ölver ine MORRIS BROWN COLLEGE “Dedicated to Educating the Leaders of Tomorrow” Herndon Stadium - A mnnument to self help by Herman “Skip” Mason, Jr. ‘84 College Historian/Archivist estled in the Vine City community behind the Morris Brown College campus was a huge rock pile surrounded by land virtually unfit for cultivation and building. The open field was adjacent to the home of many Vine City residents including the home of the President of the Morris Brown College and the palatial home of the Herndon family. It was in 1946 that work began to carve and sculpt this gigantic rock into a football stadium. Its namesakes Alonzo F and Norris B. Herndon, founder and son of Atlanta Life Insurance Company ironically were pillars in the Mayor Bill Campbell, Mayor of Atlanta gives Dr. Samuel D. Jolley Jr., President of Morris Brown College, a Proclamation during the dedication of the new Herndon Football Stadium. community. Why was there a need for a small liberal black arts SYMBOLISM college to have a stadium of its own? In the late 1890’s, Morris Brown became An Open Letter involved in athletic Let our children competition. In 1911, the school organized its first to the Morris football team. The team was coached by J.S. Jackson and decide later D.H. Sims and the first Brown Campus team consisted of Nathaniel by Charlton Pharris Flipper, S.W. Prioleux, Willie crosses and crucifixes to rasping for the Ed Grant, Allen Cooper, Fred logos, they tangify the Wiley, Milton Carnes, meaning of symbols in intangible. They cast Community Americus Lee, David Gour lives is an elusive reach.thoughts and values into Townsley, and John Corley. But, they represent an something one can see and From that time to the late essential element of what we touch. prejudice, responsibility, and 1940’s, the school produced think separates us from They, like myths, gives us the arguments for and some exceptional football control over the cosmos and other life forms. From The best against affirmative action. teams and players such as: the metaphysical. Some universal symbols such as While attending Morris Stanfield, Major Powell, John symbols tie us to the past, Brown College, become “Big Train” Moody, Joe others give us strength for campus Mitchell, and great coaches involved. Your student the future. They are Features activity fee guarantees your including Belford T. Lawson, powerful, meaningful, action William J. “Billy” Nicks, Artis Campus News participation! Do not merely provoking “things”. Symbols, possible sit upon the Dummy Wall P Graves and A. J. Lockhart. ► Campus Organizations such as the Georgia flag, and accept the will of the Earlier games had been links us to the past. It is a ► Cicero’s Corner Welcome to and welcome majority. Argue. Debate. Do played on an open field near symbolic, symbiotic piece of ► Classifieds back to Morris Brown not let anyone speak for you! CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 cloth, knot -wrapped around College! With that said, this brings ► Editorials a tenacious need to maintain It has been a long hot me to my next point; this is ► Entertainment power. But the knot of reality summer and as Editor, I had an election year. When it is of The Wolverine Observer, I is the multi-cultural link that ► Open Letter to think deeply about what to necessary, scream, let your have called for the sub­ we all share with the ► Politics: Inside & Out produce for our loyal readers. political voice be heard. missions of commentaries, Southern soil, a soil nurtured As the new semester begins VOTE! Our ancestors taught art, poetry, and ideas from Religious News by the genetic pool of three to unfold, I want you not to us that we have a administrators and the ► Sports continents. only think about academics, responsibility and a debt to student body. I do not ► student Profile Our soil has racial but about race and race the people who fought and presume that I alone can memories and echoes more The Near Future relations within the black died for this very special accomplish all that needs to deeper and louder than other ►views & Expressions community, and how you fit privilege! be brought to all our CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 into America’s terms of In the two previous issues CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 2 We’re Back! OCTOBER 1996 MBC Wolverine OBSERVER lllllllllllllllll campus Southern Appalachian Hill country folk who fought for CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 the Union. If so, it might be attention the issues that the color of mud and blood, concerns us as a people. We created by a massacre of should all carry our share of white and black Union the weight. soldiers. The Stars and Bars The articles The Wolverine is a symbol of exclusivity Observer will be committed which belongs in the to print this semester will repertoire of personal values. literally kick butt! There are It does not belong in our too many issues concerning schools where “symbols” the black race and the should be inclusive of all our campus community to ignore. population. It is the goal of The It is a symbol which Wolverine Observer to poke CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 the most gross proportion. glorifies a past, which was and prod and to ‘become a places. No wonder our Instead it imprisons many For the state to sanction a preoccupied with race. I pain to “fix” registration, Southern symbols cause of us in an anachronistic cell historical icon such as the refuse to accept the concept refunds, student involve­ equivocation in some of us of ethnic preoccupation that Stars and Bars as a symbol of race. Race is a myth ment, and the demand for and fury and defiance in impedes us from a realization of my history as a Black perpetuated on gullible and better instructors and others. Forget hell, we have of our full human potential. northerner transplanted to insecure people. It, race, is a equipment. not even yet learned how to Heritage should not blind us the South, much less the myth used by a privileged understand much less to a contemporary vision. It history of my red and other few to maintain power over remember with clarity. The would be presumptuous of black antecedents, with the masses. Symbols which Southern history, racially, has me to suggest immortality or whom I claim symbolic, if not serve the concept of race been one of sibling rivalry. the need for guilt in respect blood relationships, is create barriers between The whiter brother clings to for one’s heritage. The right tyrannical. people and prohibit us from the illusion of a birthright of knowing ones heritage is There is no state moving freely among the joys even though the estate was sancrusanct. But, the sanctioned symbol which of what other cultural wiped out by Sherman, so Georgia flag, as a symbol, images the sweat of slaves experiences can contribute to many years ago. represents legislative who ran Southern our own humanity. The rivalry of power is an sanction. plantations while white Symbols with racist issue bequeathed by our Legislative sanction is the males fought the “lost connotations symbiotically grandfathers and more ultimate expression of cause”. There is no state tie us to the false divisions of subtly our grandmothers. It civilized power. A flag is a sanctioned symbol of our genetic variations. Let’s put is less exoterically, a question symbol of victory. Place it on Cherokee, Creek, and the Stars and Bars in a of exclusivity and sanction. a staff and the phallic Seminole ancestors of which museum, then take Georgia The rivalry and the flag are connotations tease at sexual our population, in their cotton and weave it into a worn out “old south and the convolutions that have absence, is so proud of new flag and stain it the issues which link the white haunted the South and claiming heritage; nor is color of red clay and let our brother symbolically to a Southerners for centuries. there a symbol for the much children have a contest to Richard Jones, lineage of feudalism”. That The symbolic meanings of maligned carpetbeggar who embellish it with black, red, MBC Wolverine OBSERVER Editor linkage should be a historical Georgia’s state flag are brought his Yankee business brown, and white symbols. footnote, functional only for blatant with racist meanings. acumen to a devastated Tell our legislators to have Isn’t this what your defining our progress I find it condescending for South. our children create a cultural tuition is paying for? We the towards a better human the State to legislate a There is no state collage free of myopic racial students must work hard to environment. symbol for all of its people legislative symbol for the memories. better ourselves and our college by being the best campus possible. The Wolverine Observer is definitely back and it has Morris Brown been well-received. But that isn’t good enough. There is always room for improve­ “My Foundation My Comfort Zone” ment. From Chuck D of Public Enemy: “United we stand, yes divided we fall, by Tamara V. Birdsong together we can stand tall...” It seems as if it was only yesterday spirit, when the tunnel of life seemed approached, I had the opportunity to Have a great semester! that I began my freshman year at to be a black hole. Dealing with witness stress in the first degree. Peace and Positive Blessings Morris Brown College. But, in reality professors, friends and so-called The pressures of papers, proposals, Richard Jones exams and my internship was a it has been four years, since I started friends, became a gruesome task for Editor my journey into the land of higher me daily.