When I attended Ursinus College in the early Sixties, it had a student body of approximately 900. One of those students was black. My friends and I often wondered if the college had a quota (you had to submit a picture along with your application), but there was no way to learn that.

This was the era of the Civil Rights movement, which I supported. I joined the Bethlehem chapter of the NAACP, campaigned for Kennedy, and wrote letters to members of Congress. I even had my bus ticket to attend the March on Washington, but my parents said no to that—something for which I haven't forgiven them.

Still, I did what I could. When an exchange program between Lincoln University and Ursinus College was arranged by some professors, I volunteered. The idea was to promote interracial understanding and goodwill.

Lincoln University, located in Chester County, was founded before the Civil War to provide an opportunity for blacks to obtain a college education in an era when almost no institution of higher learning accepted black applicants. It was renamed Lincoln after the Civil War, and among its graduates were the poet Langston Hughes and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In the early Sixties, only a handful of its students at Lincoln were white.

The exchange was to last for one week. Another Ursinus student and I would live in the dorms at Lincoln, go to classes, and make friends. Two Lincoln students would come to Ursinus, live in our dorm rooms, and attend our classes. That sounds unbelievably quaint today, but I felt at the time that I was doing something very important.

The exchange took place in February. It was the week the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, and I had my first lesson in the racial divide. I thought the Beatles were wonderful. A group of Lincoln students from the dorm and I trooped down to the community room to watch the Sullivan show. All the black guys made derisive comments about the Beatles. I sat there stunned, saying absolutely nothing.

The second night I was there, a group of students crowded into my room and asked, in a somewhat hostile manner, what I was doing there. Why was I doing this? I instinctively knew that if I talked about "the brotherhood of man" or something equally idealistic, I would be perceived as naive at best and patronizing at worst. I replied that I saw this as a week's vacation and a chance to have some fun. I think they were still suspicious, but at least my response was accepted.

My fellow exchange student from Ursinus went back after one day, and one of the Lincoln exchange students also returned. I, on the other hand, attended all of my counterpart's classes and took notes. (My counterpart stayed in my room at Ursinus and had a great time, but, from what I heard, never attended one of my classes.)

Here is the amazing thing. I actually learned something. One of the classes was a black history class. Keep in mind that students in the early Sixties, even college students, were not taught that Africans were in America before the Pilgrims, did not learn that one of the men killed in the Boston Massacre was black, never heard about slave revolts, did not know that ten percent of the Union army was black, did not hear about the positive effects of Reconstruction, were not taught about the hundreds of blacks who were lynched in the South, did not know that black soldiers played an important role in both World Wars I and II, and were never taught the importance of Joe Louis or Jackie Robinson.

We were taught that the Civil War was about economics, not slavery. We were told about the glories of the Alamo, but never told that many of the Texans there were fighting for the right to own slaves, which was against Mexican law. We learned that John Brown deserved to be hanged, and while we read John Greenleaf Whittier's "Snowbound," we were never told that he was a major force in the abolitionist movement.

That one week at Lincoln College opened my eyes. I have heard many times that we don't need a "Black History Month." We can get black history as part of our regular history lessons. Perhaps now we can. When I taught American Studies at San José State, my students learned American history as opposed to white American history. Times have changed.

Nevertheless, I am grateful for my week at Lincoln University. More than fifty years later, I have no idea who arranged that exchange program, but for me it made a difference.

Roy Christman