Tom Kobayashi at Manzanar

Posted on by

Tom Kobayashi stands in the south fields of the Manzanar Relocation Center Concentration Camp, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in California’s Owens Valley, in 1943. Famed photographer Ansel Adams traveled to Manzanar in 1943 to document the Relocation Center Concentration Camp and the Japanese Americans interned imprisoned there.

(Ansel Adams/LOC)

‘Students from the Street’

Posted on by

C. Siddha Webber, Percy Wiggins, Allan “Tiny” Evans, Henry Jordan, Henry Crumpton, and Cecil Davis. Photo from ChicagoMag.com

The Foundation Years was a Dartmouth project that ran from 1967 through 1973. It identified prospective students from among members of the Chicago Vice Lords gang. Fifteen were admitted. Seven graduated; eight dropped out. Allen Evans was one of the first two students.

“Nobody thought we were going to make it,” he said.

But seven of them did.  That’s the part I keep thinking about.  I wonder about the other eight; the article doesn’t go into too much detail about any of the men’s lives.

Some years back I read about the Posse Foundation, and was impressed that somebody thought pretty hard about the components that go into making college kids successful.  I think one of the most important factors is the support network.  Can you imagine being one of 20 African Americans on Dartmouth’s 3,200 student campus?