Magnolia Hampton ch 8 discussion pt 1
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[00:00:00] On today's program, we are pleased to have joining us Mrs. Magnolia Hampton. Mrs. Hampton is a legacy

Employee, former employee of Utica.

She was instrumental, I think didn't you work at the high school too, Ms. Hampton? She worked at the high school in English, teaching English, and she was a long term instructor at Utica Junior College and then the Utica campus at Hines Community College. Ms. Hampton joins us today to talk about Chapter 8.

I do believe in the black man's burden. Welcome Ms. Hampton.

Thank you.

whAt I wanted us to, do today is kind of talk about the chapter, but also relate that to How we can benefit from what Holtzclaw did and how that should resonate with us and our students. But I want you to come to that in your own way with your [00:01:00] impressions of Chapter 8 and then we'll go from there.

Thank you very much, Mrs Green.

Chapter 8 is a very interesting chapter in that it resonates a lot of the times that I experienced when I was here. People appreciating the campus, giving to the campus, and reaching out to the community on campus.

And at large, our community outside the campus. Chapter 8 is very, very interesting in that reveals from a historical standpoint what went on in the day of the development of

Utica

Junior College, later becoming Hinds Community College. Utica, I am elated to share with you the history of this campus from Chapter 8.

of The Black Man's [00:02:00] Burden. 

thank you, Ms. Hampton. When I read Chapter 8, 

I noticed that Hostlaw did some, what the young folks call shout outs. He was talking about individual people who had helped him. And some of them were most of them. were northerners, northern whites. He didn't seem to have in this chapter that much local support from his own 

Absolutely.

until the community was able To zero in and see that something was going on outside the the corporation, the towns corporate area

Mm-Hmm.

at that time, the citizens of the community of downtown, basically the whites

Mm-Hmm.

became very, very well supportive and they were very attentive to the point that a young white gentleman [00:03:00] wrote an article for the local newspaper saying something was going on.

And it was very important important to the point of our needing to give attention to it because it was necessary. for people to be educated. And from that point on, I think the school had the community's support.

Oh, yes. Mm-Hmm. . I was also you know, through reading through the book too and looking at how Holtzclaw framed what he was writing. And I was really interested with you, Ms. Ms. Hampton, looking at how he wrote about these folks in this chapter for a reason. And I was like, why is he talking about these people?

basically, had it not been for the outside help?

Mm hmm. 

there was not going to be a Utica [00:04:00] Junior College.

Uh 

Even after he had the support, financial support, of some of these people outside the state of Mississippi, outside of Utica, even though they gave small money,

Mm hmm.

He struggled continuously to develop and build this college.

Mm hmm.

Even though, at some point, he almost gave up. 

Right. 

But he remained steadfast. Until he received, I think, a hundred dollars. Or some menial dollars, here and there. And things began to look brighter.

Right, right.

And I suppose, obviously, according to his writing his feet were Pretty much set in sand that was not quite sinking.

I, I'm always amazed at how he persevered in spite of all of the obstacles he faced. You know, he had like I [00:05:00] said, his, his local support was sort of tenuous at best, but when he went to talk to these northerners. They got on board.

They did and it was the best thing that he could have done because that was one gentleman, he was president and owner of a publishing company.

Ginn, the Ginn Company in Boston. And, of course, before the school was completed Mr. Ginn died,

Yes.

but luckily he left monies in his will,

Mm-Hmm.

For the school, the building of this institution. 

And, and the family complied with

Absolutely. It did. 

Because sometimes 

Because sometimes

we can get these wills and, and the family will contest Yeah. Spending it in that way. But when. F. B. Ginn, I think, was the 

publisher.

Yeah, F. B., mm hmm. Mrs. Leavitt, excuse me, was very instrumental also. Because I think she introduced him [00:06:00] to Mr. Ginn.

That's right. he was, 

Ginn had been her student, wasn't 

it?

I believe so. hmm. Huh.

And when she had him come meet Mr. Holtzclaw, then Eventually through that, Will, was it,

Ginn made the largest individual donation

He had.

to 

the, to the school. And that's why we had a building named for him.

Ginn Hall.

And 

featured in in chapter eight. On one of the pages before. One. 113.

There's a photo of the,

Yeah, there's a portrait of it. Huh.

And 

that's, that's because that building stayed on campus a long, do 

you 

of time. When My husband was, the classroom was in Gann Hall. It was standing. It was one of our major classroom halls. Oh yeah.

Was it, was it two

story? It was two. It was two story. Mm-Hmm. . 

mm hmm. .

Well, I had, I had talked to [00:07:00] some former students who talked about, you know, being in Ginn Hall and going up the stairs and all this. But, I was really, one of the things that makes me really sad is that we were not able to save more of our original buildings.

Well,

I remember when

Ginn Hall was torn down for the building of the new technology building. It was rather 

Oh, yeah.

There was nothing to save. I mean, no efforts were made to save or

Preserve or restore anything. Yeah.

I mean, anything. That

seems to be a, theme for us. But, moving

further into this chapter when he mentions where the people came from, like you said, Ginn was from 

Boston, Where he met Mary, where Holtzhaw met Mary Clement Leavitt there was Reverend R.

C. Bedford from Beloit, Wisconsin. He had all of these, [00:08:00] people who caught the flame that he was kindling and fanned it with their donations and support. The John Slater Fund of New York. I just, when I'm looking at that, I'm like, why did Holtzcall write all these folks in here to show, was it to show how much support he has?

Cause he mentions other people who supported him in other chapters, but it seems he focused in this chapter on these people.

Absolutely. It appears to me that they were most instrumental because there was, there was so much to be done to get the project of building this institution off the ground.

He needed the money. 

Right. 

He went where he could get Even though there were times When the matter looked bleak, he kept pressing on. Even his possession, his money for boarding and eating was so limited, as a matter of fact, it [00:09:00] gave out. And ironically, someone invited him to dinner. I can't recall exactly what the, what the occasion was, but it was a group of 

them.

And he was so lucky, and he was so happy and at that point, he needed that meal.

right?

It was kind of a meal that watered him over,

right until this next.

and also he was granted, I suppose well, obviously, he was granted Promises of 

uh, the way he made his connections to me resonates with us too.

Today we, we need to. As an institution and as a group, sort of reach outside of our comfort zone 

and, 

you know, try to garner supporters for the work. 

What I was thinking, since we are a part of [00:10:00] HBCUs,

HBCUs.

I was thinking maybe we could do something to promote HBCUs with Utica and it's history being, 

Well, thank you for saying that, Ms. Hampton. Guess what?

what? What? 

There is a first edition of the HBCU Encyclopedia that should be coming out within the next few months. And so there was an invitation. I got an invitation to write the essay for Utica Institute, Utica Junior College.

That has been done. We've had our initial meeting in Atlanta to peer review each other's essays.

Absolutely.

So that should be coming out. We're trying to keep our connection to the HBCU community through that and through the HBCU Library Alliance.

But we are working to make sure that we keep our HBCU connection. And that we keep our HBCU [00:11:00] designation. We were able to, and I don't know if y'all have seen it yet.

We this spring during Founders Day, we dedicated the sign, the historic sign

I, I, I read that. I remember.

Mm hmm.

Is it out there where that bell tower is? Yeah. Yeah, I thought so. Huh.

we've got that up. And like I said, near there will be the stable exhibit for the farmers conference.

So that's not, that's going to be available out there as well. 

But what we were hoping is that through our discussions of this book and through Our recording of the individual chapters that we could reach a larger student audience and inspire our faculty and administration because it seems it is markedly different than it was in the time that you and Ms.

Williams here. It is, but we are [00:12:00] hopeful that we can get back to spirit of cooperation and inspiration so we can put, you know, we have students here that don't know why we're here. bUt we're gonna, we're gonna wrap this up and then I'm going to, thank you for taking part in our discussion of chapter eight. We may want you to come back and talk about your time at Utica, So thank you Ms. Hampton.

Okay.