Remembering University of Delaware’s Dr. James E. Newton

In Parker vs. Delaware (1950), the famed lawyer Louis Redding argued earlier than the Delaware Court docket of Chancery that denying Black college students admission to the College of Delaware was unconstitutional and violated the “separate however equal” provisions set forth in Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896). The plaintiffs in Parker have been college students from then Delaware State Faculty — recognized in the present day as Delaware State College.

Chancellor Collins Seitz was the presiding decide and dominated in favor of the plaintiffs. From that second, the observe of denying Black college students admission to the College of Delaware based mostly on their race was not simply morally reprehensible, it was towards the regulation; this was one other precedent-setting normal within the careers of each Seitz and Redding.

What this choice didn’t portend, nevertheless, have been harmonious race relations on the College. It has been properly documented that Black college students had been, and nonetheless have been, mired in an setting stuffed with racial prejudice for generations on the College. They encountered destructive attitudes and behaviors at each flip — of their residence halls, from their classmates, and in interactions with their professors.

Acknowledging and recounting such moments is important however not practically as materials as how Black college students fared regardless of monumental odds. Within the face of an immature nation, which was, within the Fifties, nonetheless coping with primary prescriptions for equity — entry to ingesting water and restrooms, service at eating places, seating at competitions and theaters — Black college students, although small in quantity, thrived.

Why?

One central reply is Dr. James E. Newton.

His background was broad. He was a South Jersey child who made his solution to one of many nice traditionally Black faculty and universities, North Carolina Central College, to check artwork. He then went “up the street a chunk” to change into the primary African American to graduate with a Grasp of Positive Arts from the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and ultimately, he would obtain his doctoral diploma in schooling.

In 1972, he arrived at a “post-Parker” College of Delaware, educating Black American Research. He shortly grew to become the go-to useful resource for any Black pupil looking for their method in a wilderness of uncertainty. At an establishment the place many former college students, together with me, can recount the times when you would go a complete week with out seeing different Black college students or professors, discovering Newton and his class was not simply whetting our tutorial curiosity, it was hen soup for the beleaguered soul.

And Professor Newton was not straightforward.

He usually spoke of the significance of Black excellence as a bridge to the longer term. He reminded us that simply as Dubois, Booker T., Tubman, Malcolm, Martin, Fannie Lou and Redding had stood within the hole for us, we, too, had that accountability for others. He anticipated super comprehension of the educational materials and much more from us as rising younger Black residents. It was as if he knew that trials would come early and sometimes on the establishment. So, he taught uncompromising decorum and coached articulate responses to abuses of energy … and Black Delight, all the time Black Delight. He was an award-winning artist of serious import, however we have been his canvas within the classroom. I’d submit that his greatest and most influential works will be discovered inside all of us, his college students.

I didn’t arrive on the campus till 1988. I used to be a younger, apathetic political science main with a penchant for events and play. However he noticed one thing extra after which demanded extra. In my seminal second on the College of Delaware — “a routine visitors cease” by College police for “driving suspiciously” — it was Newton who, utilizing his rhythmic voice, pressed me to acknowledge the fierce urgency of now. It was not straightforward for a 20-year-old to endure an evening behind bars after which go concerning the enterprise of serving to arrange what stays the biggest protest towards racial profiling within the College’s historical past. That urgency — the urgency Newton instilled in me — has by no means left me. It’s the identical urgency now intrinsic to anybody lucky sufficient to have been touched by his brilliance.

We misplaced Newton on Might 24. Once we heard the information, all of Black Blue Hen Nation remembered moments with our strolling, residing piece of Black historical past. Listed here are only a few quotes I learn from generations of classmates that day.

“For generations of #BlackBlueHens on the College of Delaware, there was a Professor whose lessons have been like an oasis. That Professor was Dr. Newton. He was Professor, mentor, counselor, confidant, and comforter for a lot of college students. He walked on campus—all the time cool, all the time clean, and he all the time greeted you.”

“I wager you possibly can hear his voice anytime you watch a documentary about African American historical past or once you hear phrases like ‘code-switching’ (which he referred to as being ‘bi-dialectic’). Dr. Newton was our sage, our clever man. For those who have been combating the day-to-day challenges at UD, you would go to him for steerage, a phrase of encouragement, or simply to speak.”

“I used to be protected and inspired by Dr. Newton on many a day once I felt like giving up. Many instances, he would supply me encouragement, quietly offering historical past or data. I’d hear rigorously and go on the required info or methods so we may put together or resist. He was a baddddd brother!!!!!!! He saved it actual!!!!!”

“For many people, Dr. Newton was our first introduction to ‘wokeness,’ and I needed to create many a flash card to maintain up in his Intro class! Sheesh!”

“On many events, Dr. Newton would give recommendation after we have been requested about conditions that he referred to as ‘funky.’ In Newton-English, the sentences have been by no means accomplished, the recommendation by no means obligatory, and the ethical of the story by no means revealed. Dr. Newton needed us to know that we had the skills for fixing points, revealing our talents, and surmounting these challenges.”

“You might be an anchoring root to so a lot of our timber of life. Might we feature the legacy and bear the fruit that retains the hearth burning.”

In 2017, I made the very best skilled choice of my profession: becoming a member of Delaware State College. After I introduced, I felt deeply a number of ancestors cheering me on. I wish to assume that the refrain included these Delaware State Faculty college students from 1950 who opened up doorways for generations of younger students but unborn. However I do know for certain that refrain included Newton, who I noticed beaming with delight. It was a second I’ll always remember.

4 days after Newton handed, my pricey good friend, College of Delaware President Dennis Assanis, awarded  Newton a posthumous honorary diploma on the Graduation ceremony. He advised me that awarding the diploma had already been within the works earlier than Newton took in poor health. He then emphatically famous the significance of the professor’s life to the state of Delaware and to every of our College communities.

All I may say in response was, “INDEED.”

Newton was a scholar, an artist, a griot — the one who formed generations of us with out fanfare or reward. Late final yr, considered one of my longtime mentors, Dr. Norma Gaines Hanks, additionally a Newtonite, despatched me a letter highlighting her retirement and noting the Zulu philosophy of Ubuntu—“I’m since you are.”

That’s how I’ll without end consider Jim Newton.

Ubuntu, good brother! Ubuntu . . . Your pupil all the time!

Tony Allen is president of Delaware State College. He’s a 1993 and 2001 graduate of the College of Delaware and served on its board of trustees for eight years.