February 4, 1983

Emmy award-winning African-American journalist and television commentator Gil Noble lectured and screened a film, The Life of Malcolm X, in the Chapel. “I think it’s very important,” the host of the ABC News program Like It Is said, “that we understand the enormous legacy embodied in the man of Malcolm X…. There is a direct connection between what happened in those days and your existence here now, and what lies ahead in the future.”

Noble challenged his audience, “What would people like Malcolm X—who fought and bled to get black students into Vassar—say about your behavior today? Would they shake your hand or shake your neck?”

Declaring that society’s institutions had created a “counterculture designed to put (young people) to sleep,” Noble demanded that the students wake-up, telling black students to have a “clearness about their Africanness” and encouraging all students to get involved. “Student involvement,” he concluded, “is a sign of a healthy society.”

The Miscellany News