by Diane Brady
TWO
Against the Clock
John Brooks felt a sense of urgency as the white 1965 Pontiac GTO raced down the highway in April 1968. The forty-four-year-old priest was on a mission and he didn’t have much time to complete it. After months of lobbying and debating, Brooks had been authorized to seek out black recruits and offer them full scholarships to the College of the Holy Cross. The question was whether he could find the right young men and, once he did, if he could convince them that Holy Cross was their best option. The best of the students, he suspected, would already have other plans. He had been talking to guidance counselors and potential recruits for months, and the school year was almost over.
His companion, Jim Gallagher, an admissions officer at Holy Cross, drove solemnly, his eyes fixed firmly on the road. At twenty-five, the clean-cut Gallagher was usually chatty and quick with a joke, but today he was overwhelmed with sadness.
Brooks tried to keep the conversation light, refusing to dwell on his own grief. Only a few days had passed since King had been rushed to the hospital in Memphis after being shot on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel, a nondescript place where King had stayed because it was owned by a black businessman. An hour later, at 7:05 P.M., King was pronounced dead.
As the anger and riots began to escalate across the country, Brooks sat alone in his room at the Jesuit residence and prayed. Years later he couldn’t recall what first went through his mind the moment he heard that King had died, but he would always remember his resolution. He realized that simply grieving the loss of a great man of God wasn’t going to amount to much; it was almost self-indulgent in light of the risks that King had taken to make the world a more just place. Brooks had to stop talking about the need to bring more black students to Holy Cross and just make it happen. The desire hadn’t started with King’s death, nor was Brooks alone in pushing for it to happen, but things had stalled. Brooks had the ear and respect of many colleagues in the administration, but there was only so much that a theology professor could do. There were concerns about money and, specifically, how little of it the college could spare with its slim financial cushion. There were issues of fairness, as many of the trustees argued that black students were welcome to come if they cleared the same hurdles and were admitted through the same procedures as everyone else. The worst thing, they had warned, would be to foster the perception that one group was getting special attention over another. A sudden influx of black students might not sit well with the alumni, whose donations and loyalty to the college were based at least in part on the notion that it was going to prepare generations of their own children for success in the world.
The Reverend John Brooks
Brooks had spent months talking with students, black and white, about what could be done. He had met with African American leaders and other academics in Worcester. He participated in lively debates within the Jesuit community, which had a long-standing mission of social justice and academic excellence, and now had to grapple with how to strike the right balance in its recruitment efforts at Holy Cross. If there was ever a time to heed King’s call to action and take up the mantle of civil rights, it was in the wake of his death. Brooks sensed that the shock and outpouring of grief had finally created an opportunity to get a real commitment from the school, and he intended to make the most of it.
Brooks was just five years older than King, although his black-rimmed glasses, clerical collar, and graying hair made him look like he belonged to another era. The priest shared King’s passion about the promise of social justice, especially following the bloody civil rights clashes in Selma, Alabama, three years earlier. He had been a newcomer to the Holy Cross faculty at that point, having just come back from an intoxicating stint in Rome. Where Clarence Thomas saw hypocrisy in the Roman Catholic Church’s efforts to reevaluate and renew its role in the world, John Brooks saw hope. While living in Rome, he had immersed himself in the intense politics and drama of Vatican II. Between classes and study, he and his friends could be found hanging around the steps of the Vatican, getting updates on the latest missives and battles. Armed with a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Brooks arrived at Holy Cross convinced that a revitalized Church could become a leader in promoting social change. The Church had taken that role in the past and, Brooks believed, it could help make civil rights a reality. When he took his position at the college, he quietly vowed to help push Holy Cross toward enrolling more “Afro-Americans.”
Even among the Jesuits, a progressive, intellectual, and typically outspoken order of the Church, John Brooks stood out. While many of the professors and priests at Holy Cross welcomed change, few were as relentless as Brooks in pushing for it. Some students who had taken his theology classes would later recall his preference for using the Bible as a jumping-off point to discuss current affairs, from the morality of the war to the messages in popular movies like The Graduate or In the Heat of the Night. While Brooks made it clear that nobody should show up to class unprepared, the professor was clearly less bothered by a student who didn’t understand a topic than by one who didn’t try to challenge himself in thinking about it. Some found it hard to tell at times whether Brooks was left-wing or conservative, as he could persuasively articulate both sides of an argument. When asked where on the political spectrum he might put himself, Brooks laughed and said he liked any side that supports individual thought. More important, he seemed to empathize with what drove different views. In an era of black and white, Brooks was unafraid to embrace views that were gray.
His stance on civil rights wasn’t just moral but practical: There was an ambitious generation of black men growing up in America, and the college was missing out on a chance to help shape it. Holy Cross risked becoming less relevant by admitting so few black students. No college could pride itself on developing the nation’s future leaders when it largely ignored the potential of an entire group of talented young men, and most of those men would probably never think of attending Holy Cross unless people like him made the effort to recruit them.
With King’s assassination, the fight became more personal for Brooks. He looked around the campus and realized how little had been accomplished. Wooing black college recruits to Worcester was no easy task: There was little to recommend in the struggling industrial city, and Brooks knew the obvious challenges in attracting black men to a campus where practically all of the 2,200 students were white. Even though the college’s first valedictorian had been the son of a slave, the campus had built its reputation largely on educating sons of the Irish elite. That’s certainly how Brooks had come to study there. The darkest people Brooks had ever recalled seeing—both as a student and growing up near Boston’s Fenway Park—were Italian or Portuguese. When it came to black students, there seemed to be an unspoken pattern emerging each year: One was admitted from the North, one from the South; one of those two would typically be on athletic scholarship, one on academic scholarship. The college rarely admitted more than two black men in any given year. When Brooks arrived to teach in the mid-1960s, a quiet Bostonian named Bob Credle was the only black student on the entire campus. For some in the administration, that was sufficient.
Even as the civil rights movement was growing in popularity on campus, Brooks knew there was resistance to change. He was pushing both the admissions and athletics departments to join in his effort to recruit black students. The biggest issue was scholarships. Every time Brooks asked about getting money, he was told it wasn’t there. He suspected that the problem was less the school’s paltry endowment than the fear that it could become even smaller if alumni caught wind of a black recruitment drive that might diminish the number of spots for their sons. Some faculty members claimed that it was unfair to bring “Negroes” to a place where they might not be equipped to succeed. Others privately questioned why Brooks, a professor who headed up the theology department, was making it his job to recruit students. But few faculty members openly criticized him. Brooks had a
sharp wit and a short fuse, and there wasn’t always much satisfaction in engaging him in debate. He would listen. He would understand. But his colleagues quickly realized that once Brooks made up his mind, he didn’t have much interest in changing it. Understanding the complexities of different views rarely seemed to diminish his conviction in holding to his own. Despite his good-natured jokes and easy charm, which had made him a favorite with students, and his political savvy, which was useful in maintaining the warm relations he enjoyed with the president, he was a man who seemed almost oblivious to pressure from his peers. That quality in itself had become an irritant to some.
In the fall of 1967, several months before King’s death, Brooks had asked Gallagher to join him on a trip to Philadelphia to visit Catholic high schools. They talked to guidance counselors at each school, who often seemed more perplexed than excited over the college’s interest in African Americans. Ultimately the trip proved fruitless. Although Brooks met several promising candidates, he wasn’t sure he could offer the students full scholarships. King’s death made Brooks’s case to the Holy Cross administration more compelling. Shortly after the assassination, Brooks went to the president of Holy Cross, Reverend Raymond J. Swords, to appeal for a fresh chance to interview black students and for the authorization to offer them admission and scholarships, bypassing the lengthy admissions process since it was too late in the school year to go through the usual channels. It was a daring move. Brooks pledged that anyone he picked would meet the faculty’s standards and would have the right character for the college. In return he wanted the president to allow him to make decisions on the spot. Surprisingly, Swords agreed.
As Brooks and Gallagher drove to Philadelphia that spring, riots were breaking out across the country, leaving a landscape of shattered glass and flames. Back on campus, there was a quiet numbness and sense of disbelief. Many of the faculty and students at Holy Cross felt a connection to King, who had come to speak at the school five years earlier, in November 1962. King’s photo had appeared in the yearbook that year, with a caption praising him for his “courage, conviction and eloquence.”
Before leaving for Philadelphia, Brooks had hastily set up as many meetings as he could. He had decided to focus on Catholic high schools because he figured he could find young men there who were used to having both a rigorous academic schedule and some element of religion in their education. Although Brooks had yet to see many signs that other colleges were vigorously recruiting black students, he was sure it would start happening soon, and wanted to get to the kids first. He knew why Holy Cross was special, but the high school students might not, so he’d have to convince them. Visiting the Catholic high schools himself would give him an edge. There was already a pipeline and a reputation for Holy Cross in those schools, and they weren’t a traditional hunting ground for the Ivy League colleges.
Brooks was also worried about Gallagher. At Brooks’s request, the young recruiter had gone to an inner-city Chicago neighborhood to look for potential recruits. The news of King’s assassination had left the admissions officer so traumatized that some of his colleagues were worried he might have a breakdown. The truth was, Gallagher had never planned on taking the recruitment job so much to heart; he was only taking a break after college to make some money before heading off to graduate school. But King’s death had shaken him. Gallagher was feeling bereft and was relieved when Brooks called him back to Worcester to join him for a road trip to Philadelphia in mid-April.
It was still morning when both men drove past a building in the early stages of construction. St. Joseph’s Preparatory School in Philadelphia, known as “the Prep,” was a 115-year-old Jesuit high school that had burned down in 1966. The two men pulled up in front of the temporary quarters where classes were being held until the main building was restored. The city’s streets were filled with people sporting Afros and long hair as they walked about in gauzy shirts, jeans, and sandals, but that wasn’t the culture of the Prep, where students with short-cropped hair and blazers were making their way through crowded halls.
Both men were welcomed heartily by counselors at The Prep. It was rare to get a high-level visit from one of the country’s most prestigious Catholic colleges, and each school was eager to show off its academic stars. Gallagher noticed that several members of the administration seemed a little miffed when Brooks made it clear that they were there to meet promising black students only. To save time, the two men decided to split up to do initial interviews. Brooks met with Gilbert Hardy, an accomplished sprinter and National Greek Scholar who was introduced to him as one of the brightest minds at St. Joseph’s. Hardy struck Brooks as personable and thoughtful, a young man who was willing to work for what he wanted. Hardy talked about school, his family, and his ambitions, which were leaning toward law; Brooks explained the kind of preparation he could expect to get at Holy Cross, as well as the kind of support. By the end of their meeting, Hardy seemed enthusiastic about Holy Cross.
One at a time. That’s how Brooks found them. He and Gallagher went to a handful of Catholic schools, interviewing dozens of candidates. They talked to teachers and counselors. At the end of the frenzied visit, the two men sat down together in a Philadelphia restaurant with a list of names. Together they picked out several young men who seemed to have what it would take to succeed at Holy Cross. For Brooks, the men’s grades were just a starting point. The priest was equally interested in the candidates’ drive and ambition. It would take a strong personality to overcome the isolation many would feel at Holy Cross. It was hard enough for the young men to attend white Catholic high schools when at least they would return to the comfort of their families and neighborhood friends at the end of the day. At Holy Cross, the isolation of the classroom would follow them to where they ate and slept. The curriculum would be tough, and the expectations high.
It wasn’t just a matter of figuring out who could stick it out for four years. Brooks figured that many of them could do that. He wanted to find out which students would be trying to accomplish something more. The generation was ripe for producing leaders: They would have more rights and more opportunities than any group of black American men that had come before them. But they would also be tested in ways that their fathers and grandfathers hadn’t been; they were being handed a chance to fail without necessarily being given all the support they needed to succeed, being shown the door to a room where they might not ultimately be welcome. A good education wouldn’t erase the barriers or the prejudice, but Brooks knew it could be a powerful tool.
Brooks and Gallagher spent hours debating about the different candidates they had met—the ones who had the drive but not the grades, the ones who seemed bright but undisciplined, the ones who were tough and loud, and the ones who tried to stay hidden in the background. Brooks was a fast judge of character, but he considered himself to be a good one, too. Gallagher marveled at how much the priest had gleaned from such short meetings.
In the end, they found nine recruits from Philadelphia: Walter Roy, a determined-looking young man whose mother had recently died and who had told the priest that he was planning a career in politics; Harvey Wigfall, who’d made an impression on Brooks with his strong convictions about social justice; Gordon Davis, who’d said that he would have preferred to enter the army but was willing to come to Holy Cross because his father, a career soldier, had talked him into taking a deferment; Gil Hardy, the National Greek Scholar; Juan Brunzello, who planned to major in math; Craig Lewis, a flute player who decided to turn down Swarthmore to come to Holy Cross; Robert Stephens, another accomplished musician; Stephen Collins, a high school basketball star; and James P. Wynn, the valedictorian of his class at West Catholic Boys High School who wanted to study psychology.
Brooks committed more than eighty thousand dollars of the college’s money to cover tuition, books, and residence for the nine recruits from Philadelphia for their four years at Holy Cross. He hadn’t cleared the figure with President Swords, but he felt he could deal with any fallou
t from that later.
President Lyndon B. Johnson had responded to the national anguish over King’s death by signing the Civil Rights Act of 1968 on April 11, and Brooks believed it could be the beginning of a fairer world. Brooks would keep pushing colleagues and students to understand the role they could play in helping to fulfill King’s dream by bringing more black students onto campus and by helping them to flourish. On the night of April 4, King had told the Memphis crowd, “I’m happy tonight.” Even with threats on all sides, the Baptist minister could see that people were pulling together to stand up for their rights. King knew that things weren’t good, but he believed that they could get better. Sitting in a Philadelphia diner, looking at the names of the men who would now get a chance to pursue a college education, Brooks felt a moment of happiness, too. He hoped that some good could come of King’s death.
THREE
First Impressions
The morning Brooks returned from Philadelphia, he went to see President Swords. They both knew that abandoning the usual admissions protocol was bound to raise eyebrows on campus. But if there was still opposition to admitting more black men to Holy Cross, few were vocal about it after King’s death. Brooks knew he had a rare opportunity to push through his agenda. Before he had left for Philadelphia, he had helped to organize a student and faculty drive to raise money for a new Martin Luther King, Jr., scholarship.
Brooks’s personal crusade had made him a controversial figure among his fellow professors. He was hardly the only person on campus who cared about issues of equality and civil rights, yet he had been the one behind this sudden drive to admit black students. Some admired his devotion, seeing him as a larger-than-life figure with a big heart and an admirable ability to push hard for what he believed in. Others on the faculty thought Brooks could be stubborn and dismissive once he’d made up his mind. He certainly made sure that every residence floor monitor was approached about helping to raise money for the cause, and that every professor got a letter asking him to solicit funds for the scholarship. His popularity with many of the students on campus helped—he had a remarkable facility for remembering their names as he stopped to chat with them between classes—but they raised barely enough money to support a handful of students. Still, Brooks felt the outreach had been an important gesture, even if it proved more valuable as moral support than as a source of funds. He also knew it might mollify alumni and colleagues who didn’t want resources siphoned away.