1990 to 2000

By JEFFREY CUI and MINSEO KIM

Editor and Staff Writer

Content Warning: Articles in this series depict specific instances of racial violence and aggression against Black and other non-white people. Racial epithets, though censored, are included.

This article is part of the multi-part series Since 1878, a project undertaken by the 142nd Board of The Exonian. The principal objective of this series is to examine the paper’s coverage of racism at the Academy and, by extension, in the country as a whole. This series will not provide a complete overview of racist events over the years in question. Additionally, research draws heavily from The Exonian’s archives, which present a biased depiction of racial dynamics at the Academy. Instead, the articles will offer a portrait of The Exonian, the Academy and the nation, decade by decade, by highlighting pieces published in the paper.

In Since 1878, The Exonian will follow the National Association for Black Journalists’ recommendations, referring to the n-word as [n-word], censoring n-gro in most contexts and capitalizing Black, in line with our updated style guide.

Regarding privacy, there are individuals named in these articles who are still alive today. Their statements represent their views as minors in the middle of their education. Most high schoolers do not write for publications like The Exonian, which archives every issue. The editors of the paper understand this unique situation and that views often change over time, particularly those held during high school. Additionally, every article represents more than its writer. Pieces in The Exonian go through editors and advisers, reflecting an institutional history.

However, Since 1878 uses their names to ground itself in the tangible and proximate. In Since 1878, the editors choose full transparency over perpetuating ambiguity and obscuring our history of racism.

In the spring of 1991, a discussion on interracial dating was printed in The Exonian. In response to the film “Racism 101,” the Racial Awareness Committee debated “pros and cons” of interracial relationships. The members of the Committee concurred that interracial dating on campus was rare.

After Chairman of the Racial Awareness Committee Joshua Dimitrii Bloodworth ’93 started off the discussion, a debate ensued weighing how students defined “an ideal woman” or “an ideal man.” “Is it so bad that some people’s preference is for light or dark?” Tamara Bradshaw ’93 asked the group.

“The question was raised as to whether anyone thought interracial relationships were just plain wrong,” The Exonian reported. “It would raise too many problems where I live to marry a black man,” Claire Ellis ’94 responded.

The 1990s saw an uptick in racial awareness. The Exonian continued to report frequently on the Afro-Exonian Society (AES), including its Racial Awareness Committee, which met weekly. Despite an increase of racial awareness, administrative action remained reactionary. Both trends were seen in the first celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a hard-fought achievement which took a hunger strike to be approved.

Coverage

The Battle for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

MLK Day, a staple of Academy life, was wrested from the administration by Black students and faculty. Particularly crucial to this effort was Students of Color Adviser James Montford, who is spotlighted in Since 1878.

MLK Day was first observed in 1986 on the federal level. Prior to 1990, however, school celebrations were limited to internal activities within the AES. 

Montford, frustrated by a lack of administrative acknowledgement of the holiday, took action on Nov. 30, 1989. Though he had only been at the Academy for a few months, Montford began a hunger strike. Montford began the strike “to inspire the community to address what Martin Luther King Day represents for [the club], not intending to conclude the fast until an official policy for a formal recognition of Martin Luther King Day was passed,” The Exonian reported.

“Many students and faculty alike did not agree with Montford's fasting as a way to address the issue of diversity and multicultural relations on campus,”The Exonian continued.

However, even before 1990, some students were unsatisfied by a lack of official administrative recognition. “The school should take a stand in sponsoring this,” Robert Dixon ’90 said in The Exonian. “Even though the AES has provided support for this in the past, it needs to be a community effort. It is not a black holiday, it is a U.S. holiday, by the nature of what Dr. King lived for.” Similarly, English Instructor Dolores Kendrick and Student Activities Director Barbara James had held symposiums on Black identity, which became a model for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day curriculum.

On the sixth day of his hunger strike, Principal Kendra Stearns O’Donnell conceded and formally asked Montford to end his fast. Andre Jackon ’90, Vice President of AES, began a petition at the encouragement of O’Donnell to gauge the popularity of recognizing MLK Day. The petition received “an overwhelming response” with over 650 signatures, The Exonian recorded.

First MLK Day Celebration

On Jan. 15, 1990, the Academy officially observed MLK Day for the first time. The day was planned almost entirely by AES, with some support by a student-faculty group. The Exonian’s Jan. 27, 1990 coverage of MLK Day noted that “the Afro-Exonian Society has [in the past] been solely responsible for celebrating the Dr. King holiday by sponsoring various films.” 

On the day of, films “Do The Right Thing,” dedicated to Edmund Perry ’85, “A Raisin in the Sun” and “Eyes on the Prize Part II” were screened. The films, particularly “Do The Right Thing,” were well received by students. “Despite the fact that there were four showings of [“Do The Right Thing”], the auditorium was so crowded that students were turned away,” The Exonian reported.

Controversy arose when O’Donnell dismissed an Assembly presentation before the speaker reached campus. After National Center of Afro-American Artists Director Barry Gaither ran into a transportation delay, O’Donnell instructed students to return to class. Some saw this call as disrespectful, while other students reasoned that Exeter correctly prioritized avoiding a delay in class schedules. 

After MLK Day, The Exonian wrote that students’ general consensus was that the Academy’s effort remained lacking. The Exonian listed problems including “haste in putting together the festival, the limiting focus to life for blacks in the South of the Sixties, instead of a broader range of topics, such as Hispanic issues, Native American issues, the failure to have any formal discussions on the films, and the simple way in which it was presented.” 

“It seemed like someone was trying to placate the outspoken members of the community,” a student said to The Exonian.

“The overall program was an attempt by the school to celebrate diversity, but it fell short. You have to know more about the topic before you can really celebrate diversity, to celebrate all groups,” Neison Rodriguez ’91 said. 

Growth of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

The Academy did not commit to an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration until 1991. That year, civil rights leader James Farmer Jr., founder and former director of the Congress of Racial Equity, delivered a lecture entitled “The Black Man in America: What is to be Done?” Farmer came to Exeter on Jan. 12, 1991, around two weeks before the Academy’s official celebration.

“If we cannot eliminate racism, we must checkmate it,” The Exonian reported Farmer saying. “We must put in the hands of the victim the levers of power, both economic and political, which control social change so that the victim himself can effect necessary changes. This does not make a man love you, but it forces him to negotiate with you… Right now it is essential that we gain control and ownership of industry and business to give us a stake in our society.”

“We don’t have much time. Color may lose its power to divide... but we must live in today and gain the power to limit racism. Ultimately Mr. King’s dream may triumph.”

In the following ten years, speakers included National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Chairman Julian Bond; Yolanda King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King; and Chai Ling, a key leader in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

By Jan. 26, 1995, The Exonian’s front-cover page “Exeter Celebrates Martin Luther King Day” documented far more planning than the Academy had in 1990. Interactive workshops included videos on gay rights activists; films on Malcolm X and the experiences of Black women; lectures on immigration, civil rights and murals; and even discussions around environmentalism and peaceful solutions to urban violence. “The day’s events may be too far removed from its original intent,” MLK Day Committee Chair and English Instructor Christine Robinson ’83 (Hon.) said. 

However, Robinson also praised students’ “ability or willingness to be engaged by the Assembly… and then move on to serious workshops. It’s a real tribute to the student body.”

Martin Luther King Day in New Hampshire

The fight for Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations in New Hampshire occurred in a state still entangled with Ku Klux Klan activity and certain racial attitudes. However, in 1997, the town of Exeter officially recognized Martin Luther King Day, replacing what had been known as “Civil Rights Day.” The shift followed persistent lobbying efforts from postgraduate Gautam Venkatesan ’97. The measure was approved by the Select Board, 4-1. Lone dissenter Robert K. Rowe said that “Civil Rights Day is adequate. Until New Hampshire proclaims Martin Luther King Day, I will not support this.”

Still, the town’s decision was historic. “1997 will be the first year that any government body in New Hampshire will recognize Martin Luther King Day as the traditional Martin Luther King Day instead of as Civil Rights Day,” The Exonian reported on Jan. 23, 1997. “The board of selectman for the town of Exeter decided to honor Martin Luther King this year due largely to the persistence and conviction of Gautam P. Venkatesan, a student at Phillips Exeter Academy… When he arrived here in September, Gautam immediately saw a need for the issue of Martin Luther King Day, which was not celebrated in New Hampshire, to be addressed. He, however, felt very strongly that the state of New Hampshire should celebrate this great civil rights leader. Gautam believed that the town of Exeter itself would be the most appropriate place to start his activities.”

Religion Instructor (now Exeter Summer Director) Russell Weatherspoon and the Hon. Jackie Weatherspoon, a state representative and Democratic Club adviser, continued lobbying efforts for statewide recognition. The holiday was recognized by New Hampshire two years later, in 1999. The Weatherspoon couple were assisted in this effort by the Afro-Latino Exonian Society, which had renamed itself in the spring of 1992. The Exonian did not cover ALES’ name change.

On Jan. 15, 1999, three articles in The Exonian’s issue reported on MLK Day. “‘The interest of the students is shown in the great questions I received,’ Kennedy said,” The Exonian reported in “Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy Speaks on MLK Day.” “He hopes that when we enter adulthood, we will continue to think about issues of racism and diversity, and settle for nothing less than the colorblind society that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. strived for.” The term “colorblind” has garnered negative connotations in recent years for papering over present racial oppression.

In the article “Questioning Biases on MLK Day,” a writer criticized the student reception of workshops, especially “Windhorse,” which chronicled the Chinese annexation of Tibet. “Apparently, students were more interested in the details of the actual film, how they could become involved, or where Tibet is located, rather than the importance of the conflict itself… We have a responsibility to question what is normal and to decide what is right for ourselves and right for society,” the student said to The Exonian.

Rodney King

In the 1990s, the United States entered another period of protest. Such protests included the Los Angeles Riots of 1992, sparked by the 1991 beating of Rodney King by the Los Angeles Police Department and the subsequent exoneration of the offending officers. 

The Exonian reported on campus discussion after the Rodney King incident. On May 8, 1992, R. Weatherspoon and History Instructor Marcia Carlisle organized a peaceful protest to allow students to express their anger and frustration. It began with a fifteen minute moment of silence on the Academy lawn, followed by a discussion where students and faculty shared their feelings. 

“I felt a hundred souls unite in anguish at the injustice of the American Courts,” Laura Menge ’95 said. An anonymous senior said at the gathering, “There is no way those policemen would go free if I had been on that jury. Maybe they should be brutally beaten down eighty-six times and see how justifiable they seem to think it is after that.”

Some students dissented. In the May 16, 1992 edition of the paper, Ralph E. Maurer ’94 argued that the not-guilty verdict for the four policemen who had beaten Rodney King was not indicative of any systemic racism: “I have much faith in the American legal system and, while I think a mistake was made, I recognize the reasons and motivations behind the decision. I do not think that the decision arose from a racist system.” 

Maurer also condemned violence committed against white people during the protests as racist. “The video showing the white truck driver being pulled from his truck and beaten into unconsciousness is just as awful [as the Rodney King beating],” Maurer said. “[B]oth beatings reflect the racist feelings that still exist in society.”

“I am satisfied that our governmental system is free of racial prejudice,” Maurer concluded. “I am not satisfied, however, that our country’s people are free of racial prejudice.”

The Million Man March

The decade also saw the Million Man March, a protest for Black civil rights in Washington, D.C.. The Exonian featured coverage of students who joined the protest. “The message coming from the speakers was to give up hatred and focus that energy instead on changing the cycle of violence permeating Black communities,” Ciatta Baysah ’97 and Alea Mitchell ’97 wrote in The Exonian on Nov. 8, 1995. “Aside from the emphasized messages encouraging racial solidarity, the whole experience of the march communicated to Blacks everywhere the large amounts of support which exists within the community. Hundreds of thousands of Black men rallied together to support a higher cause than Farrakhan: they united to advocate a willingness to change, and to prove not only to the world, but to themselves, their strength in numbers.”

An student who attended the protest recalled, “At one point, a man was with his son and the little boy fell in a puddle… Without thinking anything of it, people all around just took off their shirts and/or sweatshirts and handed them to him; ‘Here man; no problem.’ It just goes to show that the love is there. I felt it, and the thousands of brothers on the train ride back certainly felt it, too.”

The Exonian also criticized the New York Times’ article on the Million Man March for its bias and lack of clarity. “[There was] confusion on the part of those who thought Louis Farrakhan was the only speaker worthy of mention—despite the fact that Maya Angelou, Reverend Jesse Jackson and Rosa Parks were just three of the prominent speakers that day… confusion on the part of the news reporters who instead of interviewing one of these million supporters, interviewed white political leaders who are known to have feelings of animosity towards Farrakhan,” Baysah and Mitchell wrote. “[The protest] wasn’t an exclusively ‘Black thang’ as the media tries to intimate… It’s time to let hatred die and allow our communities to heal.”

Edmund Perry

17-year-old Edmund Perry ’85 was killed by a police officer in New York City on June 12, 1985 ten days after graduating from the Academy. His story made national headlines and continued to impact the Exeter community throughout the1990s.

In 1991, the Academy was embroiled in controversy due to a television movie about Edmund Perry, produced by Leonard Hill and later shown on NBC. Before release, the movie was postponed indefinitely, due partially to the Academy’s objections against the story and script’s image of Exeter—which the Academy argued to yield “a warped sense of reality.” Objections were also raised of the harm it may bring to alumni, future faculty applications, self-image and prospective Black students at the Academy.

On Jan. 26, 1991, The Exonian published a Letter to the Editor by Drama Instructor Todd Cerveris, who criticized the Academy’s response to the film. “I was disturbed by Principal O'Donnell's pre-Winter Break assembly, during which she read to the student body portions of a text assumed to be a plot synopsis of the upcoming (albeit postponed) television movie based on Best Intentions,” Cerveris wrote. “The clear and well-meaning intent was to deflate a fictitious portrayal of Exeter as a morally bankrupt institution. But Principal O'Donnell's rendition of descriptions about expensive cars outside the dorms, and of lush accommodations included an implicit denial (echoed by the audience) of our very advantageous circumstances.”

“No, our silverware isn't silver, but sixteen outdoor tennis courts, two indoor ice hockey rinks, an art gallery, two theaters, a $100+ million endowment, and a relatively large number of single dorm rooms is lavish. And any holiday brings an abundance of fine automobiles to our dormitory parking lots. Now, money by itself never made a racist. But this attempt to downplay a characterization of Exeter as a wealthy institution clearly indicates an uneasiness about our advantages, as well as assuming a given link between racism and classism,” Cerveris continued. “Otherwise, why would we defend ourselves from accusations of racism which the movie Best Intentions may implicitly or explicitly level against Exeter on the basis of our financial means?”

On March 2, 1991, The Exonian revisited the controversy in “Exeter's Best Intentions Controversy Continues.” In the article, The Exonian reported that Leonard Hill had visited the Academy’s campus early in production, but no relationship was sustained between Exeter and Hill.

The Exonian also noted stereotypes of Exeter in the film, such as a scene with “plush dorms and expensive cars.” “As a very wealthy institution with a history of elitism, we’re an easy target for media hype,” Vice Principal Linda Beck said. “We’re also prey to all kinds of socialized racism and classism which may be very subtle… I think we run a greater risk of being too self-satisfied than of being seriously hurt by an excuse for commercials.”

“They would be good vehicles for discussion by an informed audience. The problem is that you'll have a potential audience for the film of about sixteen million people,” Beck told The Exonian.

The Exonian reported also that students at a Racial Awareness Committee meeting agreed that the book Best Intentions, discussed in the last Since 1878 article and the basis of Hill’s show, “described a lot of the issues black students were going through at Exeter” and would create opportunities for questions and discussions at Exeter.

Lack of Faculty and Student Diversity

The Exonian’s News and Opinion Sections reported a noticeable lack of Black faculty at the Academy. In the March 9, 1991 edition, The Exonian shared a conversation held at a Racial Awareness Committee panel meeting in “Role Of Black Men Discussed.” The article addressed the idea of a “Show N-gro”: any Black person hired or accepted by a school to make the institution look good to outsiders. 

“Exeter does get a lot of mileage out of having me here, but it does bother me to be a show-piece,” Black English Instructor James Withers, an adult member of the panel said, to The Exonian. “I don’t represent black America. I represent me.”

On May 16, 1996, white student Zachary Curtis ’98 noted the “virtual absence of minority faces among the faculty” in the Face Book, Exeter’s community directory at the time. “The reason more minority faculty should be hired is that minority students feel the need for them… I understand that some may think that the purpose of teachers is to teach not to act as role models,” Curtis said. “But in an isolated environment like Exeter, where faculty play a much larger and more parental role, their ability to act as role models must be magnetized as jobs are considered.” 

Curtis noted the significance of losing Black members of the faculty after History Instructor James Bullock announced his departure. “What makes Mr. Bullock’s eminent departure most alarming is that the school is losing someone who is firstly a great man, and secondly a great black man,” Curtis said. 

Later that year, on October 10, 1996, The Exonian acknowledged the problem again, pointing out that there were only five Black employees at the time and only one Black teacher.

“In the recent past, Exeter has made a fairly public and broad movement towards diversity in the student body. This big push reflects an acknowledgement of the value of other cultures. In employing so few blacks, are we setting a double standard” Alex Brant-Zawadski ’99 asked. “What can we do to attract more black teachers? Should we institute affirmative action for faculty? While there is no concrete solution, we can continue to make efforts to remedy the situation.”

Faculty diversity—and equity and inclusion as a whole—would remain elusive in the years to come.