the commons
Nancy Knight Kenner ’67-’68 A little bit of encouragement went a long way Nancy Knight Kenner ’67-’68 remembers finding true love and self-confidence M at Pitt-Bradford. ME As a Black woman from the outskirts of Philadelphia, it was unlikely that she would have found Pitt-Bradford at all, but she had some help from an Urban League program in Philadelphia that helped Black students find schools to apply to. She was just about to apply to a new college (even newer than PittBradford), John F. Kennedy College founded in 1965 in Wahoo, Neb., when she heard from Pitt-Bradford. Her dad liked that it was closer than Nebraska. “I had no finances to go to college,” said Kenner, the oldest of 11 children. The summer before her first year at Pitt-Bradford, she worked with her mother in an industrial laundry that washed – among other things – sheets and shirts for Valley Forge
NI M U Y AL O R
Nancy and Milton Kenner
14 PORTRAITS
veterinarian who taught Military Academy. biology, regularly played “They worked in checkers and chess with exhaustive heat. I was the students in the lounge appreciating my mother of Emery Hall. at that time. I said, Madden tried setting ‘There’s no way I’m then-Nancy Knight up with going to do that.’” a sophomore from Chicago Her father drove a – Milton Kenner – but it truck, and she earned wasn’t until the two met a scholarship from Knight Kenner at a dinner party that she the Teamsters that took an interest. covered the cost of the summer Nancy and Milton were both qualifying program at Pitt-Bradford students in Dr. August Freda’s as well as her first semester. astronomy class when he invited In the summer qualifying program, them both to dinner. incoming freshmen would take a few “College was the kind of atmofoundational college courses, but sphere then where you went to your with extra tutoring. “It really boosted professor’s house for dinner all the our morale to pass those first college time. Professors did that kind of thing courses,” she said. all the time.” Even once the semester began, Milton was one of three Black there was still a lot of interaction men at Pitt-Bradford at the time. He between the small student body and had gone to Stockbridge School in its faculty. Dr. Geraldine Madden, a Massachusetts and spent his senior year of high school in Switzerland and enjoyed skiing. He was the goalie on the soccer team. For fun, the couple and other students piled into a car belonging to Tom Philipson ’68 and visited Olean, N.Y., where the drinking age was 18, or went to parties and dances at nearby St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, N.Y. “I don’t recall ever having an incident with racism or prejudice on campus,” she said. “That was the best experience I had in my life.” Well, there was one incident, when civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in April 1968. Nancy recalled that a group of students was watching the funeral on television in the lounge, when someone came in and used a racial slur about King. Nancy lit into him. winter 2021
