Word: monroes
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...curriculum which Monro has developed, as well as the honors program and the work-study option, act as intellectual and practical circuits between Miles' students, the black community and the city of Birmingham. "Our job is to hook Miles into the power structure of Birmingham," he says. Monro's view of education coincides with the double commitment of the college which Arrington described, and accounts for the dual set of problems which Miles faces. Yet Monro consistently maintains a low profile--which perhaps is the reason he has been so effective. "A white man can work at a black college...
...FUTURE OF AMERICAN society--as Monro sees it--is tightly linked to the future of Miles College and others like it. "From the vantage point of the white community, everyone thinks the great white father is going to take care of the black man and we know he isn't," Monro says. "One reason white America does not see the need for the black college is that we really do not comprehend the existence of the black community in this country and the depths of the problems our black community must solve...
...reaction at Miles to the deaths of two Southern Louisiana University students protesting "Uncle Tom-ism" in the SLU administration illustrates Monro's point. In contrast to most large universities, there was no organized expression of outrage at Miles "for the same reason that black studies is not one of our largest majors," Monro says. "Here the point was already made--by the mere fact that Miles exists. Here the black student is 100 per cent; he's it. There was sorrow, pain and concern, but there was no felt need to strike out--you were supported and you knew...
Birmingham's white community has an even larger stake in Miles, according to Monro. "I profoundly believe the good black college will help us to move toward a day of sound cultural pluralism--not assimilation--by strengthening the black community's sense of itself and its needs and pride in its heritage and its muscle and ability to do things for itself. The problem is a white problem. In segregating our black people, our Indian people, our Chicano people, what we white Americans have really done is segregate ourselves...
...Monro is encouraged by his work with The Friends of Miles College, a predominantly white group of Birmingham citizens who seek areas for cooperation between Miles and the Birmingham community. The Friends supplied the funds for the Miles freshmen who attended Harvard Summer School last year. "It's a statement of concern and it's constructive," Monro says. "With this de facto isolation between the two communities, it's important that well-intentioned white people show it--show that they're there when you need them...