Fraternity

by Diane Brady

  The officer was clearly not impressed with their explanation. In his memo for the record, he noted that the two cadets were determined to quit the ROTC because the program represented the U.S. military establishment, and therefore represented an agency of the U.S. government that was responsible for the Vietnam conflict. Furthermore, they told him, since this was not a black man’s fight and they didn’t agree with war, they felt they couldn’t belong to any agency of the government that supported it. In short, they were like many of the young men on campus who had decided the ROTC was clearly not for them. Although it bothered him immensely, he felt he had no choice but to let them have their way.

  SIX

  Love, Liberty, and Learning

  Eddie Jenkins, who welcomed weekends as a break from the grind of football and studying, was finding it tough to adjust to the mating rituals at Holy Cross. In particular, it was hard for the freshman to work up much enthusiasm about the “mixer,” a weekend event for which busloads of female students from neighboring colleges were brought to campus. Sometimes the mixer was a casual party held on the floor of a residence, but it could also be a formal dance in the Field House. Most of the students on campus seemed to consider the mixers the highlight of campus life. For big draws like Spring Weekend, men would submit photos of their dates to The Crusader, which then solicited votes on who was bringing the prettiest girl. Such practices seemed weird and outdated to Jenkins, but what bothered him most was that there were rarely more than a handful of black women on the bus, and hitting on the white girls brought its own set of problems. It wasn’t just that some of them apparently failed to find Eddie attractive or seemed nervous about hanging out with a black man. He wanted to meet some sisters and, like some of the other black students, found that there was just too much tension in trying to pick up a white girl. As one student complained at a BSU meeting, the looks from some white classmates implied that the black men were “dirtying up” their women.

  The members of the BSU decided they would have to go out and look for women on their own, and Jenkins frequently organized these weekend trips off campus. When the BSU secured its own station wagon, many of the black students often found that when they asked to borrow the “van” that Eddie J. had booked it first. Usually that just meant that they would have to pile in and be prepared to contribute for gas. Most nights, the men would pool coins from their pockets. “That’s all you got, man?” someone would yell into the backseat as they pulled into a station. “Come on, dig deep!” Gas station attendants struggled to hold on to the fistfuls of coins that the men would shove at them through the window—often delivered with a smile and the greeting of “Peace, brother!” to dispel the inevitable irritation.

  Jenkins discovered that it wasn’t hard to find parties at one of the Seven Sisters colleges—Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith, Wellesley, and Vassar. The men also favored Newton College of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic women’s school that eventually merged with Boston College in 1974. They found that black women were as eager as they were to socialize, having experienced their own sense of isolation on largely white campuses. They were forming their own black dorms and organizations, too, and were eager to connect with the BSU members at Holy Cross.

  Eddie had briefly dated a woman at Anna Maria College named Kathy Ambush but quickly decided that, although she was cute, she was too short for him. They got along so well, though, that he asked her to come along on a trip into Boston with Gil Hardy and Clarence Thomas, hoping to introduce her to “Cous,” as many of the men now called Thomas in reference to his childhood nickname. As soon as Jenkins heard the two of them laughing and talking in the backseat, he knew the setup was a hit.

  Between athletics and his studies, there was limited time for socializing during the week. But Jenkins was pleased at how the freshman team was performing in football. Holy Cross had narrowly lost its first game to Dartmouth, to a squad that would go on to become the backbone of an undefeated 1970 varsity team. Psychologically, though, Boston College was the team for Holy Cross to beat. BC was getting a lot of attention for its first-year quarterback, Ed Rideout, and Golden, the freshman coach, decided that he needed to put Jenkins in a better position to score touchdowns. He switched Jenkins from wide receiver to running back for the game.

  Eddie Jenkins in his football uniform

  Jenkins (left) and Joe Wilson on the practice field

  During the first half of the game, Jenkins got hold of the ball almost two dozen times. He could feel that he was on fire, and the knowledge made him noticeably bolder than usual in the eyes of his teammates. Then, in the third quarter, Jenkins took a serious hit. After having his torso taped to alleviate the pain, he insisted on going back onto the field. “If you carry the ball,” said Golden, “you can win the game.” Within minutes he scored a touchdown. He had gained 145 yards rushing, a yard less than the entire BC squad. Holy Cross won the game. Jenkins’s teammates surrounded him, and the Holy Cross fans yelled with excitement, but the pain in his side was so intense that he felt like screaming as he made his way to the locker room. Jenkins later discovered that he had broken three ribs.

  Jenkins first met Father Brooks through football. Brooks had been chatting in Golden’s office early in the season when Jenkins came in to see the coach. Golden introduced the priest as the man “responsible for most of you guys being here.” The comment struck Jenkins as odd, since it was Golden who had sat in his parents’ kitchen and convinced them of the merits of Holy Cross. Golden had shared Brooks’s interest in recruiting more black students; the two men had spoken about the need to open up Holy Cross, and Golden had felt encouraged by Brooks’s support as he went on recruitment trips. Jenkins shook the priest’s hand and cracked a few jokes. Brooks warmed to the freshman player’s good-natured sense of humor right away. Nothing seemed to get Eddie down. And as he came to know him better, he came to admire Jenkins’s positive attitude and the energy he seemed to bring with him into every room. What came out of his mouth might not always have the ring of truth to it, but the delivery was typically pitch-perfect. He doubted that many people could resist a request from Eddie Jenkins. For his part Jenkins found Father Brooks to be friendly and a little intimidating; the priest was a respectful listener but also supremely confident in his own views. As Jenkins later observed, “Nobody was going to steamroll this man into doing anything he didn’t want to do.”

  Jenkins came to marvel at how socially attuned and all-knowing Father Brooks seemed to be. He couldn’t recall a conversation in which the priest didn’t seem to already have a grasp of the topic at hand. But Jenkins also found Brooks to be inscrutable: He had no idea what the hell the college dean was thinking beneath the smile. It was a script that would repeat itself throughout his time at Holy Cross: easy banter or lighthearted negotiations with Brooks that rarely strayed into serious topics. Jenkins knew that the joking tone was ultimately because of him. Brooks himself never seemed to have an agenda; he was simply interested and available if Jenkins wanted to talk. It was up to Jenkins to take advantage of that, and he generally preferred to keep the conversation on a lighter note. He wasn’t in the habit of sharing his problems with white priests. In fact, Jenkins wasn’t comfortable in general with the idea of sharing his problems with anyone, except perhaps Ted Wells, Stan Grayson, and a few other close friends. Brooks may have been warmer and friendlier than some others in the administration, but he was still a member of the administration. He was another person to lobby and charm, an authority figure. Still, Jenkins was always cheered by their occasional meetings and enjoyed running into the priest on campus. He liked Brooks, in part because Brooks always seemed genuinely happy to see him.

  As the year wore on, Brooks saw signs that Clarence Thomas was coming to terms with his life at Holy Cross. The sophomore had arrived at the college with a stronger work ethic and drive to succeed than most. Among other things, the rigor of the seminary had helped to make the academic transition a seamless one. Thomas had settled
on a major in English, less because of a love of literature than because of his dislike of the Gullah that still occasionally crept into his speech. Other kids had made fun of it in high school, and he knew that any sign of the dialect would prompt people to label him as poor and uneducated. As Thomas later explained, “I didn’t want it to define me.”

  Brooks found it heartening to spot Clarence dashing off to the library and was impressed with his solid grades. But he was even happier to see Thomas socializing with other students, both black and white. For all his inner turmoil, Thomas seemed to be making some good friends. While Brooks noted, with concern, that some of the black students associated almost exclusively with other black men, that wasn’t the case with Thomas. The sophomore seemed to get along with practically everyone.

  In a private meeting with Brooks, though, Thomas presented a different demeanor. Nothing sat lightly on Thomas’s shoulders, whether it was the personal trials of school, work, and family, or the broader issues of race, war, and religion. Like Jenkins, Thomas had found himself drawn to the priest’s open nature and clear interest in him. Unlike the freshman football player, though, Thomas was more willing to take advantage of that interest. He needed someone to talk with, and he sensed that Father Brooks was there to listen, not judge. The priest rarely jumped to give advice, unless asked. There were certain truths that he knew—the importance of hard work, the injustice of racism, the need for everyone to feel part of a community—but there were also realities that Brooks couldn’t claim to understand. He didn’t know what Thomas was experiencing as a black student on campus. Sometimes the sophomore seemed remarkably at ease, and yet he was clearly carrying a heavy load as well.

  Moreover, some questions had no easy answers. Thomas was especially worried about the escalation of the war in Vietnam and its potential to derail his ambitions. He didn’t trust that a black man could avoid the draft, and Brooks couldn’t offer much comfort. It was a common fear on campus. By the end of 1968, American troop strength had reached 540,000. More than 14,000 U.S. soldiers were dead. There was talk that the government was becoming less inclined to let young men sit out the war by staying in college.

  Brooks shared Thomas’s qualms about the United States sending people to fight a civil war on the other side of the world. While most Americans were not yet aware of the most brutal atrocities of the war, disturbing images were coming across the nation’s TV screens every night. The cost of war, an estimated $66 million a day, had forced President Lyndon Johnson to raise taxes and cut back on efforts to reduce poverty, which hurt his popularity and fueled greater opposition to the war. Thousands of young men were being conscripted to fight against their will, and it was clear that more were needed. As a young man, Brooks had been scared to go off to World War II. But at least that was a war his generation understood: Japan had attacked the United States, Hitler and Mussolini seemed determined to control all of Europe, and innocent people were being rounded up into concentration camps to die. The physical and moral perils of doing nothing were obvious then. Vietnam was another matter.

  Thomas was determined to do anything to avoid the war. He was afraid of having his career delayed by the draft and of dying in the jungles of Asia. Although he continued to toy with the idea of a career in journalism, he had already told some of the other BSU members that he might study law at Harvard or Yale—he told them he didn’t see much point in aiming any lower. Whatever doubts he was having about the rest of the world, he didn’t seem to harbor any about himself.

  Although his first priority was his grades, Thomas was starting to develop more interests outside the classroom. He was playing intramural sports, and in the spring he did track and field, becoming part of a long-jump team that won a victory over a strong Yale team. He wrote articles for The Crusader. He had become a more vocal presence in the BSU, which contrasted sharply with his demeanor in classes, where other students noticed that he often sat in the back and barely said a word. One student suspected it was out of embarrassment about the way he spoke; another felt that Thomas was more interested in learning the lessons than in discussing them—at least in a classroom setting. With so much on his plate, Thomas often felt that just sitting through a class even without taking part in it was all he could manage. He was working about five hours a day in Kimball, trying to catch up on his reading between setting tables, bringing out platters of food, and cleaning up after the other students. But at least he had been quickly promoted to a managerial position at the dining hall, which gave him a small ego boost and a bit more money. As Thomas recalls, he typically got up at 5 A.M. each day to study and spent most evenings, after work and classes, in the library. But even as he pushed himself around the clock, he discovered that college life was becoming more enjoyable than anything he’d ever experienced in Missouri.

  Ted Wells wasn’t that interested in having a social life, even if his shift in status stung somewhat. His priority was getting his grades up. He spent more time huddled over a desk in the basement stacks of the library on weekends than crammed in the station wagon in search of a party. Although he had been to a few parties with Eddie Jenkins and Stan Grayson, he wasn’t eager to meet new women. Within weeks of their formal split, he had reconnected with Nina Mitchell, his high school girlfriend who was studying in Cincinnati. He first wrote her a casual letter, telling her about campus life and the other men he’d met, and she had responded immediately. Soon they were talking on the phone almost every night. The phone bills were so high that Wells had to ask his mother for help covering them. Mitchell had an easygoing personality and loved to laugh, and she was just as ambitious as Wells. The message of the women’s movement and black power spoke to her: She shared Wells’s passion for learning and intended to get her own degree to pursue a career. By Thanksgiving Ted and Nina had started dating again, and the challenge now was to find ways to see each other. Wells could afford neither the time nor the cost of traveling to Cincinnati.

  During one party at Wellesley, Wells told a woman from Newton College of the dilemma he and Nina faced, and the woman suggested that Nina look into transferring to Newton. He immediately asked someone for a piece of paper and scribbled Nina’s address on it so that the woman could send her information. It was the first time anyone had seen him ask for a woman’s phone number at a party, and they soon discovered why. He had a feeling that Nina would be willing to relocate. Three more years was too long to be apart.

  The pressures of football were wearing on Wells. While his transition from playing center to defensive lineman was easy, football felt like a full-time job. He felt torn between the need to study harder and the need to constantly train. Something had to give. He suspected he could become one of the top academic students at the college if he applied himself. The one thing that was standing in the way was football.

  Then, on December 11, his mentor, Tom Boisture, suddenly resigned “for personal reasons” less than two years after taking the job. Some players heard there had been a dispute over the varsity preseason training that had taken place in Canada, which might have violated some NCAA rules. Others cited Boisture’s poor 3-6-1 record. Among other things, Boisture had started ten sophomores, the youngest players on the varsity team, arguing that they were more talented than some older players. The decision had ruined the already fragile morale of the team. But Boisture’s eye for talent later helped the New York Giants win two Super Bowls.

  With the coach gone there was even less of a reason for Wells to stay on the team. Still, although he was finding it tough to balance the demands of being an economics major and football practices, he was worried about losing his athletic scholarship; he wouldn’t be able to continue at Holy Cross without the money. Shortly after the Christmas holidays, he went to see Father Brooks to ask if he would lose his scholarship if he quit the team. It was a far more personal discussion than they’d previously had when discussing BSU matters. Brooks immediately assured him that the money he received wasn’t tied to playing sports. Wells had been adm
itted on his academic record, too, and his main purpose in coming to Holy Cross was to get a degree. If anyone had issues with Wells quitting the team, Brooks stressed, he would handle them. Wells felt an immediate sense of relief.

  While Wells had become friendly with a number of the men on the team and in his residence, he felt most at home at meetings of the BSU. He felt closest to Eddie Jenkins, who made him laugh, but who also let down his guard to show a more thoughtful and serious side when the two of them were together. Wells had also become good friends with Stan Grayson, who rarely had a bad word to say about anyone and seemed willing to take life as it came. The person who needled him a bit was Clarence Thomas, but Wells enjoyed sparring with him. Whatever differences they might have had, they both felt passionate about civil rights, the war, and their own desire to succeed.

  The most difficult hurdle to overcome was homesickness. It helped when Ma Wells would box up large quantities of food like fried chicken, collard greens, potato salad, chitlins, and cakes, and send them up to Worcester on the Trailways bus for her son to pick up and share with his friends. Ted sometimes brought his friends down to Washington for holidays or the occasional protest march. But little could alter the fact that he and many of his friends were finding little to like about Worcester itself.

  Ed Jones wanted a girlfriend. Even when he did attend some social event, he found it hard to strike up conversations with women. Most often he would stand in a corner sipping wine while watching the other men make their moves. He admired Jenkins for his smoothness. Eddie always seemed to be talking about different women and heading out to meet one of them, but Jenkins wasn’t the kind of person Jones could go to for advice. He was too confident, even cavalier, and sometimes he struck Jones as superficial.

  Jones found Stan Grayson more approachable. Of all the men, Grayson seemed to get the most letters from women back home. Jones liked the idea of writing to someone and having a chance to get to know her on paper, without the pressure of polite chitchat. He also knew that he came across better in print than in person. He asked Grayson if he might consider setting him up with a pen pal. It was an odd request, but Grayson was touched by it. While some of the men might have scribbled notes to their girlfriends or parents now and then, pen pals weren’t supposed to be part of college life. Grayson gave him the name and address of a girl he knew who was living in a suburb of Detroit. Jones wrote her a polite, chatty letter—friendly, he thought, but not too intense. She never wrote back. Jones didn’t mention it to Grayson and he never asked if Grayson knew someone else he could contact. He wasn’t even sure if the woman had received his letter.