Jewish World Review May 10, 2001 / 17 Iyar, 5761
But there was a time in March 1941 when a group of
students at New York University got wind of the fact that
their black football star, Leonard Bates, was going to be
kept out of a game at the University of Missouri — and
they decided to do something about it. They organized a
protest, insisting that Bates had to be allowed to play;
seven of them were eventually suspended for three
months.
The university never made any sort of amends for punishing
these students — until earlier this month. According to a
front-page article in the May 4 New York Times, NYU
planned at last to honor the group, known as “the Bates
Seven,” at an annual campus dinner for student athletes.
No formal apology, however, would be forthcoming.
It’s not surprising to learn from Edward Wong’s article that
a number of the seven suspended students are Jewish, and
that in several cases they haven’t had much to do with
their alma mater over the last 60 years, but were planning
to attend the Sunday dinner.
Evelyn Maisel Witkin said she has stewed over the pain NYU
caused her in her senior year, that she’s written letters to
administrators and avoided reunions.
It was Witkin, a biology major, along with six others who
led thousands of their classmates in the protest. They
began by circulating petitions, wearing buttons and
picketing administration buildings.
The university ignored the protesters’ demands and left
Bates at home. The school finally suspended the seven
students when they continued to protest decisions to
leave a basketball player and track stars behind as well.
Wong notes that most of the seven graduated, and “went
on to become novelists, scientists and teachers.” Some of
the bitterness, he writes, also seems to be ebbing once
recognition seemed possible.
“I was very surprised because I had given up expecting
anything to happen,” said Witkin, 80, a professor emerita of
genetics at Rutgers University. “Sixty years is a long time.
But it’s nice to know they’re going to do something. It was
something that meant a lot to us at the time.”
It doesn’t take much courage 60 years down the road to
finally recognize and “embrace these members of our
community and hold them up as models of people who fight
for an important cause,” as John Beckman, an NYU
spokesman, told the Times. And it remains rather spineless
of the administration to withhold an apology.
But what about an apology for poor Leonard Bates? Guys,
wake up, he’s the offended person here.
He’s now listed on the alumni database as deceased, but
more than a decade ago, a historian contacted him
because he wondered if Bates could help him find the
seven protesters. Bates had worked as a guidance
counselor in the New York public schools all his life and he
told the historian, “If whenever you do find them, tell them,
‘Thank you.’ ”
Who’s the Real Gentleman?
By Robert Leiter
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THE notion of a “gentleman’s agreement” in college sports
began as far back as the late 19th century, when Southern
schools began playing their counterparts in the Northeast.
The agreement went as follows: If one team objected to
black athletes participating in a game, the opposing team
would bench the black players out of deference. It wasn’t
until after World War II that universities, reacting to
pressure from students, would abandon the practice.
JWR contributor Robert Leiter is Literary Editor at the Jewish Exponent. Comment on this article by clicking here.