Additionally, patrons will be able to clearly trace the history of department through a large number of reports drafted for accrediting institutions and the Delaware Board of Nursing. All in all, while gaps do exist (primarily for the 1980s) they are not extensive.

I'd like to give a huge shout out to the Nursing Department for making this big step forward! The faculty and senior secretary deserve recognition for their clear appreciation for history.  Not only were the records well organized, but the department sought me out.  I did not have to cajole them into transferring records.  Rather, they were eager to contribute and recognized the benefits for all parties involved. Thank you Nursing Department!

Patrons may view the finding aid on the archive's LibGuide at https://desu.libguides.com/c.php?g=548691&p=3764808.