I wrote about Bates College’s first two major leaguers, the first man to score a touchdown on historic Garcelon Field, and the first to blast a home run on that field (the ball rolled into a ditch). But all four...
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I wrote about Bates College’s first two major leaguers, the first man to score a touchdown on historic Garcelon Field, and the first to blast a home run on that field (the ball rolled into a ditch).
But all four were White. And I am White. So it was easy.
Then I, an enthusiastic alum, wanted to write about Thomas Seth Bruce, class of 1898, a football star from Virginia who led Bates to its first undefeated season. But I couldn’t. (READ MORE: Harvard Students Question Presidential Selection Process Amid Claudine Gay Plagiarism Scandal)
He was Black. And I am White. So it was impossible.
“When it comes to stories on race, racism, and white supremacy, I have to keep them in house,” the Bates Communications Director replied. “They can be deceptively complex, so I tend to work with faculty members who have expertise in the area. Who else ya got?”
Back in 1985-86, I had no problems writing about Black boxers Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Robbie Sims for a national magazine. I then profiled Nicaraguan world champion Alexis Arguello. No one complained.
This past year, I’ve written a dozen stories on murdered Waterbury sex workers — Black, Latina, and White — for the Waterbury Observer, in Connecticut. I’ve interviewed daughters, sons, siblings. Families have been moved by our sensitivity. The editor wants me to dig deeper. And I will. (READ MORE: Thomas Sowell: Still Going Strong at 93)
But now I can’t write about T.S. Bruce, who died in 1913, for my alumni magazine — even though I’ve written six other pieces, and the director lauds my deeply-researched historical profiles as the “Muldoon treatment.”
Just what is going on here?
Tyler Austin Harper, a Bates professor, wrote a recent Boston Globe piece about “being the wrong kind of Black professor.” Harper is an expert on 19th and 20th century British Literature — “the infamous ‘dead white men’ of European arts and letters.” He gets lots of pushback on what he chooses to write about.
Bates showed no concerns when I profiled Harry Lord, class of 1908, who became Captain of the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox. Next, I profiled Nathan Pulsifer, class of 1899, who belted the first Garcelon homer (into the ditch) and became Jack Kerouac’s doctor. I also profiled Frank Keaney, a rare Catholic in the class of 1912, inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame after coaching at the University of Rhode Island, where as a chemistry professor he invented “Keaney Blue,” the school’s colors.
But now as I read the director’s email response, and see his pronouns (he, him, his) beside his signature, I suddenly feel defeated. At age 64, without pronouns, from the class of 1981, I am not trusted anymore. Despite all Bates’ crowing about the value of a liberal arts education, and all the hoopla about grads being lifetime learners, Bates thinks writing about T.S. Bruce is too “deceptively complex” for me.
Is Bates afraid I’ll say something racist and bring shame to the college? Does my age, race or both make me liable to DEI blundering and insensitivity? Is writing for an elitist institution any different than writing for RING Magazine, the Bible of Boxing, as I once did?
My heart pushes me to write about T.S. Bruce. An elite debater, he suffered racism in Kennebunkport as a Bates undergrad, when he was refused service in the Parker House dining room after a southern guest protested. As a senior, he wrote a letter to the Boston Transcript decrying the incident. The letter went viral 1897-style — republished in newspapers as far away as Hawaii. (READ MORE: The Anti-Woke Collegiate Counterrevolution Is Just Beginning)
As a Newton Seminary student in 1901, Bruce won a lawsuit after a Harvard Square barber refused to shave him. The barber, claiming he was too busy, was fined $20. Bates, it seems, had prepared him to challenge injustice. A nationally recognized minister, Bruce lectured across the continent — appearing with Booker T. Washington in the gritty, mill city of his alma mater.
Oh, how Bruce loved tiny Bates in Lewiston, Maine, founded in 1855 by Freewill Baptists and open to women and men of any race. After graduating in a class of 79, he returned almost every year.
Bruce’s name appeared often in the Alumni Notes of the Bates Student. The love ran in his family. His older brother N.C. Bruce, class of 1894, named his first-born son Bates Shaw Bruce, after his alma mater and the college he then taught at.
A battering ram right guard (6’1”, 178 lbs), he carried the ball on pummeling runs against rivals Bowdoin, Colby and Maine. With left guard William Allen Saunders (5’10”, 173 lbs), who became a professor at historically Black Storer College in Harpers Ferry, he plowed holes for Pulsifer, the future doctor, and quarterback Royce Purinton, the future Bates AD who died after volunteering in World War I.
The foursome led Bates to an undefeated 1897 season — defeating Bowdoin for the first time. In my mind’s eye, I dreamt that Bates might one day erect a statue of the four teammates, two Blacks, and two Whites — modeled after one at Fenway Park with Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr.
Bruce died in 1913, at age 42. His flame, which burned so bright, extinguished suddenly — weeks after his final reunion. Time, alas, has forgotten him. So has Bates, despite his lifetime of ardor and devotion, embodying the school motto Amore ac Studio.
No matter his travels, he always returned (“But there’s Bruce, just as big a bunch of oratory as ever. I suppose! Say but I wish we had a phonograph record of some of his old literary society declamations and debates!”) He once scored 30 points in a track meet with 3 firsts, 3 seconds and a third, breaking the college record in the hammer throw.
“Who else ya got?”
I doubled down on Bruce. I’d work with faculty and students. I’d write with no guarantees — even though I had a solid track record of publication using the “Muldoon treatment.”
In a spirit of sympathy, the director (who is White) shared that he had wanted to profile Saunders. He reached out to a Black history professor to “help tell the story.” He hoped “to have a partner to tell the story but never heard back, which was discouraging.”
Bruce’s obituary reads: “His work among the colored people was recognized as being second only to Booker T. Washington.” Maybe I do need help with that historical context. Maybe I don’t have a nuanced understanding of what that means.
I never walked in Bruce’s shoes. I never led Bates to victories in football, never scored a point in track — let alone 30. Nor was I ever denied service in a restaurant or barber shop. But we share at least one bond: Bates.
Tyler Austin Harper, the Black Bates professor, writes: “When I was in graduate school, I was advised to study the Black French poet Aimé Césaire rather than Lord Byron, the Black science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany rather than H.G. Wells, and the Black psychiatrist Frantz Fanon rather than Freud… These Black authors are all fascinating, but they had nothing to do with my chosen specialization.”
Like Professor Harper, I needed to follow my own heart.
“Who else ya got?”
To be honest, I got Thomas Seth Bruce, class of 1898. Bruce is my guy. The world needs to hear his story. And I want to tell it. Even if I need help.
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