The Dean's Blog

If I had one last chance...

Most of us have completed in our own minds the sentence that begins, “If I only had one week/month/year to live I would….” A student group is asking faculty members to consider a variation of that question and then have dinner with them to talk about it.

Students at St. Martin’s University Center are asking professors, “If you could give just one more lecture in your life, what would it be?” They have invited me over this evening, and I’ll share with them a short version of a lecture that I’ve given in American history classes for many years, along with some thoughts about why I think it’s important. The talk starts with a story about four freshmen at an all-black college in North Carolina, who in February of 1960 walked into a downtown department store, bought a few school supplies, then sat down at the lunch counter and politely asked to be served. They were refused service (as they would have been at most eating places in the South then, by law or by custom), and that touched off a “sit-in” movement across the South.

This story usually opens up some questions: What exactly were they protesting against? Was it inevitable that most white southerners would oppose desegregation of public facilities, some violently? How did four young students come to change the course of American history? How much has changed in relations between blacks and whites in America since 1960?

Sometimes an even more fundamental question comes up: What does the story tell us about the meaning of freedom? Activities on campus surrounding Martin Luther King’s Birthday and Black History Month have brought to mind questions about how the meaning of freedom has changed over years since the Civil War. I put down some thoughts on that subject for a talk delivered as part of the King celebration a few weeks ago, and by popular demand (well, three people asked) I’ve posted it on my About the Dean page.

If any of this raises a question or comment in your mind, let me hear from you. Despite the premise of tonight’s dinner, I plan to be around for awhile!

Posted February 6, 2007 at 11:01 AM by Robert McMath