Podcast Episode: Oral History Project Chronicles the Creation of Educational Legacies
Growing out of Duke's centennial celebration, a newly published project presents oral histories from Black alumni of the four universities designated for support by James B. Duke's 1924 indenture of trust—Duke, Davidson, Furman, and Johnson C. Smith. Led by the Rev. Dr. M. Keith Daniel, a triple-graduate of Duke, a research team collected the complex stories of how Black families began and continued legacies at the Duke-endowed schools in the decades after Duke and other predominantly white schools began to desegregate. In the latest episode of our Sounds of Faith podcast, we hear excerpts from those interviews and talk with Rev. Dr. Daniel about the pride, pain, and providence he found in the project—and why he titled it “Counting It All Joy!”
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James Todd: Welcome to "Sounds of Faith", a podcast exploring traditions of faith, sacred music, and spoken word here at Duke University Chapel. Growing out of Duke's centennial celebration, a new project collects oral histories from Black alumni of the four universities designated for support by James B. Duke's 1924 indenture of trust. Those schools are Duke, Davidson, Furman, and Johnson C. Smith. Here, in an interview as part of the project, Duke alumna Fern Gunn Simeon describes how she chose to enroll in Duke in the 1970s, despite reservations that she wouldn’t fit in.
Fern Gunn Simeon: The theme I have about my involvement in Duke's legacy is full circle. I was about to go, had the scholarship, and I was talking to my dad one day. It seemed like we were in the kitchen; that’s the place where we were talking. I said, “Daddy, I can’t go there. Those kids are so much smarter than me, and they’ve been to private school,” and I was just going on. My dad said, “Your grandfather, Marshall Gunn, helped build West Campus. He was a brick mason." He said, "He helped build Duke Chapel and the wall," and he said, “You have more of a right to be there and deserve to be at Duke than anybody on that campus.” When he said that, I went, “Okay," that sealed it for me.”
James: Duke alumna Fern Gunn Simeon’s hour-long interview is one of the dozens conducted by the Reverend Dr. M. Keith Daniel and his research team. Himself a graduate of Duke three times over, Reverend Dr. Daniel was program manager for the university's 50th anniversary commemoration of the first five Black undergraduates to attend the school. In his new project, supported by Duke Chapel, he focused on the complex stories of how Black families began and continued legacies at the Duke-endowed schools in the decades after Duke and other predominantly white schools began to desegregate. The title Dr. Daniel has given to the project, "Counting It All Joy", comes from a biblical passage that speaks of joy, trials, faith, and patience. I'm James Todd, communications manager at Duke Chapel, and I am here with the Reverend Dr. Keith Daniel, director of the "Counting It All Joy" oral history project. Dr. Daniel, we’ve just heard an excerpt from your interview with Fern Gunn Simeon, who graduated from Duke in 1978, went on to get a law degree from Duke in 1982, and then had a daughter graduate from Duke just 2 years ago. You say that her story is emblematic of your project. Why is that?
Reverend Dr. Keith Daniel: Well, certainly, James, Fern’s story is indeed emblematic. Just to think about her trepidation for attending Duke, thinking she would not find her place at the university in the 70s, and to have her father emphatically say, “We have a legacy at this university, and it is your grandfather. Therefore, you should by all means feel like you have a place there and belong.” That joy for me, I still get chill bumps when I think about Fern’s story, and the rest of that interview, and other things she shared that just punctuated the reason why this project came to be.
James: Talking about legacies, I think it’s interesting. There’s a narrative around 1960s desegregation, and we’ll get to the fact that not all of these schools were predominantly white. Johnson C. Smith is a historically Black school, so there are differences in stories here, but connecting the dots post-desegregation to building a legacy at these schools. So, why was that legacy aspect important for you in the people you chose to interview?
Dr. Daniel: First, I had some time to reflect on my own life, as we tend to do in life. Sometimes, when you’re 18, 19, or 20, [inaudible] even into our mid-20s, we don’t often fully appreciate who was there before us and the people who make it possible for us to enjoy what we have today. Certainly, given the segregated realities of the South, and of universities and such, I began to think personally about my own story. One day, I woke up, and my son was choosing to attend Furman University.
James: Which is one of the four Duke-endowment schools.
Dr. Daniel: Absolutely, and there were some signs and signals to me that we should take a look at what it means for us as African Americans attending these great universities, but also to struggle with the legacies and stories of those universities. As I was reminded so often from Nat, Gene, and Wilhelmina, three of the first five to integrate Duke in '63, that these universities were not built for us. Again, going back to Fern's, that's a powerful moment for her father to say, "Wait a minute, your grandfather actually built Duke, therefore, you should not feel ashamed or feel that you don't have a place there." And so, that legacy piece began to surface for me through those conversations as we were commemorating the integration of Duke.
James: You were part of the 50th anniversary celebration committee of the desegregation of Duke. So that's where some of these oral histories kind of began in a way. Good. I want to pick up another clip from the interview with Fern Gunn Simeon where she talks about being at Duke and some of the dynamic there once she got there.
Fern: Back when I was in school, again, I don't think the relationship was really that good between Blacks and Duke. I didn't wear Duke paraphernalia off campus. Very rarely did I have on a Duke t-shirt, or did I openly talk about where I went to school, and that's unfortunate. Now I wear a Duke t-shirt or a Duke hat, and you have somebody in Walmart, "Yeah, go Duke," but when I was 17, 18, 19, in fact, they gave me kind of a hard time. "Why did you go to Duke?" So yeah, it's different now.
James: So, Dr. Daniel, we're hearing there Fern Gunn Simeon talking about this dynamic of being a Black student at a predominantly white school, but she's from Durham, so she moves between communities, and the communities don't necessarily understand each other. Was that a common dynamic? What did you find out about once students are enrolled at these schools, what it's like being in different communities?
Dr. Daniel: James, that's such an intense question, even you asking it. My story intersects with Fern, given that I have about four generations of my family from Durham. I grew up in Washington, D.C., but Durham was home for me. It was a place where I felt really comfortable, and anytime I needed to get off campus, I just had to call my cousin, and he would pick me up. I spent my weekends at my aunt's homes. My grandparents were living at that time. Fern is right. Again, I was in the late 80s, graduated in 1990, undergrad, and there was still a perception of Duke as a plantation from my family members and others because, again, as the first to attend Duke in my family or a predominantly white institution of my family, there was this awareness that we're kind of crossing the proverbial tracks. I was a football player, so I always had Duke stuff on, so I didn't have that same dynamic about my clothing. People kind of knew that's where I was by way of that. I can really appreciate Fern to- that's, lot of universities around the country have that town-gown dynamic, kind of this elite place. Oftentimes, they're set in these settings where the communities around them don't necessarily reflect the folks who are working or attending those schools. So, that's a very important point.
James: So I want to get to another dynamic here that came out in the interview with William McLaughlin. Interesting. Talk about legacy. So he and all three of his siblings went to Duke, plus then there were some more marriages. So you have McLaughlins at Duke from 1976 to 1988, straight through. He talks about the importance of finding a mentor. I want to listen to that and get your reaction.
William McLaughlin: Everybody that took history or American history at Duke University knew or knows of Ray Gavin, at least if they were there at the time that we were there. Ray Gavin was so important to me personally. Before we went to Germany, we lived in Virginia. We left Fort Eustis, Newport News, Virginia, where I studied Virginia history. I knew all about 1607. I knew about Jamestown. They built a triangular fort, how they defended it, the Native Americans, and what they did, and all this kind of stuff. What I didn't know anything about was the fact that Black folks, my people, people who looked like me and needed a haircut like my haircut, showed up in 1619. Ray Gavin gave that back to me. That gift that he gave has continued to reinforce me throughout my life.
James: So, Dr. Daniel, you have William McLaughlin coming from a military family to Duke, and he's talking about the late history professor Ray Gavin here at Duke and just how important that was for his Duke experience, and he said, for the rest of his life. What about this role of mentorship? What did you find out about that in your interviews?
Dr. Daniel: Yeah, that was profoundly important. Yet again, I think about the gift of legacies like Ray Gavin's. We don't have enough time for me to name the names of people who have been so deeply influential to students like William and so many others. I had the opportunity to experience C. Eric Lincoln as my only Black professor in the late 80s of all the classes that I took. When we interviewed others, especially at Johnson C. Smith, oh my goodness, again, we wouldn't have time. Again, the legacy of the historically Black college experience, and when students arrive on those campuses, they're already known because those were our schools, so you're following family members and siblings oftentimes, so you have that deep nurturing. But when you come on a predominantly white campus, and there are not that many Black faculty members, you're certainly going to look to them for nurturing and support. That was a clear critical theme, and a lot of joy came out of hearing the alumni share about those lifelong influences through mentorship.
James: Great. I'll talk about the framing of this project. There is a scripture verse that has this phrase, “counting it all joy,” that resonated with you such that you've titled the project. I'm wondering if you could read that verse from the book of James and then talk about why it is that you chose it as the title for the project.
Dr. Daniel: James 1:2-4 in the New King James Version reads, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
James: So, what's in the meaning there about joys, trials, patience, faith that you thought applied here?
Dr. Daniel: Well, that word joy is, as we learned at Divinity School, has a lot of density to it. It's different from happiness. It abides even when things aren't going well. We can be happy for moments, but joy is something that carries through. You may see that through the themes of the scriptures. If you look closely at even something like Good Friday, you have to do some mental things around the crucifixion of our Lord, being something that's good, but we know that existentially it leads to eternal life. Again, I became a theologian at Duke. I didn't come to Duke to be a theologian, but some years after a long internal discernment, I enrolled in Duke Divinity School and went into this field.
James: Your two Duke graduate degrees are from the Divinity School.
Dr. Daniel: Right, and then, of course, as you know, James, we've been colleagues at Duke Chapel.
James: That's right.
Dr. Daniel: My perception of life has been deeply shaped by the scriptures and by thinking deeply about realities and desires for, like the civil rights leaders would often emphasize, this pursuit of beloved community, even when you have what we call redemptive suffering. So this birthed in me during our commemoration of the integration of Duke and spending so much time with Nat, Jean, and Wilhelmina, and hearing them talk about what it was like for them to integrate Duke at a time when there was still a lot of violence, significant violence. Again, this is a few years before the assassination of Dr. King, but the movement was going strong then that we deserved to have the best educational opportunities that we ever wanted to pursue with freedom and liberty. But that came with, if you hear their stories, some very tearful and some trying moments, and that their parents had the courage to allow them to lead the integration of Duke is something to be deeply joyful about. But also, you do have to realize that it didn't come without some real suffering.
James: You're capturing that mixture of a hopeful tomorrow, but also difficulties in the present. So let's head down the road from Duke to Davidson, another one of the universities supported by the Duke Endowment. We're going to hear a clip here from Michelle Graham-Freeman, Davidson class of 1993, being interviewed by your research colleague Ciaran Smith. Here, Ms. Freeman is going to talk about the importance of the Black Student Center at Davidson. So let's listen.
Michelle Graham-Freeman: I knew from the very first day, this is where I could come if I had questions, if I didn't understand something, if I wanted answers, if I needed assistance, if I needed help. I was very thankful to know that this existed. It was great to look around the room and see all the families, all of my class of students, and their families. We were welcomed with open arms. It was great to see other people that looked like me immediately because the school itself did not. I knew that coming in, but again, to come here and see this room where we're sitting now filled with other faces that look like mine was magnificent.
James: So, Dr. Daniel, we're hearing there Michelle Graham-Freeman, Davidson class of 1993, being interviewed at the Black Student Center at Davidson and talking about just how important that space and that community was to her. Did it come up elsewhere? How did this dynamic come up in interviewing Black alumni of predominantly white institutions?
Dr. Daniel: Well, indeed, there had to be intentionality early on, mostly on the parts of students, Black students, to create their own internal support systems and to see one another. Over the course of time, the universities began to ensure that Black students had a physical place on campus. At Duke, there was a famous Black bench, and that's conspicuously where we would all gather in the center of West Campus. People would notice that it was mostly Black students, and occasionally a white student might shuffle into the space, but very rarely.
James: That was an informal name. It was there in the 90s when I was [crosstalk].
Dr. Daniel: Yeah. The bench is actually not black. It's a stone bench, but it became a place that we sort of occupied nonviolently, but in numbers. At that time, it was not called the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture as it is today. We did have a center, and I want to honor Dr. Carolyn Lattimore, Queen Lattimore we would call her, a queen who was a person who really oversaw that space. On Davidson's campus, we conducted most of those interviews during their 50th commemoration of the Black Student Council, I think it was. They had that whole weekend to reflect on what it meant to see one another and to be inspired by one another's presence, and then begin doing the work to ensure that the university also did the same, which was also kind of some trying times there for them as well.
James: So I want to shift the narrative just a bit. Another one of these schools supported by the Duke Endowment is Johnson C. Smith University, a historically Black university. So, in what ways did the interviews with alumni from Johnson C. Smith share some of the same themes, but also how did it differ in those interviews?
Dr. Daniel: Those interviews were different.
James: How?
Dr. Daniel: Emotionally, you could see a deeper emotional tie in the interviewees. Very tearful moments because they were able to sit with what it meant to attend a Black place truly built for them, where they had so many mentors and so many people working hard. Again, I can relate to this, growing up in the late 60s when so much violence was happening. Everything was so nurturing for us: the Black church, our Black communities, very little interaction with white peers or even white neighbors. So the choice to attend a Black university is very much embedded and rooted in the story that we have to protect ourselves and, in many ways, create spaces for ourselves. Saying that is hard. It's like a trial that comes with that, because it's like, "Man, we live in America. It's supposed to be freedom for us to, as we say, pursue happiness, but the reality is against that. Going on Johnson C. Smith, I actually had moments where I was like, "Man, did I make the right choice in coming to Duke? It's like a family reunion,"and that's literally what it was. I can't describe it. You have to go. You have to attend the homecomings. We attended two homecomings at Johnson C. Smith. To give you an example, we're still reckoning with those choices that we have: what it means to integrate, what it means to stay in our own communities where there's nurturing, but yet profoundly different at Johnson C. Smith...
James: ...a different town?
Dr. Daniel: Yeah.
James: One of the more remarkable stories comes out of Johnson C. Smith. So this is Jasmine Smith. She finds out after graduating and going out into the world and beginning to start a family that she was actually related to one of the university's earliest presidents, which she didn't know as a student. I want to listen to her story.
Jasmine Smith: So, my biological father, I never knew who he was. One day I said, "Before we have kids, I want to find out more about my biological father, just the DNA part of things." It's just always good to kind of know that if you can find that stuff out. So my mom put me in touch with somebody who gave me more information. She got me in touch with that family, and I started following the threads. I talked to someone that said, "There's family folklore that has us connected to Johnson C. Smith." So, I have a couple of names. I remember I was doing a visit with my mom and my stepdad, and I got on myancestry.com, started an account, put in a couple of names that I had, and just started following the threads. It's actually not that far back. So my father was Ronald Corley. He and his brother, their parents, Agnes, and Ella. And then their parents were Agnes and Nanny. Nanny McCrorey Corley is the little sister of H. L. McCrorey, who was the second African-American president of Johnson C. Smith. He raised, I think, the most money for this university, was the president of this university for close to 50 years. All of my classes were in McCrorey Hall. It just blows my mind how God orchestrated my steps. I didn't even know what a Johnson C. Smith was. Got the brochure in the mail. Said, "Oh, I guess I'll apply," and ended up having all my classes in this hall. Got married, found my husband here.
James: So, Dr. Daniel, it sounds like Providence. It worked there. Talk to me about the wonder and surprise of coming on these stories and finding these connections. What was that like?
Dr. Daniel: Jasmine and Kiran Smith are a big part of the inspiration of this project. Kiran was the first one to actually point out to me about the Duke Endowment Schools many years back, long before this project was in mind and long before the 50th anniversary commemoration. He and his wife are just incredible people. She got emotional in that interview. I'm almost getting emotional again now about her relating that deep legacy in the genealogy of her family. She's very active at the university now and on many boards and has been deeply influential in its leadership. Kiran and Jazz ended up getting married a few years after they graduated. I think Kiran might be in the class ahead of her, but they got married at, I think, Steel Creek Presbyterian Church, which has a relationship with the Duke family. There we got some thread of the stories between how Johnson C. Smith became a Duke Endowment School by way of this church and the members of the Duke family interacting with the eventual leaders of Johnson C. Smith. If that doesn't give you goosebumps or excite you about sometimes how lives take certain courses, and if you don't stop to look, just ask the questions like, "Well, so who are those names on those buildings? Who are the people that built?" Again, this theme helped build these places, and you find the deep connections.
James: So Jasmine Smith is a sort of legacy of the school and didn't know it as a student, if you ask me. So the final school is Furman, and we've got an interview here with Austin Green, class of 2021. Here, it's your son Madison who's doing the interview. Went to Furman, is now a double Duke graduate, but he's interviewing his friend and classmate, Austin Green. So let's listen to that.
Austin Green: Another moment for me was when I won Homecoming. It meant so much to me for me to have invested so much in the school as a Black man, and just understand that my peers saw me as somebody that they can look to with respect and reverence, and appreciate my presence on campus. My mom was there for that moment, so I think that was awesome, because my mom was also on the homecoming court. She didn't end up winning at Davidson, but she was just like, "It was right for you to win this and to bring it home for me and you." I think that was another key integral moment for me, especially being a Black man, winning that. I might have been the first one. I honestly don't know, but it truly meant so much for me to engage in pathways and then also win homecoming for me, because, again, it showed how much respect I garnered with what I was doing on campus.
James: So, Dr. Daniel, what kind of moment of affirmation there for Austin Green at Furman University? What about those moments of belonging that people found at some of these universities? How did that come up in the interviews?
Dr. Daniel: Well, I think for our audience, I want to highlight that the way we thought about this project was that if someone was attending any of the four Duke Endowment schools, whether their parent went to the same school or to another Duke Endowment school, we treated that as still a legacy of the Duke Endowment in its support of the four institutions. In this case, Austin's mother graduated from Davidson.
James: Got it.
Dr. Daniel: She was quite accomplished at Davidson, and if my memory serves me correctly, and we did these interviews now, it's been at least a year and a half or maybe two. As he said, she was on the homecoming court, I guess, and maybe didn't get elected as queen, but she was also very accomplished in many other ways, including, I think, she had a track career and some other leadership roles. So Austin ends up at Furman. The young man is incredible. Homecoming King was just one of the many ways he shared his gifts and skills, and talents, and his passion for education and supporting his peers, the mentors he gained. It was like "Wow." Some people often will say my son followed in my footsteps. I always like to say, "Well, he's ahead of me, because I didn't think about the things he was thinking about in terms of calling and vocation and what he wanted to do with his life and his faith more deeply until much later in my own life." But that was really a joyful moment to hear. Again, that's a unique case. We didn't have a lot of interviewees like Austin and his mom that attended separate schools; predominantly, the interviewees were following at the same schools. So that was unique in that sense. So there's a little bit of redemption in that, like, "Mom didn't get it, but I got it." We can hang that on our mantles in our home and rejoice in that.
James: This interview, your son Madison is doing it. So he's part of the research team. Just recently, he's now also graduated from Duke with a graduate degree. So as you're wrapping this project up, what do you think about your own legacy and your own family? If you were to interview yourself for this, which we're doing now, what would be your thoughts?
Dr. Daniel: Well, my parents were very happy for me to go to Duke. My extended family had some reservations, and I didn't really understand it then, but I understand it now, given the times that they lived in. Thinking about the people on campus, like you say, the mentors, for me, it's really deeply joyful that I knew the housekeepers, staff members, groundskeepers, and their names as much as I knew my own, the faculty members who taught me, or my coaches.
What makes a university work are oftentimes not the PhDs and the scientists and the folks that we have commencement ceremonies for and are getting all the awards. It's the people who are here day to day. I've been fortunate to be a Duke employee as well for my entire career, even today, though not full-time. I know deeply, and I did work in student services and student affairs, so I know how important it is to be supportive of a young person's education and want to know them outside their life of the classroom and to see them succeed. I just have had that here at Duke as something I deeply value. But in the contemporary times, and this project was also inspired by the provost's office putting out a call for proposals for stories that involved race and racism in the American South, that's really what gave me the push to do this. And then Duke Chapel came behind to make sure we had the resources to accomplish it. So, I've been fortunate to be here at Duke and to see young people come through and to see parents like Fern Gunn and others, and what it means to see their children also cross the stage. It's been very joyful in so many profound ways.
James: That's great. As we wrap it up here, obviously, this project by nature looks back on all these stories. Any lessons or themes looking ahead for you personally, for these institutions, lessons that bubble up from this?
Dr. Daniel: Oh my goodness. Right now, with what we're experiencing in our country in terms of renaming of things, from a political standpoint, we're in a trial right now. We're under yet another trial as I'm sitting here with you, James, and the university is experiencing another wave of massive change. Think about 1963, when, in some ways, federal enforcement of integration laws were being put in place so that we could be integrated. For many of us in our communities today, there's a feeling like now we have a force that's working against diversity, equity, and inclusion. This project was about the joy of what it means for us to be able to earn degrees at institutions not built for us. It's really haunting right now to think about what's happening as it relates to the dismantling of efforts to be very overt that the history lessons we've learned about this country: freedoms, the opportunity to have liberty, the opportunities to have the happiness to go where we have access, is the test we are in right now. So this scripture is very live for me. I'm being called on, demanded every day to speak in places to give encouragement to folks who have been disenfranchised, locked out. This project afforded us a chance to hear from many people about what they did so that doors could be open for us, that DEI did not mean unqualified. The first five students to integrate Duke were incredibly talented folks. I'm so thankful that they had the courage and that I can sit here with you today and still have some joy, even in the face of the pushback and the outright removal of history, in some ways, the books that tell our stories. We're going to keep telling them, and hopefully support Duke Chapel and Duke University as a whole will see its way through these times of maybe trying to make it so that our voices and our stories don't matter or are not heard.
James: Important work. The Reverend Dr. M. Keith Daniel is the director of the "Counting It All Joy" Oral History Project. Thank you for bringing these stories to us today.
Dr. Daniel: Thank you.
James: This has been Sounds of Faith from Duke University Chapel. Learn more about the chapel's mission, ministry, events, and programs at chapel.duke.edu.
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