Author: Victoria Charles

Despite having integrated downtown night courses in 1964, the University of Richmond remained segregated on its main campus until 1968. Early that year the Board of Trustees approved a measure to accept federal funding for projects outside of capital construction. In part, the funding meant that the University had to comply with federal statutes such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program receiving federal funds. Although the aid would not have been available until the following school year the University had to prepare to meet prerequisite qualifications for certain grants. Part of those prerequisite qualifications was compliance with the Civil Rights Act. During this time attitudes toward integration on campus greatly differed with some calling for swift action and others dragging their feet into the inevitable.

Conversely, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), one of the federal agencies charged with enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was steadfast and exacting in its mission to integrate schools. HEW officials in Virginia began pressuring the University to integrate not only its student body but also its faculty. An editorial published in The Collegian on September 20, 1968 echoed HEW’s plea for faculty integration. Writing on behalf of The Collegian staff, this editorialist noted that The Collegian’s stance on integration was not meant to be seditious or in vogue with the times but rather earnestly rooted in the belief that University of Richmond students did not have enough contact with people of other races and “have never been fortunate enough to really get to know the educated Negro.” The editorialist went on to contend that the university could not claim to be liberal arts if it did not expose students to those of different “races, creeds, colors and social backgrounds.”

Interestingly, the editorialist made no appeal to claims of justice or civil rights even though the push for integration of any kind was propelled by civil rights legislation. Moreover, the piece presents white students as the main beneficiaries of faculty integration and does not address the implications of this on black faculty. The sentiment there is ‘if we hire black faculty or do a faculty exchange with a historically black college or university then all will be well.’ The piece does little to nuance the argument and paints the issue as black and white.

The accompanying cartoon functions similarly. The artist chose to depict faculty integration with scientific imagery. In the image an apparatus holds two glass bulbs labeled “instructors”. One bulb contains black molecules and the other contains white molecules, which are taken to represent black and white faculty respectively. At the bottom of the image a flask labeled “U of R Faculty” contains a fairly equal mix of both black and white molecules. The choice to represent faculty integration with an image that evokes scientific study suggests that there can be a “science” to the process in a way that strips the problem of its context and sordid history. The hands with no body attached also evoke a detachment from the lived human experience of fighting for integration. Although the written piece makes appeals to humanity and improvement thereof, the appeals are limited to conceptualizations of white humanity. Both the editorial and the cartoon function to create the illusion of an alchemy of integration in a way that does not humanize the actual experience of integration for black people.

On November 26, 1973 then-vice president of student affairs, William H. Leftwich, sent a memo to university president, Dr. E. Bruce Heilman and provost, Dr. Charles H. Glassick, concerning the Student Organization for Black Awareness (SOBA). According to Leftwich, SOBA had been in existence for about a year and was formed with his help and continued under the guidance of sociology professor Dr. James Sartain. Leftwich noted that the group aimed to serve as a “vehicle for black identity and visibility” on campus but in his opinion lacked “real purpose and goals.” Despite having stated the group’s purpose in the previous paragraph, Leftwich’s assertion that the group lacked real purpose suggests that he did not consider their claims to a shared identity as a legitimate cause for group formation. In the memo Leftwich added that he had asked Richard Mateer, the dean of Richmond College, to help the group get some “meaningful projects” off the ground.

After introducing SOBA, Leftwich went on to ask, on behalf of the group, if Heilman and Glassick would be willing to meet with them. He acknowledged that student meetings with administrators were not typical but emphasized that it “would be viewed as a broader University interest and concern for black students.” Leftwich presented the meeting as a symbolic gesture and did not indicate that it would be anything beyond “an expression of interest.” It is interesting that Leftwich posited the meeting as a mere expression of interest in black students even though high-level administrators were invited to participate in the conversation. As president, Dr. Heilman in particular had the authority to bring about broad-sweeping change to the university or at the very least present possible changes to the Board of Trustees. His presence at the meeting had the power to be more than symbolic.

The proposed meeting offered a chance to hear directly from black students, implement new policies, and make the university better but instead that opportunity was squandered for the sake of symbolism. It is great that black students had the chance to be heard but it seems as though their grievances might have fallen on deaf ears. The demographic composition of the proposed meeting showed an inherent defect in the university system. All of the invited administrators were white men. At the time there were no full-time black faculty or high-level staff at the school. Black students were made to plead their case to those who may have been sympathetic to their cause but not at all familiar with their struggle. This memo implies that the administration was unwilling to seriously consider the plight of black students at the school and instead chose to make symbolic concessions.

This image appeared in the October 9, 1970 edition of The Collegian, the student newspaper at the University of Richmond. The cartoon depicts Dr. George Modlin, former university president, pointing to what seems to be a pain in his backside. The doctor in the cartoon diagnoses Modlin with a fictional ailment referred to as Severinson’s Syndrome. The image caption explains that the ailment is also “commonly known as the HEW Plague.” In effect, the cartoon implies that Severinson’s Syndrome or the more commonly the HEW Plague is what’s causing the pain in Dr. Modlin’s backside.

Severinson’s Syndrome alludes to Dr. Eloise Severinson, the regional civil rights director for the now-defunct Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). Appointed to the position in 1968, Dr. Severinson was tasked with helping institutions comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program receiving federal funding. In October of 1970 Dr. Severinson wrote a letter to Dr. Modlin expressing her belief that the University of Richmond still projected “an image of an exclusive all-white Southern institution.” Since the University had begun accepting federal aid several years prior, Severinson maintained that HEW could stop funding the University if it was not in compliance with the law. In the letter Severinson offered numerous solutions to the problem including the admission of more high-risk students, the hiring of black administrators, and cooperation with historically black colleges and universities in the area such as Virginia Union University. Severinson also advocated the use of more black students in the recruitment process along with an augmented interest in recruiting blacks students.

President Modlin declined to comment on the subject of the letter and instead told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he would “take the matter up with the board of trustees later” in the month. The cartoon reflected student perception of Modlin’s lackadaisical attitude toward Severinson’s letter. His lack of comment made it seem as though the letter served as an annoyance to be ignored rather than an impassioned call to action. Further, Modlin’s complicit acceptance of the racial status quo at the University was inherently racist because it effectively shut minorities out of educational opportunities. His silence on the matter actually speaks volumes to the lack of commitment to racial equity on the part of university administrators at the time. They essentially had to be strong-armed into compliance with the Civil Rights Act and when prodded they erred on the side of inaction.

This image is a snapshot of the cover of the 1960 edition of The Web, the University of Richmond’s former yearbook. The cover features Confederate Spidey, who at the time was described as the University’s unofficial mascot. Dressed as a Confederate soldier and armed with a sword and a musket, the illustrated spider is also carrying a Confederate flag on the cover. Although Confederate Spidey makes thirty appearances in the yearbook there is no explanation of why the image is used so frequently in the two-hundred-page publication. The foreword simply reads, “may these pages hold many happy memories for you.”

It is possible that the copious use of the image in the 1960 edition was a nod to the impending centennial Civil War celebrations in Richmond. However such a gesture would have been more fitting to include in the 1961 edition of The Web during the actual centennial. So let’s consider for a moment that the imagery in the yearbook has little to do with the celebrations. The student editors, Richard Brewer and Betty Pritchett, had to have assumed that Confederate Spidey’s image could stand devoid of context in a university publication. Yet that assumption calls into question the extent to which Confederate Spidey was in fact an unofficial mascot of the University. If the students in charge of publishing a piece that represented the University to its student body saw no point in explaining the image’s use and used the image so frequently then it seems that the image was only unofficial in name but not in deed.

For a University of Richmond student in 1960 to be able to pick up a copy of the yearbook, simply shrug at the cover, and flip through its pages without considering the implications of Confederate Spidey means a few things. It means that the University was a place where such imagery was common. It means that the University was a place where students welcomed the idea of being represented by a mascot dressed as a Confederate. It means that voices in the campus community that may have been opposed to the imagery were not in the majority. It means that eleven years later when students asked the University Band to restrain its use of the song Dixie there was backlash.

Whenever Confederate Spidey is mentioned in the archive it’s noted that its use was unofficial. It seems that the word unofficial is used to absolve the University’s compliance in its use of racist imagery. Simply because Confederate Spidey was not inscribed on the University mace does not mean that the image did not come to represent the university as a whole. Confederate Spidey mattered to campus culture and touting its “unofficial’ use does not wash away the stain of racism from the University’s cloak.