 College
Pays Tribute To First Black Students
Washington College recently honored four of its
pioneering students, the first black undergraduates to
integrate what was, in the 1960s, an all-white campus.
At a weekend organized by the current Black Student
Alliance, the four Washington College graduates recalled
their groundbreaking college experience.
“One night the girls in my dorm decided to go to the
movies in Chestertown,” Patricia Goldbolt White ’64
recalled during a panel session on campus. “Once we’d
bought our tickets and gone inside, I was pulled aside
by the manager and told that I had to sit upstairs in
the balcony. I went sadly up the stairs and settled in.
“The next thing I knew the black balcony was all
a-bustle. The white girls from my dorm had come, with
popcorn and Cokes, to settle in around me.” White is now
chairman of the science department of Booker T.
Washington High School in Norfolk, and the author of a
book of inspirational poetry, Evolution of Espirit’d
P.G. When White came to WC, there was only one other
black student on campus, a sophomore named Thomas E.
Morris. Morris died in 1995 after a 25-year career as a
mathematics teacher in Baltimore schools. “His students
continued to drop by our house for years and years after
they’d graduated from his classes. He loved computers
and reading,” his wife, Mellasenah, told the audience
while accepting his honors. “But most of all he loved
young people, his sons and daughter and his students.
What he learned at Washington College made a difference
in his life and, in his turn, he made a difference in
the many, many lives that touched his.”
Dale Patterson Adams ’65 was the
first African American tapped for the Washington College
Board of Visitors and Governors, a post she has held for
14 years. A retired chemist living in Chattanooga, TN,
Adams urged current students to remain active on campus.
“Struggle and strength. Two eight-letter words,” Adams
said. “Strength and struggle. You will find these in
proportion to each other at Washington College, in the
world and in your selves throughout your lives. Many
things that needed to be changed have changed. Many
things that need to change have not yet.”
During the talk, Marty Smith embraced Patricia Godbolt
White for the first time in 35 years. “She wouldn’t let
me do that often as an undergraduate,” he explained to
everyone in the room. By the time Smith arrived as a
freshman in 1963, there were two other African Americans
studying at Washington College: senior Patricia Godbolt
and junior Dale Patterson. “Pat was my mentor,” Smith
said, “but she kept me at arm’s length. Pat and Dale
told me on the day I met them that we were not going to
‘clump.’ I was going to have to make my own way as they
had. “So I did. I made friends with my classmates and my
teammates. Friends I would keep for life. I’d be
standing in one of these white clumps and Pat would walk
by with her friends, nod at me and smile this great
smile. She was a good teacher then, just as she is now.”
At his Washington College graduation, Marty was the
recipient of the Clark-Porter Medal, which is awarded to
the student whose character and personal integrity have
most clearly enhanced the quality of campus life. He
went on to receive his master’s and doctoral degrees in
economics from Cornell University. A former fellow of
the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C., Marty is
currently economic analyst for the Congressional Budget
Office. “My advice to you,” Marty told the current
students: “Do not let your Washington College experience
be directed only toward the subjects in which you are
most competent and the people with whom you are most
comfortable. “If you do, you alone will be responsible
for your limitations. Meet all kinds of people, meet all
kinds of challenges and you will be happier for having
met them.”
Washington College Magazine
- Summer 99
Update: Marty Smith is currently an economist for the Federal Reserve
Bank of Philadelphia. He also was the first African American named to
the Washington College Athletic Hall of Fame.
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