"Racial Progress in Oberlin," continued...
Several months of planning and labor followed during which time stock was sold which students purchased at one dollar a share. In November 1944, one of the four barbers sold his shop to the group, but no African American barber could be persuaded to leave an established position to chance the uncertainties of cutting hair in Oberlin. The first barber thus was a Japanese-American, interned on the West Coast, who was allowed to come to Oberlin to work. After about six months, when federal security restrictions were eased, he was able to go back to his shop in California and an African American minister from Wooster, Ohio, became the barber. But the shop’s successes were slow in coming. Oberlin’s African American men continued to have their hair cut by the same barbers they had been going to. Liberals on the College faculty, students and a few townspeople kept the shop going until business picked up. In 1945 the shop was owned by some 400 students and townspeople. Eventually it was purchased by Gerald Scott, an African American who worked as a barber in Oberlin until the 1980s. Meanwhile, Oberlin College students had been observing that they could effect social change.14
“Rulings” by the Deans may not have been made on racial grounds as the president stated, but Dean Woodworth did continue to use persuasion. In 1943, she gave permission to black and white students to room together when asked. But she advised two counselors at Talcott, one black and the other white, who requested to do so, not to room together because she believed they would be more effective counselors if they roomed alone. The Dean also tried to convince a white student, who was a close companion of two African American women students and who was dating an African American man, to make broader friendships, white and black. The concern stemmed mainly from the woman’s growing intimacy with the black male.
In her report upon the 1945-46 academic year the dean wrote that several white girls had dated black men during the year, so conventions were changing. But she was sensitive since the Y.W.C.A. had been so critical of the advice given students by some of the house directors and she had told the directors to refer all matters of race relationships to her.
Certainly the Dean of Women did not have an easy time. After commencement in 1945 a “prominent alumnus” came to her to complain that he had walked into Allencroft (a women’s dorm) one evening and found three African American men playing blackjack on the floor in the living room. In a few moments three white women came downstairs and the group drove off together. The alumnus said that he would never recommend Oberlin to another person. On the other hand, the Y.W.C.A. had drawn up a statement of policy, that it asked the College to publish, explicitly saying that black and white students may room, date and dance together. The statement went unpublished.
Dean Woodworth was perplexed by her concern for college age women, often emotionally immature and of idealistic concepts, who found themselves swept into situations with unpleasant results. Her 1945-46 report explained her fears:
"It has been an inexorable rule at Oberlin that the women who date colored men never have a chance to date other men thereafter. Directors know this and hate to see their students going off with colored men …. The policy of non-discrimination which we have always followed, without a detailed statement as to what it does or does not involve seems to me wise. The deans have had discretionary power and occasionally they have talked with individual students about their relationship with students of other races. This they should continue to do when it seems necessary."16
It was in this context that the Review had editorialized its support of a clarification of college policy by the administration. It was time, said the writer, to reaffirm the school’s one hundred year old stand against discrimination, because:
"At the present time, no answer is to be found by the student who finds himself attracted to a member of another race, whether the other be of the same or of opposite sex, as to the limits to which the friendship may be carried without administration interference. Students are asked to place an amount of confidence in the Deans that many would hesitate to place in their own parents."17
14 News-Tribune, May 11, 18, 25, June 1, 15, 22, Sept. 21, 1944, May 24, 1979. Times, May 11, 18, 25, Sept. 21, Nov. 2, 1944. Review, May 12, 19, July 21, Sept. 29, Nov. 10, 17, July 1, 1944, Aug. 17, Nov. 23, 1945. The [Lorain, Ohio] Journal, May 10-11, 1960.
15 Administrative Records, Annual Reports of the Dean of Women, Sept. 1, 1944, Box 19, folder M-Y 1943-44; Sept. 1, 1945, Box 20, folder P-Y, 1944-45, OCA.
16 Administrative Records, Annual Report of the Dean of Women, July 6, 1946, Box 20, folder P-Y, 1945-46, OCA.
17 Review, Feb. 8, 1946.