A Sea Of Red

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/3 ... ith16.html For the Rest.

Articles of Faith: Don't take your inclusiveness for granted

By ANTHONY B. ROBINSON
GUEST COLUMNIST


...In a recent issue of Christian Century magazine, Will Willimon, former chaplain at Duke University, recalled Falwell's controversial visit to Duke. Willimon invited Falwell on a dare, confident that the right-wing Christian leader wouldn't come to that bastion of academic liberalism. But Jerry disappointed him. He accepted the invitation, setting off a campus uproar.

After a rather bland talk on the role of Christianity in founding many of the nation's most distinguished universities, Falwell opened up for questions from the audience -- an audience that had been booing and hissing from the outset. The first question came from a student who began by saying to Falwell, "You say you are a Christian, but you preach hate. How many African American students do you have at Liberty University?" the school he founded in Lynchburg, Va.

Here's Willimon's account of what happened next:

"Jerry paused, wiped his brow, and said, 'Young lady, you could not have asked a question that hurts me more deeply.' Hissing from the audience. 'In asking about minority student enrollment, you have named my most regrettable failure at Liberty University.

" 'I have prayed, I have worked, I have been throughout this country attempting to recruit ethnic minority students, and though we have had greater success among some ethnic minority groups, I am sad to report that our enrollment today stands at only about 12 percent African American.' A few guffaws from the audience.

" 'By the way," Falwell continued, 'Do you know how many African American students are enrolled here at Duke?' No response. 'I'll tell you. Six percent...'"

That is Jerry at his very best...
...thanks for posting that.

You can just see the head duck just before the punchline. He was one of the great communicators of our time (whether you agreed with him or not).

Back in the early 80's Falwell took on a hostile Harvard crowd with the exact same response. Back then, black students at elite institutions was virtually non-existant.

According to Jerry's autobiography, they repeatedly chanted, "racist Falwell go to hell." Jerry calmly explained to the crowd that 11% of the student body was black at LU. Jerry looked down the aisles of the packed out lecture hall and all he could see were white faces. Then he asked, "what about Harvard?" A deafening silence fell upon the crowd and from that point forward, they had his full attention. So much so, that Jerry dialogued with many students long after the lecture was over.

I often wondered if Jerry had in some way indirectly contributed to the establishment of the current minority policies that have led to a higher proportion of black students enrolled at every level of higher education. Keep in mind, these policies did not exist until Falwell went up to Harvard and exposed the plank in their collective eye.

That was awesome, I just forwarded that article to a lot of people that would appreciate that.

For those of you who make of habit of not clicking on links, I especialy like the following 2 paragraphs from the same article:

Falwell went on to note that Duke had had much longer to work on the problem, and far more money to bring to it. He said he had struggled with whether to accept the invitation to speak at a university with such a poor record of minority enrollment. There was, Willimon reports, "dead silence in the packed auditorium."

No dummy, that Jerry.

The man also had a great sense of humor, as well!

fantastic article.

and a story I had never heard before today

great job, SPIDEY!