DC and Howard

DC and Howard University (Part 2)

The first year at Howard was filled with a myriad of experiences from learning the idiosyncrasies of professors like “Dr F” to finding places to eat cheap like “ The Greasy Spoon” where for 75 cents you could get (sausage, bacon, 2 eggs, 8 hot cakes, fried apples, grits and gravy , milk and juice). And since one of the waitresses liked Bobby we never paid when she served us.
One of the things I remember most is pledging a fraternity. I wasn’t really interested in the Greek life but decided to join along with my new best friend Bobby. The pledges duties were pretty tame, things like running errands, getting girls dorm addresses, doing scut work for “big brother”, memorizing the members names, learning the Greek alphabet and frat history All this was a nuisance but we did it since it really wasn’t that bad. .Then one night we were told to be at Ladroit Park housing project just off campus. One of my sponsors “Big Eddie” told me it was going to be a little hazing session. We were all put in one room blindfolded and then taken one at a time to another room . We could hear loud noises like a board hitting a rug followed by screams. When I got in the room, “Big Eddie” whispered to me to bend over grab your nuts because they were really hitting a pillow with a paddle and when I heard the blow… scream! I did as instructed and all of a sudden I was hit on my ass by a blow that almost knocked me to my knees. I was so shocked by the blow I couldn’t make a sound at first. Then some one said two more to go. Right then I said to myself “ is this bullshit for me”. I took my other licks and went back to the dorm where we massaged each other asses which by then had turned black, blue and purple. There were a few “Big Brothers” that were known to be sadistic and took pleasure in some hazing that bordered on criminal especially with pledges. Bobby and I decided to rectify this in a special way. One night we spotted one of the biggest offenders coming out of the women’s dorm and hid along their path and when he reached us we snatched him into the bushes and whipped his ass. No one knew who had done this deed but it put the frat on notice that some renegades existed. We both decided that we did not want to be part of the any fraternity that took pleasure in humiliating their “brothers”, so we set up a plan that would get us black balled.
To be initiated into the frat, there was a ritual that existed in which the group that was to go over the “burning sands” was to be taken out to a rural area in Maryland and left on a deserted highway at night; and if they found their way back early enough they would have extra time to rest before “turn back night”, which was the final hazing and consisted of multiple degrading acts and brutal beatings.
The initiates were taken by truck miles away from the campus and let out on the pitch black highway and had to find their way back. The pledges job was to assist in finding them and getting them back on campus.







Bobby and I, set up a recovery plan that was so successful the initiates were back on campus almost before the “Big Brothers” who dropped them off.. We had a truck available to pick them up and then we called the State Police , telling them that there were about 20 “colored boys” that were part of a fraternity prank out on a road somewhere in the county and could they tell us where they were and we would pick them up.When we got the call about there location, we rushed to recover them and had them back on campus in a couple hours, saving them from an all night ordeal.
When the “Big Brothers” found out it was Bobby and my plan we were summarily black balled..
The first year I didn’t go home at Xmas like most of the students, I was so happy to be away from Evansville that just being in the dorm was with a few others guys was great. We all got jobs at the Post Office as Xmas subs and earned enough to eat and party. One night I was working on the canceling machine and dozed off and ran my fingers thru it,
the pain was so bad I thought I had cut them off but when I looked they were stamped Dec 15. 1949 Washington, D.C. in a perfect crescent..
Because of some raucous behavior I was not allowed back in Cook Hall the second year and was assigned to the Vet Dorms. This was like putting bre’r rabbit in the briar patch. There were about 6 or 7 of us in a dorm with WW II vets in their 20’s who were there on the GI bill. There was drinking, gambling and hustling that went on at all times. I roomed with “Big Eddie” who was on the football team and had a double major of math and music. So our room was always a meeting place. We even had Albie, the team quarter back, who had flunked out of school but couldn’t go home…. sleeping on dirty clothes in our closet at night.
To survive we had various ways to make money. One thing we did was park cars when the Washington Redskins played at Griffith Stadium which was down the hill from Howard. This entailed 3 people , 1 signaled cars to the street the dorms were on, 2 took the money and 3 directed the parking. This was haphazard at best and when they returned from the game sometimes it took hours for them to free the grid lock ‘cause we had split! We charged 3 dollars and maybe parked 40 or more cars on the lot. Forty some dollars a piece ain’t bad for an hour’s work.
Another job that was fruitful during the holidays was working in the kitchen at the Washington Hilton for banquets. We usually were either bus boys or dish washers, this gave us access to food (whole turkeys, prime steaks ) that we wrapped and secreted in garbage containers and sneaked pass security in the dumb waiter to feast on later. Sometimes we even managed a few partially filled bottles of wine. You can imagine our bunch on the street car back to campus whoopin it up, knowing we would be eating good back in the dorm. On one occasion “Big Eddie” who played bass fiddle got a gig with Billie Holiday for 2 weeks at the Blue Note when her bassist got sick and made like $400 bucks….. it was one gets, all share and we lived it up. The friendships I had then with these guys were closer than any frat .I could ever join.







I guess one wonders what about classes and grades, since we were doing all this hustling and partying. Some of us passed and some of us failed but I managed to survive. I always took a heavy load in the winter quarter so I could coast in the spring.
I also was on the swim team and had some interesting experiences. One that stands out the most was a trip we took to compete against Tennessee State in Nashville, TN.
There were 15 of us plus the coach who we called “skipper” on the trip. We left DC on a Greyhound bus seated at random. When we got to Bristol, TN for a rest and food stop, we changed drivers. This was the Mason-Dixon line and the new driver shouted as we reboarded “ I want those niggers from that school to go to the back of the bus”. Now here we are 15 Black kids in the prime of our lives able to whip every one in the bus station and the driver, but we have no win here our lives weren’t worth a dime.. So we grumble cursed and fumed about sitting in the back but what could we do.. We were about 30 miles outside of Nashville when “Skipper” pulled the signal cord for the driver to stop and asked to relieve himself. As soon as he got off, the driver pulls away and leaves him. We had to ride into Nashville and get the Tennessee State coach to go back with a couple of us to find our coach. These were unbelievable times and I still recall them with anger
During my days at Howard, Washington was mostly segregated but because foreign dignitaries abounded the access to some places was open to Africans students; what we would do on weekends was to borrow our African friend’s robes. Then we would visit various embassies which always had elegant parties and fake our way in fo eat and drink; we also we managed to integrate the Dupont Theater this way..
I left Howard and transferred to Evansville College in the spring of 1952 for family reasons and graduated from there with my BS degree, but my experiences at Howard were unforgettable