Rev. Tutu at McDaniel: “This is not the end of this story”

Rev. Tutu at McDaniel: “This is not the end of this story”

Rev. Tutu was the featured speaker at the McDaniel College inaugural Black History Month Convocation on Wednesday evening, Feb. 16. 2022

Wednesday, February 17, 2022, by Kevin Dayhoff

Many really got a great deal of value out of the Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu’s presentation at McDaniel College Wednesday evening.

Rev. Tutu is a world renown advocate for truth, reconciliation and human rights. She was the featured speaker at the McDaniel College inaugural Black History Month Convocation on Wednesday evening, Feb. 16. 2022, at WMC Alumni Hall.

Over the years, McDaniel College, the Carroll County Arts Council, the Carroll County NAACP Branch 7014, and Carroll Community College have worked hard to take the lead in sponsoring meaningful Black History Month programs. I should mention in full disclosure that I have multiple ties with all of these community organizations.

Perhaps it is also appropriate for me to mention that I have found it exciting to work with local artist Lynne Griffith, a Carroll County native, who stepped into the position of executive director of the CCAC in December 2021.

I have the same excitement working with the new president of McDaniel College, Dr. Julia Jasken. I am not just saying that because Jasken is an English professor. It is well-known that English teachers have always held a special place in my life.

One of my most prized books in my library is “Bolts of Melody,” a collection of “New Poems of Emily Dickinson.” Western Maryland College English professor Dr. Evelyn Wingate Wenner signed it and gave it to me on November 8, 1976. Wenner taught at the college from 1931 to 1969. I had met her in the Hoover Library in the 1960s and struck up conversation with her about writing that continued for many years. She spent hours with me painstakingly editing and reviewing my short stories for punctuation. (Wenner’s brother, W. Wilson Wingate, was a sportswriter for the Baltimore Sun for many years.)

Of course, there are many reasons that there is a history of female leadership coming from the college on the hill; however, I would like to think that Wenner played a role. On May 10, 1944, she helped found a new honor society for women, the “Trumpeters,” which emphasized women campus leaders, according to my memory – confirmed by Dr. Jim Lightner’s history of McDaniel College, “Fearless and Bold.”

Meanwhile, Jasken was selected by the McDaniel College Board of Trustees as the college’s tenth president as of June 1, 2021. Jasken began her journey at McDaniel as an English professor in 2003. Both Jasken and Griffith have moved into their roles seamlessly and built upon the successes of both institutions, all the while bringing forward fresh ideas and insights.

According to information provided by the college, “This inaugural Black History Month Convocation was founded by McDaniel College President Julia Jasken as a new signature event to be held annually at McDaniel in recognition of Black History Month. This annual event will provide an opportunity to hear from prominent individuals working toward social justice and racial equity.

“Welcome remarks [were] provided by President Jasken and Richard M. Smith, associate provost for equity and belonging at McDaniel, introduced Rev. Tutu,” who will share her experiences as a human rights advocate as well as growing up as the daughter of the late Desmond Tutu in apartheid South Africa,” according to the college. Her father was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

It is only fitting that McDaniel would help take the lead in celebrating Black History Month. It was another Western Maryland – McDaniel College president who provided social justice leadership in our community at a critical moment in our history. In 2001 and 2014 I wrote about the leadership of Rev. Dr. Lowell Ensor. Ensor was president of the college from July 1, 1947 until June 30, 1972.

Ensor came “to Westminster to the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1940,” according to Lightner. As pastor there he accomplished the unification of the two local Methodist churches (Centenary M.E. and Immanuel M.P.) after the Methodist unification in 1939.”

On March 23, 1945, a local Westminster newspaper article reported Ensor, “pastor of the Methodist Church at Westminster - Urges Repeal of Jim Crow Law.”

The newspaper reported, Ensor “declared a state that will send citizens to the fighting fronts of the world and at the same time deny to any group of those citizens equal rights, is un-American and un-Christian…”

By 1945 institutional racism in Maryland was a hot topic. In part, the discussion was driven by pragmatism in that, according to research by historian Kenneth D. Durr, over 20 percent of the population in Baltimore was said to be black; but because of segregated housing laws, the city’s African American population was squeezed into only 2 percent of the city’s land mass.

Decades of work were to follow in the search for civil rights in Carroll County and Maryland. In part, one of the drivers in Carroll happened when the Baltimore Colts began summer practice at the college in the 1950s.

A portion of this discussion was recently published in an article, “Kevin Dayhoff: Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu to speak at McDaniel Black History Month Convocation" Kevin Dayhoff Carroll County Times | Feb 06, 2022.

This discussion restores material that was edited for space. Find more to this article here: https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/carroll/lifestyles/cc-lt-dayhoff-020622-20220206-gkwptgn6vjcsxnjwcn3mj2rvdq-story.html

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