Intellectual and Cultural Events Journal

I attended the cultural event on civil rights this Thursday. I thought it was very interesting to hear about personal experiences people had at Birmingham Southern. Judge U.W. Clemmon’s story was the most interesting to me. He had won an essay contest and was invited to several colleges, but only responded to BSC. He was given a tour, but was not introduced to any teacher or students. Later in his tour, he was told that he could never attend here because of his race. It was amazing to hear that this very own college denied somebody to attend here because of their race. I know that it was very common issue during that time period for the separation of black and white, but it was still astonishing that he was denied acceptance.
Howl Reigns said that the problem of mixing races was a general failure of the community to meet the social challenges. This is a very logical explanation. It is our community that determines what is separated or changed and how to deal with certain situations. If you want something changed, then you have to get the community to agree and work together to change the issue. If you look at the community that we live around, it is very hard to believe that anyone of different race would be denied in this particular school, just for where it is located.

I attended the cultural event this Thursday on civil rights. To me it was one of the most interesting cultural events I had been to yet. It exemplifies how the issue of race was applied to Birmingham-Southern. I was very intrigue by the story of Judge U.W. Clemmons and how he was one of the first black men to be turned down from Birmingham Southern because of his race. I had always grown up hearing stories about how people had been turned down because of their race, but to actually hear first hand was very real. It is amazing how far BSC has come over the years. Although, I agree with one of speaker when the question was ask, "If you could improve Birmingham-Southern in anyway what would you do?" She said that she believes that there should be an increase in African American teachers and students. To me I have notice that there is an extreme difference in the race in teachers here at BSC, it would be beneficial to make it clear to the students and the community that we have grown past differences in race. If we have teachers of all different races we will be open to many different views and issue.

A cultural event I attended last Wednesday was designed to inform student about depression. The event was sponored bby the SOS students and I found that very impressive. The presentation was very informative and interesting but lacked lots of creativity. During the event I heard several comments about how monotone the presenter was and people were even falling asleep. I did not at all feel bad for the presenter but instead for the students who attended the event hoping it would be a more impressive presentation. I think it is great that we had a clinical psychologist come and show us a list of items on a blue and black power point screen describing everything about depression but I do not understand how we were supposed to enjoy it. When it comes to culural events and presentations I believe we should make sure that the audience will be satisfied before the event begins. I find it upsetting that people present information in such a 'note card' fashion that in turn the audience leaves with disgust about the topic instead of thriving to know more. When it comes to education presentation is so important and it effects how the audience reacts and remembers what they viewed. Because this was an especially touchy subject, it is obvious that many people will show up, because lets face it, people are interested in suicide and gory details about life; therefore people sponsering the even should make sure that the persentation is going to be suitable for a young audience. It just really disgusts me going to an event I look forward to and not even being able to take in the facts of important real life issues because the presentation is so poor.

This event was interesting to me because of the forum that they used. I thought having the four speakers be able to talk amongst themselves in a conversation about the school was very effective. The most culuturally relevant thing I found in the lecture was that while one of the black speakers was being turned away from the college because of his race, on of the other speakers was starting his freshman year. The second speaker was white. From what we were able to gather, the first speaker seemed like he would have been a competent and succesful student at the college, but he was never given the opportunity. I had known from classes what had happened during the 1960's, but I had never actually heard someone say that they could not attend a college because they were black. Actually sitting there while he said that made what happened so much more real to me. It made me realize that it has not been that long ago and we should strive to eliminate what little racism still exists in the college today.

I was supprised at some of the language that used. I am not really used to hearing it. Although it did add ephasis to the story and made it seam more realistic. I am sure that in the military that sort of language is heard more often than not. His story related to A SOLDIERS PLAY in the sence that it should that even as simple and developed as the military there is still segregation amoung those that fight and those that clean. Most of the time it is due to color. Because a man is black he is scene as less intlegent and unducate when compared to that of a white man. I guess there is no place to go that racism does not exist.