The DC | Spring 2023 Issue
SMU Archives Reveal Painful Past
Special Report
Students shoulder the burden to work towards a better future By Emma McRae | Copy Editor *This story contains content and photos referencing race as it was depicted in the early 1900s. When senior Shara Jeyarajah began searching SMU’s archive of student newspapers, she wasn’t sure what she would find. She was surprised SMU had an archive dating all the way back to 1915. What she found was unsettling. Issues featured stories that covered Old South Week, an annual event on campus that celebrated the legacy of the Confederacy with parades and pageants during the 1950s and ‘60s. Reminders in student newspapers informed the campus about upcoming Ku Klux Klan community events during the 1920s when Dallas served as an active location for the hate group. In a 1948 issue of The SMU Campus newspaper, she found a headline that read “Students Favor Race Segregation” with an informal polling of the segregated student body. “It was pretty amazing to see an issue that we
consider so outrageous, and so obviously unpopular now, was the norm back then,” Jeyarajah says. “And not only the norm, but it was co-signed by all these university students that are supposedly training to have a more worldly view of the world.”
ties, buildings and connections to slavery that warrant discussion and thought — just like those occurring on campuses across the nation. Public symbols commemorating these eras have become a greater topic of discussion on college campuses since the racial justice movements of 2020 “We have to continue to tell that that were prompted by the murder of George Floyd. story to new generations, but Since then, more than 400 then we have to invite new symbols — from university names to Confederate mon- The Campus ran this article about the carnival in 1920 generations to write the next uments — have been promoting the blackface comedian, Jordan Ownby. chapter.” removed, according to the Southern Poverty Law they depict and memorialize was recognized by the -Maria Dixon Hall, SMU Chief Center. SMU also reckoned a bygone era when overt university and doubled as a with its racial legacy that racism was tolerated as a pep rally for the football Diversity Officer year, prompted by demands norm that went relatively game against TCU. The from historically marginalunquestioned either on carnival even rivaled homeWhat she found in the ized groups on campus, who campus or in society,” says standing of the university’s coming in popularity with archives inspired Jeyarajah history. Journalism and wanted university officials Rick Halperin, director of it being the sole event that to create a podcast called human rights students along to address names, customs, the SMU Human Rights united students across dif“Maladjusted” that retells monuments and buildings with editors and reporters Program. He added that the ferent organizations to plan, the history of SMU through for The Daily Campus also that document the universiabsence of discussion as reported by the student a racial justice lens. The have spent years investity’s history of connections could have to do with the paper. podcast creates a sense of gating how race has been to slavery, bias and racism. lack of a collective campus Beyond the striking series legacy and continuity for covered on campus. What “These buildings are memory. of K’s in its title, the Kill students of color, Jeyarajah they revealed were activiharmful in the sense that For now, the archives Kare Karnival’s popularity serve as the campus’ memo- and the significance it ry bank, and they document garnered in campus culture events such as one long-for- featured brazenly racist feagotten event called the Kill tures. For example, a list of Kare Karnival, which made booths planned for the its campus debut in May 1928 carnival included 1919. Students and local an offensive racial slur to families gathered under describe Black babies to be tents on Dallas Hall Lawn thrown at a booth for for an evening of perforstudents “wishing to be Namances and attractions. The tional League pitchers.” At most popular attraction, the height of its popularity, as reported by the student the carnival announced newspaper of the time, a new addition to the show: The Campus, was The Old “... the world renowned Plantation Show, a minblackfaced comedian, Jordan strel show featuring white Ownby ....” actors in blackface makeup Ownby was not worldperforming exaggerated and renowned. He was a journalracially offensive skits and ism student on campus at the songs. Despite hosting three time, SMU Archivist Joan different showtimes to Gosnell confirmed. Followaccommodate for large audi- ing his graduation, Ownby’s ences, organizers still turned SMU legacy was secured people away. by a $10,000 contribution A 1921 issue of SMU’s student newspaper shows an illustration promoting a popular carnival where student The Kill Kare Karnival made in 1922 to upgrade the performers would appear in blackface.
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says, chronicling stories from the desegregation of the Perkins School of Theology by five Black students in the 1950s to current efforts being implemented to promote diversity. Jeyarajah isn’t the only student to turn to the archives to gain a broader under-