![\"Grandison](\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2014\/01\/photo.jpg\")
<\/a>The academic and socio-cultural scene Hill found when he arrived on the Harrisonburg campus was a jolting cross-cultural experience for a city-raised African-American teen. He had a girlfriend back home, a love of dance parties, and a repertoire of easy-flowing curse words from the usual trash-talking on D.C. basketball courts.<\/p>\n
In 1962 at EMC, the percentage of white Mennonite students easily ran into the 90s, typically from rural backgrounds. Hill was one of four U.S.-born black students enrolled in EMC, based on photos in that year’s Shenandoah<\/em> yearbook.<\/em> All faculty men were required to wear plain coats; all faculty women, the prayer covering and very modest dresses. Males and females did not publicly hold hands. Chapel attendance was mandatory every school day.<\/p>\n Now a successful trial lawyer in D.C., Hill stayed at EMC only one year. \u201cMy pillow was wet many a night,\u201d Hill recalls, loath to disappoint his parents who had made huge financial sacrifices to put him at EMC. \u201cMy mother\u2019s theme song was, \u201cWe don\u2019t quit.\u201d<\/p>\n Hill was the first-born of three sons, raised in a home headed by education-oriented parents who brought home middle-class salaries for those times. Howard University was six blocks from his home. \u201cI walked through campus when going to junior high and to my favorite public swimming pool.\u201d Next door was Arthur Paul Davis, a famed literary figure who taught at Howard and had earned his PhD in English from Columbia University. As a boy, Hill saw luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance \u2013 James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks \u2013 relaxing on Davis\u2019 front porch. Another neighbor was Thomas H. Countee Sr., the first African-American to get a PhD in physics (earned at a Dutch university, as Hill recalls).<\/p>\n In short, Hill was surrounded by upwardly climbing folks who were preparing their children to continue to challenge racial barriers. Hill\u2019s father was a businessman and employee of the U.S. department of defense; his mother managed a D.C. playground. When Hill said he hoped to become a basketball coach, his father angrily made it clear that Mom and Dad weren’t working themselves to death for such an aspiration. The Hill boys had just three options \u2013 to be a physician, dentist or lawyer. (Two ended up as attorneys, the other a dentist.)<\/p>\n The summer before Hill arrived at EMC, his father had scraped together the money to send him for six weeks to one of the best private schools in D.C., St. Albans, an Episcopal school that catered to well-to-do boys from (almost always) white families.<\/p>\n Hill took calculus and made friends with the son of a Swedish embassy official. \u201cThe academic experience at St. Albans was so tremendous. It was a great experience \u2013 the guys at St. Albans accepted me. It was so relaxed and so much fun \u2013 they didn\u2019t have that religious thing on them.\u201d St. Albans offered Hill the option of enrolling in a post-secondary school year, which he desperately wanted to do. But it was beyond the financial means of his family; EMC was viewed as his next-best option.<\/p>\n Hill dormed in the Brunk House adjacent to campus with a six Mennonite guys from various class years, with last names of Good, Driver, Ranck, Clymer, Reed. \u201cWe all had separate rooms and studied a lot. Many had part-time jobs. One guy would return from his job around sun-up and wake the whole house with a booming, \u2018Good morning, world!\u2019\u201d By mid-fall, Hill was on the varsity basketball team.<\/p>\n Hill recalls \u201cmany impressive speakers\u201d at daily chapels, which were different in style from his family\u2019s Methodist church. \u201cThe first time I heard a cappella singing, tears literally rolled down my face. I had to pinch my eyes to keep from making a scene. I was stunned how beautiful it was.\u201d<\/p>\n After chapel, came the highlight of Hill\u2019s day: a cafeteria meal served family-style, three girls, three guys to a table, assigned randomly by number. \u201cThere was a rhythm and ritual to it, standing until all arrived, the saying of grace, the singing of a song, the passing of the bread to the right, the filling of water glasses. And then the pleasant conversation, getting acquainted around the table, each day learning to know a new set of students. By the end of the year, everyone on campus knew each other. And the food, like my parents promised, was always excellent.\u201d<\/p>\n Dean of men Alphie Zook had counseled Hill when he arrived on campus, \u201cNot everyone here will welcome you. Unfortunately, you may encounter some racism.\u201d<\/p>\n One racist encounter happened on a Saturday, when meals were not served family-style. After a morning studying in his room, Hill went to the cafeteria for lunch. He sat down with his tray at a convenient table where several other students had gathered. Conversation at that end of the table stopped when a guy diagonally across from Hill interjected, \u201cYou should be eating that meal on the back porch.\u201d<\/p>\n Hill felt his anger rise to within a scintilla of striking back. \u201cI thought how disappointed my parents would be if I was kicked out for fighting. I calmly laid my fork on the tray. I locked gazes with the guy, neither of us said a word. Eventually he looked away. I picked up my fork and continued eating.\u201d<\/p>\n Other painful memories: The time a student got up and left when Hill came to a non-assigned table. Overhearing someone say, \u201cWhat the h..l is he doing here?\u201d when he walked by. Being called a \u201cn\u2026.r\u201d by a child in the presence of his Mennonite parents, who said nothing. A female student who met his eyes as they passed on campus, but seemed fearful of saying \u201chi.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet Hill also experienced inter-racial solidarity. He described a time when he and a few schoolmates went downtown to see a movie, an activity that was then against school rules for everyone. \u201cAfter we\u2019d bought our tickets, the manager told the rest of the group, \u2018You<\/em> can sit in the regular seats, but he<\/em> has to sit in the balcony.\u2019 They all decided to join me in the balcony. About ten minutes later, the manager appeared upstairs, saying there\u2019s an official from EMC downstairs looking for us. And he showed us a side door to exit. I knew he was lying, but we all left on the slim chance we\u2019d be caught.\u201d<\/p>\n The one place Hill could relax was playing sports, especially basketball on a team that traveled to play games at Goshen College in Indiana and Messiah College in Pennsylvania. He recalls two Yoder brothers, Paul R. Jr. ’63 (now a local eye surgeon) and N. Wayne ’66 (now a psychotherapist based in Florida), as tough competitors with serious talent.<\/p>\n One time in chapel, Paul helped Hill to navigate a cross-cultural snafu. \u201cI was sitting at the back and someone up front said something that caused everyone to stand, look straight back at me, and kneel down with their elbows on their seats. This caught me totally by surprise. They\u2019re all looking at me.<\/em> Paul locked his eyes with mine and let me know I needed to do what he was doing.\u201d (This method of praying is no longer practiced in modern Mennonite churches.)<\/p>\n EMC had a handful of students from Kenya and Tanganyika in 1963. \u201cThe international students from Africa didn\u2019t know what to think of me; I was so different from them. And the average Mennonite kid had never been around a black guy on a daily basis. Should I act friendly or keep him at arm\u2019s length? Or just treat him as a human being?<\/em> For my part, I tried to never offend, to keep a smile on my face and be open to conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n At first the coursework was tough for him. \u201cMost of the Mennonite students were well prepared for the seriousness of the studies. I had to really buckle down and study hard. But I moved fast on an upward learning curve.\u201d<\/p>\n Hill\u2019s biggest take-away, however, wasn\u2019t in the academic realm. \u201cIt was here that I met the Lord. It was a combination of things that got me thinking. Everywhere I turned I\u2019d find more evidence of the resurrection. The guys had an early morning prayer group. It wasn\u2019t a devotional thing as much as learning from scripture, reading the stories in a deeper way. And coming to my own conclusion \u2013 He\u2019s real!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Before Christmas break 1962, Grandison Hill returned from class to his room to discover a box on his desk. He opened it to find a King James Bible, and inside the simple inscription, \u201cThe Brunk House.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite meeting \u201cmany genuinely good people who did a lot to make me feel comfortable,\u201d Hill felt lonely away from \u201cmy own people.\u201d Bringing along his new Bible in the fall of 1963, he transferred to Virginia Union University, whose roots go back to the end of the Civil War, when the American Baptist Home Mission Society started offering classes to African Americans emerging from slavery. At Virginia Union, with a Baptist seminary at the heart of its campus, Hill got much of what his family liked about EMC, without the racial and cultural issues \u2013 \u201cVirginia Union was small and everybody knew you and nurtured you \u2013 there was no foolishness or you would be sent home.\u201d He majored in biology and minored in chemistry, then taught middle-school math for three years in his home city before going to Howard University\u2019s School of Law on a full scholarship.<\/p>\n For more than half of his life, Hill has practiced as a civil and criminal defense trial lawyer, admitting he is addicted to the drama of jury trials. His home way from home is D.C. Superior Court. At 69, he is tempted to \u201creduce the case load a bit. But a serious jury trial is thrilling. You just never know the outcome; it’s so much fun with so many surprises.\u201d<\/p>\n He has these lingering questions from his year at EMC: \u201cDid anybody get anything from me? From their experience meeting me? Did it open anybody\u2019s mind?<\/p>\nPreparing for success<\/h3>\n
Among Mennonite boys in Brunk<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Encountering racism<\/h3>\n
Getting support too<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Meeting the Lord<\/h3>\n
For more information about the history of African Americans at EMU, see these stories and podcast:<\/h5>\n
Professors warn against “domestication” of Martin Luther King Jr., urging renewed focus on all\u00a0 forms of inequality<\/a><\/h5>\n
“50 Years Since Integration”<\/a><\/h5>\n
\u201cTake the First Step in Faith: A History of Inclusion at EMU\u201d \u2013 podcast featuring Mark Metzler Sawin<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"