King Reports on Black Experience

Senior Christon King presented a chapel on The Black Experience at MUS, a report based on a survey he sent to roughly 200 Black alumni, for which he received 37 responses, and conducted 12 follow-up interviews.
Providing historical perspective, he reviewed the charter for Memphis University School that was granted on May 20, 1954, and observed that it contained no racial references.
 
This was progressive at the time, King noted, because the Supreme Court issued the Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation just three days before the MUS charter date. (The first Black student to enroll in MUS was Peter Strong ’81.)

King then commented on alumni responses, grouped by decade. Following are some excerpts:
 
“The ’90s were largely a period of contentment for Black students at MUS. … Everyone that I spoke to told me that they felt that they had a strong friend group or community, despite being the only Black kid in a setting at times. One anonymous 1999 graduate went so far as to say that he never faced any form of discrimination from any peers or faculty.”
 
“A number of 2000s grads reported that they did have a strong friend group or community of sorts, but they did not speak of the same class-wide community that the ’90s graduates reported. … At the end of the 2000s there seemed to be an uptick in the number of verbal harassment or derogatory language incidents. … After 2009 around 87% of the guys that I talked to said they did experience some kind of verbal harassment.”
 
“In 2012 Barack Obama won his re-election campaign. … Circa 2013 the Black Lives Matter Movement took root and began to protest about racially motivated instances of police brutality. In 2016 Colin Kaepernick and a number of other NFL players chose to take a knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and violence against Black Americans. These types of events made the 2010s something of a Black renaissance, and MUS wasn’t insulated from the effects. … Social friction characterized the 2010s at MUS.”
 
“And now we arrive at the ’20s. So far, I think the word that would characterize this era in MUS history in regard to Black students is responsive. … In the last five years there has been an uptick in Black faculty that aren’t working solely in an athletic capacity. … In such a short period of time, the addition of black faculty has resulted in this positive shift in MUS culture, which is a testament to how important they are. … The number of school-sanctioned, race-conscious activities has increased, and MUS administrators have largely been supportive of projects like this one, despite the potential for criticism that may fall upon the school.”
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