William H. Bolden

By OTTO DO, ATISHAY JAIN, EMMA LIU, ANDREA LUO and ELLIE WANG

Staff Writers

“Racial pride is understanding that the ability for excellence lies in every person,” future English Instructor William H. Bolden said at an Afro-Exonian Society (AES) meeting in 1968. Bolden, whose relationship with the AES began before his appointment at Exeter, would become the Society’s adviser and its most fervent faculty ally. Throughout his time at Exeter, Bolden spearheaded conversations on Black identity and articulated the importance of diversity.

Bolden first stepped foot on campus in 1967 as an Exeter Summer instructor, becoming the Academy’s first Black faculty member two years later. He continued to champion diversity, equity and inclusion efforts until his retirement in 1990. To honor his work in admissions, an anonymous donor established a fund in 2001 to support “students from inner-city public or parochial schools.”

In 1969, Bolden transitioned from the inner-city schools of Washington, D.C. to the Academy. “The switch takes him from a school where almost all the faculty is black and the ratio of black students to whites is 1,000 to 3,” The Exonian’s Sep. 20, 1969 issue read. The Exonian again commented on this stark jump in Bolden’s obituary, published Sep. 28, 1991.

Despite (or perhaps due to) this change, Bolden made an immediate instructional impact. “[Bolden] established himself as a teacher of English who knew when to prod, when to pull and when to wait,” Director of Principal and Major Gifts in the Office of Institutional Advancement Chuck Ramsay said. “He introduced his students to multicultural themes and literature long before the term ‘multicultural’ became the intellectual fashion.”

Over his eleven years at the Academy, Bolden accumulated many roles in addition to his English Instructor. He advised the then-new AES (later known as the Afro-Latinx Exonian Society) and managed the Washington Internship Program, but his presence in the Admissions office became one of his chief contributions. 

“Long and increasingly a mainstay in the Admissions Office, Bill was responsible for spotting, engaging and winning over many promising young people,” Ramsay said. “He endeared himself to all who worked with him and was known for his wise, thoughtful and forthright contributions to Admissions.”

However, Bolden was more than an affable admissions officer: he furthered the Academy’s efforts to have both a diverse student body and curriculum. “The school is going out and attempting to find able students who can be helped by what the school has to offer, and, at the same time, who can bring something of value to the school,” Bolden said in The Exonian’s June 5, 1971 issue.

“The school would suffer in its student diversity if this policy did not exist,” Bolden added. “A number of people who are good students or have potential to become good students would be lost in the entire educational process if they had to remain in some of the schools in the cities.”

At the time, the Academy’s admission office did not practice Affirmative Action. “The Exeter education is very intense, and not every student could or should be exposed to this intensity for four years,” Bolden said. 

In an article published on Oct. 1984, he added, “Just to bring minorities here in order to increase the numbers would mean that we would have a number of people failing.” 

Instead, the Academy participated in a national scholarship program called A Better Chance (ABC), a program founded in 1963 to support talented students who lacked the financial means to afford the steep tuition of institutions like Exeter. 

“According to Bolden, the Academy has been committed ‘morally’ to accept ten ABC applicants each year,” The Exonian reported on Oct. 14, 1977, amid fierce debate over affirmative action in the United States. 

While at Exeter, Bolden dealt often with the idea of tokenism. Bolden commented on this tokenism in that June 5, 1971 issue. “Yes, I am a token,” Bolden said. “There are some faculty here who do not look on me as a teacher, but as a ‘convenience’ which satisfies the school’s unwritten requirement to have someone Black on the staff. I’m sure that there are some students here who are not at all sure that I have the qualifications to be a teacher, yet they feel that certainly I have to be here.” 

“I’m sure that there have been times that I have been trudged out onto a stage in front of people outside the community to show that Exeter does have a black faculty member,” Bolden said.

Nonetheless, Bolden believed that the Academy’s diversity efforts, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., bended towards justice. “There is not any doubt in my mind that there is a reactionary trend in this country,” Bolden observed. “It is quite possible that the Academy will undergo pressure to cease its recruiting activities because of that. I do hope that we will live up to our previous standards for diversification and that the Academy will not be influenced by this negative inclination.”

With an increasing number of Black and minority students entering the Academy, some students and faculty alleged that clusters of Black students would sit only with one another at meals, labelling it “separatism.” Bolden pushed back. “I think that the fact that [Black students] chose to eat together should not be considered as separatism,” he told The Exonian. “Nor do I think that those who are visible because they do choose to eat together should be considered representative of the whole number of blacks, when there are others who are not with those groups that you do not take into account.”

“Subconsciously, I think that some black groups choose to sit together, in a sense, because they do attract the notice of others,” Bolden said. “I suppose it might be considered a display of unity or the idea of displaying some similarity of background and purpose. I couldn’t tell you exactly what causes it, but I would not refer to it as separatism.” Often, Bolden was asked unfairly, as in this interview, to speak on behalf of all Black people at the Academy. 

Throughout his 21 years at the Academy, Bolden remained a steadfast advocate for equity and inclusion, both as an English Instructor and Admissions Officer. As David Henderson ’74 said at Bolden’s memorial service, “You can find Bill Bolden wherever there are Exonians. Exonians are the evidence of Bill Bolden.”