Dr. Blyden Jackson
by Maggie Wilkes
Dr. Douglas Gills
by Debra Parker
Page 5
Features
Dr. Blyden Jackson, Professor of
English and Special Assistant
Graduate Dean was the first Black
Professor hired at Carolina. Dr.
Jackson is a native of Louisville,
Kentucky but he attended
Wilberforce University in Ohio,
where he received his AB in
English in 1930. He spent his first
year of graduate school at
Columbia, while residing at the
YMCA in Hailem. Dr. Jackson
says that it was his good fortune
while living there to meet and
become very close friends with one
of the Harlem Renaissance’s
greatest writers, Langston
Hughes. Although he was forced to
leave Columbia in 1932 because of
financial problems, he said that
was one of the most enjoyable
periods in his life.
Upon returning home he ob
tained a job with the WPA (Works
Progress Administration) as a
censoror of public housing. Many
houses. Dr. Jackson said, were in
very poor condition and with more
than one family residing. He also
taught night school for the WPA,
his students being adults who had
never finished high school. Dr.
Jackson said “Many of these
people were very eager to learn
because they had never had the
chance; it was an inspiration to me
to see someone trying that hard.
He felt that this job was as good as
any for him to get teaching ex
perience. After working for the
WPA for two years he taught
English at a junior high school in
Louisville.
Dr. Jackson remained there until
1945, interrupting his stay in 1938 to
earn his Masters at the University
of Michigan. He left in 1945, ac
cepting the position of Assistant
Professor of English at Fisk where
he stayed until 1954. While at Fisk
Dr. Jackson acquired a leave of
absence in order to obtain his
Doctorate at the University of
Michigan after receiving a
Rosenwald and a University of
Michigan Fellowship.
When asked about the
Fellowships he said very little
except that they were given to
many others like him. Dr. Jackson
changed positions again in 1954,
after being appointed head of the
English Department and later
Dean of the Graduate School at
Southern University; there, he
stayed until coming to Carolina in
1969. Dr. Jackson failed to com
ment in any detail on any of these
appointments.
FACULTY
This semester he was presented
with the honor of being the first
visiting scholar to lecture at
Tuskegee Institute under a
program funded by the Portia
Washington Pittman Fellowship in
Humanities. When asked why he
felt this honor was bestowed upon,
him he said, “I don’t know why,”
with a sort of solemn expression,
“they didn’t specify any
qualifications and I didn’t ask.”
However he did elaborate that
Mrs. Pittman was the daughter of
the late Booker T. Washington,
founder of Tuskegee, and that “She
was just one marvelous woman to
work with and to know.” The
program asks the visitng scholar to
deliver two public lectures and a
class lecture weekly. The lectures
include Black Literature and a
seminar in Humanities. Although
the position is very time con
suming Dr. Jackson said that he
found the experience very
gratifying.
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Features
Mr. Douglas Gills, Afro-
American History Instructor, is
relatively new to the UNC campus.
However, he is not new to the field
of Afro-American Studies nor is he
new to the perpetuation of the
Black Struggle. Mr, Gills has
virtually dedicated himself to
helping Black people in the Black
Liberation, a movement he defines
as “anti-facist and anti-
exploitative.” However, Mr. Gills
is a realist. He recognizes that
“Blacks themselves bear the
burden of uplifting and liberating
themselves.”
For Doug Gills, the realization
that he must become actively
involved in the Black Struggle,
came during his second year at
North Carolina Central University
in Durham, where he later
received his BA and MA degrees.
Mr. Gills says he had to go about it
PROFILES
in his own way, and adds, “But I’m
not a maverick.” By that he means
that he must go about aiding his
brother through the proper
channels.
As part of that channel, he
tutored local Black elementary
students as an extra-curricular
activity. Among Mr. Gills and his
co-workers were several white
students who volunteered their
services to the Black community.
As the tutoring sessions
progressed, Mr. Gills saw that the
youngsters were more receptive to
the white tutors. Because they
wanted the youngsters to un
derstand that “there was
something innately good in being
Black,” Gills and others asked the
white tutors to resign. According to
Mr. Gills this was exactly the type
of thing that Blacks wanted to de-
emphasize—the old addage that if
it’s white, it’s right.
Later, about 1968, he became
involved in the Malcolm X
Liberation University in Durham,
which was instituted by Black
students from Duke who wished to
set up an Afro-American Studies
Program as part of the
curriculum. With no permanent
base of operation, the students
moved the “University” to A&T
campus in Greensboro.
Mr. Gills was active in a number
of organizations in Greensboro
(from 1972-73). He worked full
time in the Association of Poor
People, "a political organization.”
Full time, Mr. Gills explained,
meant that he often worked eight
hours a day without pay. He says,
“We had to make our own
salaries.” This non-profit, non-
federally funded program helped
poor people in civil matters such as
police brutality. Gills also sup
ported the African Liberation
Support Commission, which drew
attention to the international
struggle of Africans against im
perialism. Doug Gills and others
like him were instrumental in
establishing the UHURU
Bookstore in Greensboro, which
has one of the largest selections of
Black literature in the Southeast.
At some time during the years
between 1968 and 1973, Mr. Gills
was a salesman for the Xerox
corporation. Not liking the
schedule and the routine that he
was confined to, he resigned,
saying that he was not cut out for
the "successful, accomplished
Black male type” Having
material wealth and riches are not
that important to him, he says.
Above all, Mr. Gills values his
"principles” This is one of the
reasons why he was drafted eight
times for the Viet Nam War. He
says he could not see himself
fighting a war that he did not
believe in when Blacks were .still
having so many problems at home.
Next, Mr. Gills was offered a
teaching position at St. Augustine
College in Raleigh. At St.
Augustine, he became involved in
the North Carolina Conference on
Black Studies. Currently, he serves
as one of the two vice-presidents of
the Conference. Working with the
organization, he had the good
fortune to meet Dr. Sonya Slone,
who is head of the Afro-American
Studies Department at UNC. To
further enrich his knowledge of
Afro-American Studies, he plans to
study next year at Northwestern
University working on his Ph.D.
During the interim, he plans to do
“all that (heI can for the Black
cause.”
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