Birmingham Southern College - Southern Accent Yearbook (Birmingham, AL)

Page 8 text:

In speaking of the past year and how it affected students on this campus, there is no way to omit November 22, 1963, and, really, little use to remind you that on that day two bullets struck and blew away most of John Kennedy ' s head. Surely, you must remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard of the shooting and, later, of the death. It was during finals,and most of us spent the whole weekend watch- ing the reports and funeral on television, knowing of the necessity for study, but yielding to the greater demand of seeing in the formalized grief of John Kennedy ' s funeral the true meaning of being an American, and seeing this more clearly than Americans have since World War II. These two events, the Negro Revolution and the assassination, formed the backdrop up- on which we played our individual lives. There is no need here to recount the specific facts. There will be books and magazines — thousands of words — to set them down. We ' re in no danger of losing from our national history exactly what happened and when, but this is the only book intended to help you recall the way it was with you in that time. This is all very fine, you may say, but what of my specific life; what does this ac- tually mean to me? It is really amazing, and frustrating,too, the mundane things which occupy us even in the midst of great and portentous times. After everyone, as we all did, took a few solitary moments to evaluate the enduring relevance in our individual lives of these events, after the secret interior cataloging and filing was over, the surface flow of our lives went on as before. No one may say in what exact direction or degree another ' s life was moved, but there is no doubt that each life was shaded in some way by the er- ratic mood and tempo of the past year. If our recent history was the canvas upon which each inscribed his own tiny and personal motif, we must all wonder what marks we left on that canvas, on ourselves, and on each other.

Page 7 text:

What we ' re really trying to do in this book, and may- be it isn ' t even our |ob, is to impress you with the single historical fact of having lived in Birmingham during the past year. Our purpose is to help, or even make, you recall how things in this town and nation looked to you in that year. Without making a value |udgment for you, we want you to remember exactly how it was in this city in May, 1963. We would have you remember watching the rioters and riot-watchers gather in the afternoon, the great hairy cops with carbines and shotguns, the smell of old pine shacks burning in the night down in the black ghetto. Remember, long after you ' ve forgotten your spring quarter point average or S.G.A. elections or who you dated that spring, that ten blocks from you, America changed. There was,really, little noise and little pain for such a great battle, the meeting of hundred year old ad- versaries in Kelly Ingram ' s park. Remember, too, how deeply you were touched and untouched by it all; how strongly you pulled for whichever side was yours and how happy or sad you were at the end of each day, and remember how, during Birmingham ' s slow crucifixion, you went to class and took tests and sat in the cafeteria drinking your iced tea. i« ■■ -.

Page 9 text:

The image of the self-conscious college student, crusading, meditating, subjectifying his whole environment, has become as much a part of the American popular culture as the con- cept of the frenetic teenager. The fact that parents and teachers look back on their youthful struggles with patronizing amusement doesn ' t really alter the immediacy of our own struggles. And whether for good or ill, this college has a way of rendering these problems immediate and imperative and of creating a deep seated disturbance that one may avoid in the anonymity and passivity of a larger, more undemanding school. The decision of choosing a niche in the pocked and shelved wall of society; the hope of maybe doing something a little beyond forty hours, two weeks paid, nice house and kids,- the gnawing recurrence of an insane idea, of really having enough guts to put those fine discussion group ideas into your actual life— all these demand resolution; all of them lie with you at night and go with you in your waking like an old man ' s wet-weather ache.