The Black Experience at Grinnell College Through Collected Oral History and Documents, 1863–1954

Stuart Yeager: I am going to begin by reading you just a few events that took place in the year '65‚ '66 when you began school here. There was the Selma march‚ Dr. Martin Luther King. There was violence all over the South and all over the nation for that matter‚ sporadic violence. The Watts riot‚ the Chicago riot ...

Hubert Farbes: That was in the summer before I came to school.

Yeager: In 1966 there was the rise of Black power‚ the rise of Stokeley Carmichael and CORE and the King march in Chicago for better housing. These are some of the things that went on as you were going off to school in Grinnell. I'd like to start by talking a little about your family background; your parents' occupations‚ your hometown‚ the nature of your high school‚ your religious affiliation‚ your parents' political affiliation and your political affiliation. So do you want to begin talking about ...

Farbes: Those are going to take a little bit of time‚ they are a little bit complex. My parents' occupations are widely varied. My father is from a family whose roots are in Louisiana Creole race and it really is a different race. My father's family migrated from Louisiana‚ from a parish in central Louisiana in about 1905 or something like that. And they came as a group with a number of other people in that parish to central Oklahoma. They are black people in the sense they are not caucasians but they are a mixed race. There are Indians‚ and French speaking whites having inter-married with blacks and the resulting race is my father's family. So on my father's side I had a number of people who did not speak or write English very well. They spoke pidgin French and they lived as I said in a fairly localized area in central Oklahoma. My mother's family is a more traditional black family from somewhere in Arkansas and migrated to central western Oklahoma. My mother's family is made up of educators. My grandfather was the County Director of the Public School System‚ the segregated public school system. And my grandmother was a teacher in the school system and my mother had a college education. My father does not have a college education; in face he didn't graduate from high school until after he'd worked for a while. He was a construction worker until I was about in the 7th grade. He worked construction and I lived in a little town called Okmulgee‚ Oklahoma‚ which is where his family is from. It's a Creek Indian name‚ and there are a number of Indians who live in that area. That was part of the reason that my father's family settled there because there are Indians in their family. There's a lot of inter-mixing. I grew up‚ I was born in that town‚ and I grew up in that town in my early years because I was the oldest child in the family. My father got a job in the U.S. Postal system when I was in the 7th grade‚ and he moved to Oklahoma City and eventually got enough money together so that we could move‚ so we moved there. My mother has always been a professional. She had a college degree‚ she was a social worker and a part-time teacher when we lived in Okmulgee. She was a social worker‚ and then she was an officer in the Urban League and then she was a high school teacher‚ since when we moved to Oklahoma City. I was in the 8th grade when we moved to Oklahoma City and that's where I went to high school. My religion is my father's family religion which is Roman Catholic. They are from this French Creole background‚ and they are all Catholics. And that's the religion that all the kids have. I have two brothers and a sister‚ my oldest brother and sister are fairly close in age to me. My sister is the youngest of the three of us and she is only five or six years younger than I am. My youngest brother is 16 years younger than I am so then's a big time frame split in the family. When we moved to Oklahoma City‚ I was in the 8th grade‚ and at the time we moved to the city my parents were very concerned about my having what they considered the best education I could get. I had always been something of a prodigy child‚ and I was not being challenged in the segregated school system where I had gone to school in Okmulgee. So when they came to Oklahoma City they spent a lot of extra money to move into an area where I could be able to go to a school that was just being integrated. And they did that because that school had a reputation for having good science‚ English preparatory systems for college. They wanted me to 90 to college. So I was among the five black students that integrated this school. I guess it was in 1961. And the school was about 2‚000 kids and that was not a good experience for me.

Yeager: Was this your first experience with white people?

Farbes: Well‚ yes‚ it was certainly my first experience in that kind of setting with white people. I didn't really have any kind of contact with them when I was in Okmulgee except that I was always‚ I had been identified by my teachers early on as somebody who was a public speaker. I don't know exactly how that had happened but they had enrolled me‚ my teachers had‚ in the Optimist Club's oratorical contest. I don't know if you are familiar with that‚ but the Optimist International has every year for at least twenty years‚ they have a national public speaking contest every year for high school students. It's operated first on a club basis; people compete for the club championship and then they compete for the local regional championship and then the state championship and then the inter-state regional championship and they they go to the national tournament. And when I was in the 4th or 5th grade they enrolled me as the only black kid in that. So I had done that and it was my only major contact with white people. I had been in that thing‚ and I had won the club championship once. But because I won‚ they didn't send me to the regional because they didn't want to have a black kid representing the region‚ the Southern Oklahoma region. It was sort of the thing I saw in Oklahoma all the time. Anyway when I went to high school‚ and I was integrating this school‚ and it was really that kind of setting where ...

Yeager: Was this before integration? Or was it after‚ integration was in '56.

Farbes: Oh yes‚ this was well after Brown vs. the Board of Education‚ but it was the first-ever integration of a high school in Oklahoma City. Any high school. And it was only because of court orders and that sort of thing. Really the effort was the primary result of a single federal judge in Oklahoma City who felt that people who lived in this area shouldn't be sent to an all black school on a different side of town. The school was Northeast High School and I started there in the 8th grade‚ and looking back on it from an educational standpoint it was a great benefit‚ because I was way ahead of the kids I had been in school with in Okmulgee and it challenged me to be in a school system where for example English classes were just more advanced than I had been involved with. So I got a good education there‚ I think‚ and I certainly had a lot of experience dealing with‚ you know being a minority in a largely white society.

Yeager: Was that difficult for you?

Farbes: It was very difficult‚ and I did not enjoy it a whole lot. But as I look back on it‚ it was obviously beneficial for me because it helped prepare me for things I had to deal with in the future. The school was a good school academically. and I got an opportunity to be fairly well rounded there. I was in sports‚ and I continued to be in public speaking and they had an outstanding dramatic and public speaking teacher; she was probably the best teacher in the whole Southern United States. She had had national champions in both dramatic and public speaking fields before and she had the best program for public speaking in the state of Oklahoma without a doubt. It was just entirely good luck‚ my parents didn't know this at the time that I went to school‚ but she just sort of took me as her next prodigy. And from the 8th grade‚ which was the first year that I went to school. until the time I graduated I was always in her courses. I won a lot of stuff in public speaking and dramatic things and I ended up with that being one of my major activities in high school. And I did well ir. high school there‚ and I was in the Honor Society and all that other junk and I think I was fairly well prepared to go to college‚ by that school. Have I covered everything that you asked me?

Yeager: One other question‚ I want to know your parent's political affiliation.

Farbes: That's right. That takes a little more explanation too. That was part of the reason why I gave you all the background on my father's side of the family and my mother's side of the family. My mother's side of the family as I said‚ my grandfather was something of an official‚ a black official in this county where they lived. They lived in a rural county and he was the head of the school system and he was a Republican. He was a Republican because. as he always explained it to me. Lincoln was in the Republican party and he always voted Republican and he actually had some very significant ties to the State Republican Party because he was the leading figure in the county so he knew a number of white Republican officials. I didn't know that then‚ but they relied on the black vote out of that county from the people he could marshall. So my original affiliation was Republican o.nd my grandfather on my mother's side was a substantial influence on my life when I was younger because I looked up to him and spend a lot of time with him. I lived with them. They lived on a farm in the summer time; I and the other kids in the family. So he really affected my outlook on things early on at least. My father's side of the family is probably what you would picture as a more traditional picture of where black people fall politically; they were Democrats. They were Democrats because the Democrats supported the unions and my father's side of the family was basically laborers and they were involved with the Unions so they voted the Democratic Party. So there was a split in the family politically and I did not get very much involved with politics as a result of that. I never affiliated with any political clubs even though there were a few of those in high school because there really wasn't any pressure one way or the other in my family to do that. So their orientation‚ while being different as a result of their backgrounds‚ was the same as many bl ads in the south and that was to try and vote for an individual candidate that they thought was going to help the lot of blacks in general. So obviously they were supporters of Kennedy in 1960 and felt the impact of the turmoil that started in part with Kennedy being assassinated. I can still remember that happening and what an impact it had on my family. How my grandmother on my father's side stayed up for 48 hours saying Rosary's because Kennedy was a Catholic. It was a funny bunch of ties. Kennedy was a Catholic and for that reason all the people on my father's family thought that he had to win and God was on his side. It was a sort of strange mixture of things. I was not what you would call a political activist by any means when I was in high school.

Yeager: Since your grandfather had such a great influence on your early perception of the world‚ could you just talk a little bit about him.

Farbes: He was‚ when I knew him‚ an elderly man already and he was a very quiet man but he had strong convictions about the necessity that one carries one's own loads in life. He was something of a historian and he used to read American History to me. He used to wonder when I was in high school- I used to read mythology‚ I went from mythology to science fiction so I was always reading things that weren't real‚ and we used to have discussions about why I was always reading things that didn't happen. He used to read the Union War Studies and what he said was the world that was out there and that I have to live with is a lot more interesting to me than something that is made up and from what you read about things that happen you can learn about what to expect to happen in the future. And I came to understand what he meant by that when I got to the point where I had‚ I could read history and I guess had the maturity to stay with those kinds of things till I started to see the benefit of what he had talked about. He was a quiet man and he was a retired teacher and he had worked for a time in Washington‚ D.C. and as I found out later that was a result of his contacts with the Republican Party. He had gotten some appointment with the Bureau of Records and Standards and for a black person that was a very high appointment. And he had gone to Washington and worked for a couple of years and he really liked that; my grandmother didn't like that so they moved back to Lincoln County‚ OK to teach and stay there until he retired. He had a pension and my grandmother had a pension and they lived on a farm and they grew stuff on the farm. I don't think he really had much in the way of formal occupation after retirement‚ but he was kind of a mentor for everybody in the area. People never referred to him as “Mr.“ His name was Brown and they called him Professor Brown and that was both the black and white people. Because they weren't very many educated people in that area. So I thought a lot of him and I guess his approach to life rubbed off on me in that he wasn't a shouter and he wasn't a screamer. He was a quiet man with strong convictions that were apparent and people respected them.

Yeager: How did you choose Grinnell?· What were your friends reactions to your choosing Grinnell‚ your parent's reactions? And were you actively recruited?

Farbes: I'll start with the last one. I was recruited and I should remember the man's name because he was here at the time while I was a student‚ but he came to my high school in Oklahoma City‚ and I guess he had arranged to talk to the top students and I was one of the top students. And he was very interested in my coming to Grinnell because I was a black student and he said that to me. He said he was impressed with my record and at that point in time I had won the State Oratorical Contest‚ so I was the State Champion and I was going to the National tournament and he was very much interested in that and I was on the debate team and I was on the Student Senate. I did all that kind of stuff. He was the only recruiter as I recall that expressed a great deal of personal interest in me. I got some contact by mail from Ivy League school‚ from Yale in particular‚ some things from Dartmouth‚ and a few things from Stanford. but I don't recall‚ maybe I got some phone calls‚ but I didn't get any personal contact except with him. They offered a Trustee Honor scholarship and paid for a trip to the campus and when I saw the campus I just fell in love with it and that was how I decided to come here. The reaction of my friends was strange. I was a national merit semi-finalist and I was what was called the National Achievement Scholar; I don't know if they even have the program anymore‚ but it was a special program the National Merit instituted in 1965‚ my final year‚ for blacks and minority students. And there were five National Achievement scholars in the state and I was one of them. In fact there were two of them from my school. And the other guy who got one scholarship went to Drake and I went to Grinnell. And people thought it was strange that we went to these weird schools in Iowa. But he had gone to the Drake campus and liked that campus and we just decided to come were rather than going back East. And I don't clearly remember why‚ I got an offer to go to Yale and I don't remember why I never gave it serious consideration but I didn't. Perhaps I was afraid of it. I didn't know anything about the East coast and I didn't have anyone‚ any relatives out there. I didn't have anyone to give me any personal framework for it and I hadn't had any personal contact with them so I didn't want to go. That summer after I graduated I went to the National tournament; I won the National Championship in the Original Oratory.

Yeager: Can I ask you were you the only black student participating in this?

Farbes: No‚ I think there v1ere two other black students that I saw at the tournament. The tournament involved at least ten different catagories; original oratory‚ which is a speech you wrote yourself and presented‚ dramatic reading‚ debate‚ improvisation‚ humorous readings. it was sort of a whole range of dramatic and public speaking activity. Original oratory was just one of the catagories‚ but it was one of the highly visible catagories. The finals were televised. It was in Omaha. Neb. that year and parts of it were there and all kinds of stuff. It was a teal good experience for me and this speech coach that I had‚ had sort of taken me from the 8th grade and still kind of being scared of speaking in front of people and all the way up to the national championship. So it was a big. I was on a real high going to Grinnell. I was happy about going. I didn't have any reservations about it‚ I didn't know what to expect because I had never been away from home at all. But I enjoyed it and people were willing to accept what I was going and by then I was kind of a local celebrity. People knew who I was locally because I had done so many things that last year. So no one was particularly concerned or surprised about it and things were real good.

Yeager: What were your goals for your future at Grinnell‚ occupation‚ etc.? What dreams did you have that you wanted to fulfill in the next years when you v1ere starting?

Farbes: It is funny but I don't remember that I had any goals because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I vJas a good science student when I was in high school. My mother was a mathematics major‚ loves mathematics conceptually‚ she's a mathematics teacher again now. She wanted me to do that. It is funny‚ I read an article; my mother and father keep all the old articles‚ newspaper articles‚ and I went back last Christmas and I was reading the old articles and I noticed that when I won the National Achievement Scholarship I was quoted as saying‚ “that I might become a lawyer.“ I can't remember that‚ but I think I must have said that because I couldn't thing of anything else to say. I can't remember really particularly wanting to be a lawyer. I was a good speaker so I figure well you know lawyers speak so I said I'm going to be a lawyer. I didn't have any desire that was born out of someone having pressed me to be one thing or another. My family supported me in doing whatever I wanted to do‚ and they really allowed me to make the decision about where I wanted to go to school and they allowed me to make the decision about what I wanted to do. When I came here‚ one of the reasons I came here was because I didn't have to decide what I was going to do because it was a liberal arts school. So I didn't know.

Yeager: So you didn't have any specific dreams or goals that you wanted to fulfill?

Farbes: Well‚ I wanted to graduate from college. I wanted to do well in college. I didn't have a particular profession‚ a responsibility or activity in mind.

Yeager: What were your primary concerns as a student at Grinnell at that time?

Farbes: When I first got to the school I was pretty much an over-intense freshman. I got here. I was in quad; in a room with three other guys in North Younker Hall.

Yeager: Black or white?

Farbes: White! One was a guy named Bill Creasey from some really tiny town in Iowa. One was a guy named Carl Muller who was from the suburbs of Chicago. One was a guy named Tom something or other who was from Minneapolis‚ MN who was a person who left Grinnell after the first semester The first semester all these guys‚ including me‚ were over-intense. We spend all our time studying: and complaining how hard it was. We all played IM sports‚ football‚ and went out and played and came back and studied‚ and didn't date at all. It was a classic intense freshman response. And we didn't have very much in the way of help from anyone in the hall. Back then the hall system was basically a fraternity. One of the reasons I came to Grinnell was I didn't want to be in a fraternity. I didn't like them. I'd had some contact from my mother's sorority and didn't like the attitude. I just didn't like fraternities. I just didn't like the idea of being hazed and having to be involved in something without my choosing to want to be with these people‚ etc. And I had no idea that the hall was going to operate like that. When we first got here we went through the whole things with the beanies and being sent out into the fields to get bull semen and all that other horse shit. What was real interesting was the other guys in my room were just like I was. They had all come because they didn't want to have that sort of pressure imposed on them and we just refused to participate in it. We resented that we had to di it‚ resented that nobody listened to our side of why we shouldn't have to do it‚ and we really did not enjoy it the way you can enjoy it. It really is possible to enjoy that stuff but we didn't. And that was just another part of being miserable and of course none of it was good at all and on top of it all I had gone through school and had never had less than a B+ in anything and I made a C in calculus my first semester and I was just‚ I was mad and I was really‚ really down on the school. I was down on myself. And it was such a big switch from having gone in on such a great big high that at the Christmas break I wanted to leave. And I tried to leave‚ I tried to transfer first to Washington University in St. Louis‚ and would have done that except that my father very actively resisted. And part of the reason he did that was he was afraid I was going to be drafted. This was the time when the war was just starting to gear up and draft boards in Oklahoma were going through and basically they were pulling all the black males' names and they were sending them draft notices. And they did that to me toward the end of the first semester‚at Grinnell. Even though I had registered and I was in school‚ you had to flunk out of school then to lose that deferment classification. But they sent me a 1-A notice and so my father was real upset that he would not be able to stop that from happening and he wanted me to do something to assure that I'd be guaranteed to be able to finish school. So really really arm twisted me into A) staying in Grinnell and B) enrolling in ROTC. So when I was a second semester freshman I took or whatever‚ you sign up and you take that Reserve commission. So I took this Reserve commission in ROTC so I was in ROTC for my very first year. So that got me out of the draft entirely.

Yeager: Was it a misunderstanding or couldn't you get out of it? You were in school and you were covered.

Farbes: Well‚ I should have been. Well‚ what I should have done is pursue it but you have to realize I was a freshman in college and my father's fear is that it wouldn't make any difference who was right or wrong. I was black‚ he was black and he knew what happened to black people in Oklahoma and he didn't want me to go to Vietnam and get shot. And what he said to me was‚ “Look‚ do you want to stay in school or not and if you want to stay in school‚ don't drop your affiliation with the school you're in now and get in ROTC so you won't get drafted.“ Eventually that's what I did. I think he was wrong in doing that as I look back on it because I had every right not to be in ROTC and I hated ROTC.

Yeager: Can you tell‚ I'm curious about your concerns at Grinnell. How aware were you of the national events that were going on at the time you were at Grinnell? Like civil rights itself.

Farbes: I was very much aware of what was going on with the civil rights movement primarily because I had been in the setting since the 8th grade where I was very much sensitized to that. I had been basically the only black person in a white world in the deep South and I was involved in a minor way in demonstration activities in high school. And so the trend of what was happening in the country‚ first the violent resistance in the south and the violent response to it by blacks in big cities all over the country‚ I was very much aware of. I was very much aware that Grinnell was a way‚ way long way from that. The only real contact I had when I was a freshman with the outside world impinging on Grinnell was when I went into town. It's interesting to me‚ I've talked to other people who are here for this conference; I've talked to other Black Alumni from Grinnell who did not have the same experience that I and many other people who were in this school when I was here did with the town. There was a great hostility to students in general and to minorities in particular‚ in part probably because they were just visible students‚ in the town. Because I had spent so much of my life in situations where I had to gauge whether white people were hostile to me or not. I knew when they were hostile to me and I knew there was hostility in the town and I was afraid to go into the town.

Yeager: How did you feel out the hostility? Was is of a direct nature or was it more subtle? How was it when you walked into town?

Farbes: It was both. An incident that I remember‚ which is not an incident at all but it was one of the first few weeks that I was here. I was a real Jazz record buff as much as I could be from Oklahoma 'cause I'd have to order the records but I went into town the first week to look around and see if there were any discount stores that sold records. Normally‚ what would happen in Oklahoma was nobody listened to Jazz so if you went to a discount store you could always find the Jazz records for 25¢. Even the brand new ones 'cause they would order them by the mistake and nobody would buy them. So I figured it would be the same in Grinnell. I went in to a store to look for cheap records and the people in this store watched me the whole time I was in there. I can't remember the name-it was a little Gibson Discount store that used to be downtown. I had that happen to me in Oklahoma. Black people get watched wherever they go‚ and it wasn't that I was being watched because I was going to steal something because I probably didn't‚ back then I didn't know whether I did or not but knowing now what I know about the way I appeared. I was a real scholarly looking person. I know I didn't look like I was going to steal something. It was just that‚ for reasons I don't know‚ but people suspected blacks. Blacks were causing all kinds of trouble everywhere and I get the impression that that's maybe what was behind it. I felt like I was being watched all the time. I knew it wasn't my imagination because I knew enough about inter-racial relationships by then to be able to tell when things were curiosity and when they were hostility and I just felt it was hostility. And I had some actual clashes with people‚ white men drive down the street and yell racial slurs at me as I was walking downtown. I had somebody throw a bottle at me once. This was all when I was a freshman‚ it was the first time I was here and I was all by myself basically. I didn't know very many other black students on the campus. Back then there was no black organization on campus and the black students here were like I was‚ they came here to get a good education and they didn't necessarily come here to group together and be black. I made friends with them more or less the same way I made friends with white students. There clearly is a common experience that some blacks are more willing to acknowledge than others. It is not the kind of setting that you have now where there is the Cultural Center for blacks to go and participate in their own background and not have to ... It's interesting I was talking to a woman who graduated in '61 and she said it was so hard to play a role all the time and that's what I was going when I came here. Of course‚ I was used to it‚ but it was playing a role 24 hours a day or at lest all the time that I was in a setting where I was the only black person.

Yeager: Playing a role or being yourself?

Farbes: Playing a role in the sense that at least for me‚ and I was still a child in a way. I was still finding my personality‚ I was always kind of on guard when I was by myself in a group of whites. Not in the sense that I dislike people or couldn't get along but their background was not the same as mine and it took time for me to get to know an individual white person enough that I could really feel at home with them. I'm really talking to you now about the first semester I was here. I didn't have that much time and a lot of time I spent b1ith my roommates was sort of joined misery rather than getting to know each other as I really wasn't close to anybody and I was just generally miserable.

Yeager: When you moved to Oklahoma from another part of Oklahoma‚ did you leave all your friends behind you? Well. I guess you did. Did you keep in contact with them?

Farbes: No I didn't. I did not keep in contact with them. It is really a long distance. it's about 150 miles and I went from an all black school to an all white school and I was too far away to have any contact with my friends from before. I made new friends. Yes‚ close friends.

Yeager: White friends?

Farbes: I would say I only had one person that would have considered my friend who was white in high school. A friend being someone who's really close to you. But I had a lot of black friends because the number of black students continually increased. In my high school‚ there were five when I started and there were‚ I had a graduating class of 270 and maybe there were 75 blacks.

Yeager: I want to clear that up because when you get to Grinnell. I'm just worried that in your high school experience you were isolated‚ you can almost un-sensitize yourself to needing friends and you really do need them but you get used to being alone.

Farbes: So‚ I was by no means alone in the sense that I didn't have friends at all. I was alone in the sense that I remained‚ in high school I was without question the highest ranking black student in the whole school and so the classes I took‚ for example‚ I took physics and accelerated mathematics and that sort of thing. And I was the only black person in those classes. I had black friends and I was involved with sports. track and cross country‚ but my affiliations were school affiliations as a black person in a predominately white environment. I coped with that well‚ but I didn't necessarily form close friendships with a whole lot of white people.

Yeager: By the time you had finished your first semester at Grinnell or after your first year at Grinnell had you started to form friendships with ...

Farbes: I think I had‚ I definitely had. The second semester I was a lot different than the first. That happened‚ in part I talked to you about all these things that happened to me the first semester‚ everything was so bad. When! came back I stopped working. I used to study all the time‚ literally I would study from the time I woke up till the time I went to bed at night‚ with the exception of-the times I played IM. whatever sport I was playing. Pfitsch would try and get me to cross-country run‚ but I didn't run because I didn't want to take away from studying. I wanted to study all the time. But after the first semester‚ I was so disgusted and I was so down when I came back‚ I di dn I t want to be here and I just quite doing anything. I did much better that semester academically because I was over studying and that was what was wrong. I was working too hard. and psychologically I was not allowing myself to do what I could do because I was working too hard. So my grades went way up‚ I think I got A's the second semester I was here. But I spent a substantial part of the time just hanging around the Forum and I enjoyed myself a lot more. I went out on dates. I got more socially acclimated and I started to like the school. I can remember very clearly when I went back home at Christmas I wanted to stay home; but when I went back home for the summer I missed the school. I was surprised at this because of the way things had gone the first semester. But I missed it and I had enjoyed it and I was going to go back. I had talked so much about wanting to leave that after I got into ROTC I could leave Grinnell if I wanted to and I sort of half-heartedly looked into transferring. But I really didn't want to do it after the first year. It was a strange time because I told you I had three roommates and one of the guys in the room left. He was so depressed and we just sort of fed off of each other and sort of made it worse. I stayed around them all the time and all they ever did was study and moan about how terrible it was and we really hurt each other. The second semester I was still in the same room and there was only three of us and one of the three‚ the guy from the little town in Iowa‚ was just a real weird guy. He was one of these guys from a fairly wealthy family‚ his father was a lawyer and he was a very talented person but he was something of an antisocial person. And he really didn't do much of anything‚ not that he studied all the time 'cause I don't think he really did that‚ but he didn't participate in athletics like I and the other two guys had. Not to the extent we did‚ though. He would go out and play with us. The guy from Illinois was a basketball fanatic and he carried the basketball to bed with him‚ the basketball served as a replacement to him for women for about three years and he was an absolute athletic nut. He spent all his time that he wasn't studying in the gym‚ and I would spend time with him. Eventually‚ I sort of drew away from the guy from Iowa‚ even the first year. I spent a lot of time with Muller‚ who was the guy from Illinois‚ and I started spending time with other people. I started going to the Forum and I started playing cards and going to dances and not staying in the room the way those guys had. And so I eventually started to move away from both of them. The guy from Iowa for a lot of reasons and the guy from Illinois because he was a lot more narrow than I was. I started to make other friends‚ friends in the hall.

Yeager: Black or white students?

Farbes: Well‚ there was only one other black student in the hall‚ a guy named Lou Kelly in North Younker Hall so the friends in the hall were all white students. I got to know other black students on the campus and I started spending more time with them and as you alluded to there was lots of things going on outside of Grinnell that as I got to know other black students we would spend time talking about it. Even though we were here there were things that affected us and we were aware of them. And the college on its own every now and then would bring in people who would reflect their awareness of the turmoil of what was going on outside. The name of the guy who coauthored Black Power with Stokely Carmichael? He came to Grinnell-the name will come to me. Anyway he was fairly well known to us. Black Power was a book that a lot of people were reading. I remember I read it when I went home the summer between my freshman and sophomore year. My mother was working for the Urban League and she was very much involved in all the things that were happening. A lot of those things were bad in Oklahoma. Far more than seeing the rage or reaction of blacks‚ we were seeing the greater repression of things on the part of the white majority. I was very much aware of those kinds of things that were going on. I was able to not deal with them except on an intellectual plane at Grinnell because if you did not go to town it didn't affect you. Eventually what happened at Grinnell was the town imposed itself on us and that in part was the reason for the formation of the organization.

Yeager: You were really not organized before that point?

Farbes: Not before that. There wasn't any organization. Marilyn Grey was here and I can remember. I didn't even talk to her. I saw her but I didn't even talk to her until the latter part of the second semester of my first year when I hung around the Forum enough that I finally went over and got into a conversation with her over something. But there were a lot of black students here that I had no contact with at first. That was siqnificant because there were a lot of black students that I did talk to primarily because they were out-going. I wasn't necessarily an out-going person. I was a quiet person. I'd talk if people talked to me. Over the first year‚ the second semester I started to feel a lot more comfortable with the school generally. I started to get involved with a lot of other things at the school. I got involved with a political club for the first time. and that was toward the end of my freshman year and I did it through my sophomore year. It was the young Democrats. I got involved with mock political conventions. After I got my first C in math‚ I decided that I really wasn't going to be a math or science major so I started taking political science courses. I took one the second semester of my freshman year and I really liked it so I took a whole bunch of political science courses‚ took some history courses‚ and I was really doing more things that I was interested in. I was enjoying myself a lot more and my academic direction also made me more sensitive as well to things that were going on outside.

Yeager: Since you lived in Oklahoma City did you have any difficulty in adjusting to Grinnell's rural setting?

Farbes: No‚ not at all. As I told you I spent a lot of time during the summers when I was growing up on a farm. I am in a way from a rural background so I like it. I liked the open space and clean air and I was able to walk when I wanted to walk. There are some black people from large cities. although I think it's something of a misnomer‚ Black people like to say because it was sort of the “in“ thing to say that everybody is from an urban area. But most blacks are really from a rural background originally. or their parents are from those s1 ave roots and they are from the south‚ and from some farm setting. I have immediate contacts with that so I liked that and it didn't bother me.

Yeager: How many black students were attending Grinnell when you came? Can you remember‚ it was one of the larger numbers.

Farbes: I've been looking at the statistics there. I do not remember myself. I came here in '65 and left in '69.

Yeager: Frank Thomas had suggested to me that there were 20 or 30 or maybe 40 by the time he graduated in '71. Did he graduate in '71? Well‚ that not's true. I see there were 66 in 1971‚ 60 in 1970‚ so there must have been a good number here then or what you would consider a good number for Grinnell.

Farbes: I guess there were a fairly large number in my class which was '65 and in the class behind me which was '66. It's hard for me to remember the numbers very well‚ but it seems to me that there were a dozen black students in my class. There may have been two or three more. There were at least that many behind me in the class of 166 and in '67. I think there were substantially more than that because I remember us talking about how many. That was during the time we had started trying to get involved in the admissions process. In 168 there were definitely lots more. The numbers were increasing during the years during the years I was in school.

Yeager: What kind of interaction did you have with these black students?

Farbes: The interaction for me became far more intense and pronounced in 1967. It was the end of my sophomore year and into my junior year that Concerned Black Students was formed.

Yeager: Can you talk a little more about the formation of the CBS‚ and the activities you were involved in?

Farbes: I have to say to you that my recollections are vague and they are vague because it was an era rather than a specific incident or two that caused what happened. The era was a function of what I talked to you about with the town. What happened is the numbers of black students increased and the outside events that black people were involved in; the riots‚ all kinds of uprisings‚ the reaction by the Federal Government which was perceived I think by many as coddling blacks rather than cracking down on them when they were burning things up‚ all those things sort of came together at the same time and we had incredible clashes in the town. Incidents where people were almost run down by cars‚ fists fights in the streets‚ bottles and cigarettes being thrown. I can't remember any incident that involved an other person than myself that I could identify for you but I can tell you many black students told me that they were in bars when many of these things happened. Probably they shouldn't have been in the bars anyway‚ but then all the white students were in the bars and they never had it happen to them. They would go to a bar and there would be some big incident. And there clearly was a ringleader named Jim Slibiska (phonetic spelling) for a group of young white guys in town who were always causing that kind of problem. Concerned Black Students was really formed in response to what we felt was really more than we could take from attacks in the town. A couple of incidents were talked about and people decided that we've got to do something and we have to form the organization and demand the administration do something to stop us being harassed. We've got a right to be students here just like everybody else. And that was the primary reason the organization was formed. It gained impetus frankly by the events outside the school. When Dr. King was killed it had an incredible impact on the black students. I'm sure it had an incredible impact on the whole nation‚ but what happened was it probably coalesced in many people's minds the threat to us. It was almost like if they could shoot him they're going to shoot us. They're throwing bottles at us now but next time they are going to shoot us. People really went into a fort mentality for a little while. And when I say that you have to recognize these are the same people who didn't even have an organization when I first came here. We didn't really join with each other just because we wer black. It really was the circumstances outside the school and outside our own lives that caused enough fear on our parts that people felt they had to band together. It was that‚ that allowed one person to talk for all of us. I was the first president of CBS and I made a lot of statements on behalf of all the black students.

Yeager: Did you feel at all bashful about that?

Farbes: No. I didn't feel uncomfortable about it at all. I can remember talking to a number of people ‚Frank being one of them‚ about whether that was a problem. You know‚ how I could speak for everyone else. But that wasn't the sort of thing that concerned us then. We had too many concerns about what was happening to us from day to day to worry that the spokesman was saying things differently than maybe some individual would have said then. And there was not any dissension in CBS the first year it was formed.

Yeager: Were all the black students at Grinnell involved in this?

Farbes: I can not remember it clearly enough to tell you if everybody was at every meeting. What I can tell you is there wasn't any question that every black students supported what was going on. There were a lot of things that happened that highlighted and appeared to focus upon the power of CBS. For example‚ after Dr. King was killed they declared a moratorium on classes and Marilyn and I and‚ I can't remember if Frank did it or not‚ I can't remember who the other officers were then‚ but we were constantly in demand to speak to people. I spoke at Herrick Chapel. I spoke on the lawn. I spoke to the town. I spoke to the town. I spoke to everybody about what the problems were. People were upset generally because they had heard our complaints and they‚ I think the white population‚ the majority of the town‚ didn't want to be perceived as people who were attacking blacks. So they wanted to know what they could do about the problem we all had and we spent an awful long time talking about that‚ that year. And the news‚ not that much happened of this sort in Iowa and Grinnell then that wasn't perceived- I don't know if it is still perceived that way but it was then perceived as the work of a radical hot bed in Iowa. And when we formed CBS we issued a press release and I can still remember the TV cameras from Chicago came out here. They lined me and Frank and some other people up in the Forum and they had they TV lights on and they were interviewing us in there. I can't remember what they asked me; whatever it was it got me an FBS file 'cause I found out later on that I have an FBI file as a student radical. I certainly didn't think I was being a radical but the circumstances that year-I'm just sort of trying to paint an image for you‚ because an image is all that remains in my mind‚ of hostility and turmoil. Hostility certainly on the part of some black students‚ certainly of a whole lot of fear and a lot of difficulty in coping and communicating as between black students and a part of the white community of the college and certainly the people in the town. I can remember a couple of meetings where faculty members and CBS members and some white students had these meetings where we were supposed to resolve these problems with the town. We'd have meetings with the police chief and a lot of those things were real tense‚ hostile situations where I think some of the people in town felt they were being unjustly accused of doing things and we felt people weren't willing to believe what we were saying just because it was us saying it. There was a lot of tension and a lot of difficulty in trying to address what was really the problem that grew out of a few individuals. As I look back on it and the longer I have had to reflect on it‚ it certainly is my opinion that there were not more than a dozen white people in the town who were causing the whole thing.

Yeager: How many black students were affected by the whole thing‚ these actions? A good majority of students?

Farbes: I would think all of the black students on campus were affected. I know that all the black students on campus were involved in all the things that went on after King's death and the sort of turmoil that revolved around that and it went on for over a year-repercussions of it did.

Yeager: Do you remember how white students were reacting to the increase in the number of black students? Was it a negative response or a positive response?

Farbes: I don't think it was either one. You'd have to be in a position to have perspective to see an increased number over time before you could see it as a problem or not being a problem or whatever. I don't think it was a drastic increase by any means and of course most white students I think probably expected they would see some blacks at Grinnell. They had some‚more or less‚experience with them in the past. The white students that I was more familiar with were the ones I had gone to school with. And so if they knew me they obviously knew some black person.

Yeager: Did you feel that most white students had not had previous experiences with black students?

Farbes: A lot of them hadn't. It's funny‚ part of the benefit of coming to Grinnell if you desire to do it and you're willing to make the personal commitment is you can deal with people as people. Some people are more or less capable of attempting to solve their ignorance about another race. There are some people who could talk to me about that and wouldn't offend me at all and there are other people that could offend me a whole lot‚ just by the way they did it even if their motivation is the same. Even if it was innocent and just curiosity. What we did a lot as young people was to try and deal with ourselves on the extent with which we were going to try and educate white students. And there were a lot of white students with very good intentions wanting to know more about what bothered black students and black people in general‚ and what the problems were as we perceived them and what they could do either to help or to be involved in what we were doing. There was a big discussion about whether white students should be allowed to be included in CBS and we had a vote on it and the vote was they could not be included. I made a motion that we ought to encourage them to form some sort of parallel group so they did. They formed the Concerned White Students or some name like that‚ and it didn't last very long. Their purpose was to sort of work parallel with us. As for the organization started‚ we started moving what is now the Black Cultural Events program here. The school committed some money for us to have speakers come in and have events that reflected our ethnic experience and would in fact serve as educational elements for white students who were at Grinnell. The CWS worked with us on it. I don 1t know‚ that's funny‚ I haven't thought about that for a long time. I don't know how long the organization lasted but I think it was reflective of the anxiety and‚ I think‚ hope on the part of a whole lost of people‚ both black and white that there was going to be a resolution rrf the problem. I don't think the resolution of the problem was anywhere close to being in our hands but we though it might be so we spent a lot of time working on it. You have to recognize as well that that was a time of great big issues. The anti-war movement was heating to the boiling point and I was in a curious position in that because I was still in ROTC. To my credit I can say that I did such a good job of avoiding any affiliation with ROTC even though I was legally committed to it for the whole time I was in. That last year I was in ROTC I was the Corp commander‚ so I got to schedule everything. I used to schedule things at a time when none of the other students would be around. Like for example‚ the weekly marching activities I would schedule at 12:00 noon and that was the only time when lunch was scheduled at 11:45 to 11:15 and so I'd make all the rest of the corp miss lunch. So we'd march and then I'd go back and change my uniform‚ get out of it and nobody would know I'd been in it. When I graduated lots of people didn't even know that I was in ROTC. I had to wear the uniform to some early morning event where I got some scholarship or something and people were surprised I was in it. But I didn't like the military primarily because I felt I didn't have any choice in being involved in it. It was a situation that came up.

Yeager: Were you very much against the war?

Farbes: I was not very much against war in the sense I had some philosophical opposition to it. I guess what I didn't like about the Vietnam War was I had a lot of friends from high school who were killed in the war. I had a hard time understanding why we were getting killed. Wasn't so much I was opposed to Lyndon Johnson because he dropped bombs or because I'm necessarily of the belief that you don't have to drop bombs to maintain your independence and integrity as a whole nation‚ but I couldn't understand why we were doing it over there. It just didn't make any sense to me. lots of people objected to that stuff by trying to burn down the ROTC building or throwing ROTC off of campus. I didn't necessarily think that was they way to approach it‚ but on the other hand‚ I didn't want to be involved in the war. It didn't bother me if somebody else made a choice to do that‚ but I didn't want to do that and I didn't understand why people that I knew who didn't want to go over there ended up getting killed. That was sort of my approach to that.

Yeager: What kind of social interaction took place between white students and black students? Frank Thomas married a white woman; he told me generally about social interaction between the races. Can you tell me about your own experiences‚ your own perceptions?

Farbes: First of all‚ I interacted with people on sort of a friendship basis. I had white friends who were both male and female but I didn't date; I did not do any interracial dating for a long time. I did when I was a senior. But not before and the primary reason I didn't came out of where I'm from. I'm from the deep South-that was taboo. And I never really broke free of that white I was here‚ I really didn't. I did go out with a particular white woman when I was a senior and I went out with her for maybe the last semester I was here but we never got close enough to each other and the primary reason was I could never get past that taboo. It always seemed to me there was too much danger involved in that‚ for me and for her. Danger of what the real world was like. And that's one of the instances where it was always apparent to me that Grinnell was very much an isolate enclave. Maybe that was highlighted by the experiences I always had with the town. It seemed to me you invited attack if you went into the town with a white woman and in fact that's what happened. I don't know if Frank told you this but it actually happened to me. When I was a senior on ny 21st birthday we went to the Rex. And when I say we‚ Tom Thomas who was the former president of the SGA‚ and was a white guy and Frank and three white women and I cannot remember the names‚ but one of them was the woman I was going out with. Barbara Roach. What happened was that Slibiska and his group came in to the Rex while we were in there. And first they started sort of making racial slurs at the bar and then I got up to go to the john and they followed me into the john and sort of cornered me in the john and mumbled about how they were going to mop up the floor with me. I can remember consciously avoiding saying anything. I don't think I ever said anything to them when I was in the john. I walked out of the john and sat back down. I can remember saying to Frank‚ “I think we're going to have to leave here.“ And by the time I did that a couple of them came into the booth behind us and either acted as if they were going to grab me or something and I jumped up and grabbed a bottle and I guess I looked like I was going to hit one of them with the bottle. Frank stood up and grabbed a bottle too because I saw him out of the corner of my eye. Slibiska was a real big guy‚ he was 6'5 and about 250 pounds.

Yeager: Is he sort of the KKK type?

Farbes: He was sort of.

Yeager: Is he still here?

Farbes: He couldn't he. I'm pretty sure he isn't. He was eventually run out of town. He was kind of a general trouble-maker‚ and eventually the local police decided that it was just better if they hounded him until he left and I think that is what eventually happened. But he had gotten into any number of fights before this time it happened with me. There were five of these guys and two of us and Tom Thomas who is not a very big guy either‚ and Tom was looking for some way to get out of the bar. What happened was the bartender threw us out. I remember standing up and turning around to face these two guys and I did have a bottle in my hand and Frank‚ I said I saw Frank grab a bottle‚ and the next thing I remember all these other people were grabbing me. At first I thought it was Slibiska‚ but when I turned around I could see it wasn't. It was the bartender‚ and he grabbed me and somebody else in the bar grabbed me and they threw me out of the bar. The way it looked Tom then was they were jumping on me; here these other guys were starting a fight and they throw me out of the bar. That was an example of how even as a senior the thing was continuing. And when I was a senior I was no longer president of CBS it was a one year thing and the new president was elected the end of junior year. The setting of the enclave of the college‚ surrounded by a hostile community‚ was always my perception while I was here. While I had positive experiences with the people of the college campus‚ I was able to communicate with them and had substantial social interaction with them; not necessarily a whole lot of dating interaction although I had that too‚ it was always the college here and things on the outside being bad. It really did remain that way all the way up till the time I graduated.

Yeager: Were you a member of Martin Luther King's group or were you influenced by Malcolm X or by some of these other groups?

Farbes: I was very much influenced by Malcolm X's book; obviously I didn't have any contact with him.

Yeager: The autobiography?

Farbes: The autobiography and that was before he died. My mother met Malcolm X. I spent a lot of time talking with her between my sophomore and junior year because she was an Urban League official‚ she went somewhere and she loved seeing him speak and she was very much affected by seeing him and by‚ and she was very much drawn to his philosophy and seriously talked for a time about becoming a Bleak Muslim. So we had a lot of discussion within the family about that. Very frankly‚ I was not-I was close to Dr. King earlier in his career 'cause I was involved when I was in high school with the NAACP and the SCLC. I was a member of both of those. Dr. King started to expand his crusade‚ he started to talk about poor people in general rather than blacks‚ other minorities rather than blacks‚ he eventually started a campaign against the war and I didn't agree that he should have done that. I thought he should have continued to focus his attention on black people alone. And that was one of the reasons that it disturbed me that he was killed. I really saw him as someone who was not a threat. If they were going to shoot anybody‚ shoot Malcolm X or Stokely Carmichael or Brown or some of those people. That's what bothered a lot of black people‚ that Martin Luther King was seen as a moderate and a person who was trying to bring about peace and he was the one who died. So during that period I was very much influenced by those groups. I didn't become a Black Muslim because a lot of the stuff that Elijah Munhammed said was just absolute horse shit. And that was the reason my mother didn't do what she had planned to do because when you really looked into what those people were saying‚ Malcolm X was there and he was a charismatic person and he had a lot ot say but what he was selling was just baloney.

Yeager: It must have been incredibly captivating for someone like your mother who's a professional in nature to be caught up in this.

Farbes: Sure‚ and eventually he left the Muslims and then that was the reason he was killed. There was no active group like those Muslims on campus‚ there was no SCLC group on campus. Martin Luther King came here and gave a very stirring presentation. I was here then. Andrew Young came here and stayed in my room and spent three or four days with us and this was before he became nationally known. This was when he was one of Dr. King's lieutenants. We had a guy from Omaha‚ Neb. who was kind of a local black leader who came here a couple of times and really helped us a lot‚ after the formation of CBS. He talked to us about things he saw happening to blacks generally in his community and what he saw of national incidents‚ issues and what. And we had a lot of black personalities‚ Ron Karenga‚ Jessie Jackson was here‚ and so there was a lot of that going on. We had a lot of contact with that stuff and because of my own family's orientation and of the way events were affecting me I was involved intellectually with a lot of it and was involved the whole time. When I want back home between my junior and senior year I was kind of the ringleader of a group that formed‚ and it was an inter-racial group-that formed an opposition party to George Wallace's campaign in Oklahoma. He really swept the state that year but he had a number of personal appearances that we went to and boycotted. That affected me a lot. The woman that I eventually married I met through my involvement in that. So I was involved the whole time‚ I was just not necessarily involved with anything that would be considered radical on this campus. This campus I just considered someplace that I went to school. I was just part of the school and yet had to be trying to cope myself with all these things that were affecting me.

Yeager: You were not isolated at Grinnell? You didn't feel that Grinnell was different than what was going on. Frank told me that when he was at Grinnell he felt that things weren't happening to black people at Grinnell as much as they were in the south. He was talking about a little bit earlier like 1967.

Farbes: It's certainly true that when you were here you were not‚ you were insulated from events that were going on around you but then we all knew that when we came here. In part‚ I think people who come to Grinnell‚ and this is not just blacks but students generally‚ are people who if they have a choice come here because they desire this kind of an educational approach and they do that because in many instances they are independently minded. Just because everybody else wants to go to the state schools‚ just because everybody else think you ought to go to an Ivy league school is not a reason to go if you have your own mind and you make your own decisions. My impression is that a lot of people who come here are like that. Very often they are capable of saying look I want to do it this way and so I'm going to do it different than everybody else. So the fact that we are insulated was not something that people should not have expected. There were‚ and this is my opinion‚ a number of blacks who came here towards the end of the time that l was here who perhaps did not know what Grinnell was like before they came here; therefore they were disappointed they weren't next to a town where they could go out and participate in what was going on. I can understand that‚ but that was probably the‚reason why they shouldn't have come to Grinnell. It wasn't a reason to turn Grinnell into a Chicago because you can't do that. You can be as involved as you want to be and I think I remained pretty much involved with the recognition that I was insulated.

Yeager: Several white students participated in civil rights activities‚ freedom rights‚ going during the summers down south‚ what was your opinion of so called white liberals taking part in civil rights activities? Did you think that it was great‚ did you look at it skeptically‚ how did you look at their activities?

Farbes: I guess I would have ta say I would be skeptical of the motives of a white person who got involved in those kinds of activities but that is not to say I did not meet many white people who did that who were sincere. It requires either a substantial commitment or crazed attitude towards life‚ if you are someone who's not threatened by physical violence or an aura of racial violence but voluntarily put yourself in the position unnecessarily to be threatened. It either means you're very sincere or you have some ulterior motive for doing it‚ and I would be suspicious initially that someone had an ulterior motive for taking a freedom ride if they were white because they didn't have to do it. I met a lot of people because I was involved in some fo those groups who did that just because they believed that was wrong to suppress the freedom of other people‚ and I had a lot of respect for those people and I think they ...

Yeager: Did most blacks on campus feel this way?

Farbes: I wouldn't be able to tell you what most people thought. It would depend on part if they had contact with those people and there are a number of blacks who came to Grinnell who I don't think had very much contact when they were aware from Grinnell with the realities of at lest a repressive society. Because a lot of black people came here from an upper middle class black family background in Chicago. I think I couldn't tell you what everybody else thought. That wasn't something that we necessarily discussed. There was a general opinion among a group of blacks that whites should not be involved in the civil rights movement-that it ought to be an exclusive black effort. The black power movement became sort of the slang phrase for that‚ “Black Power“ meaning the exclusion of whites. There certainly was a period where that was pre-eminent event on this campus.

Yeager: Were you involved in international activities? They have had over the years international students' organizations. The reason I ask that‚ throughout the 1960's a lot of African nations were starting to gain their independence and people are starting to look at negro culture as a pan-African idea.

Farbes: The Pan-African concept was not very much in evidence on the Grinnell campus‚ in part because American Blacks here were not as aware of Pan- Africanism as they should have been. I was probably one of them‚ certainly early on when I was at Grinnell because there were‚ John DeMartone. for example‚ who was a student from West Africa who was in my class who I never really got to know very well‚ and only got to know somewhat in my last year in school when I became more aware of what my Pan-African ties should have been. And he did not make a great effort to talk to me. He came here to learn and he never intended to stay in this country‚ he intended to go back to his own country and in part we were as much different‚ in a way we were as much different as I was from a white student. We had entirely different backgrounds. We simply had a basis for communication that when we explored it was deeper and broader than what I had as a basis for communication with a white student. And we did not carry that as far as we should have. I had a lot more contact with Pan-African ideas and people who advocated those ideas when I was in law school. I was in law school from '69 to '72 at Yale. I eventually made it to Yale.

Yeager: One more question‚ I wanted to ask you; you said several times that you were happy at Grinnell‚ when you look back over the years what was the best thing you liked about Grinnell and what was the thing you liked least about Grinnell?

Farbes: The thing I liked least about Grinnell I guess was the relatively small number of black women and in part that was my problem because as I said I had a real difficulty in crossing racial lines and dating in cross-racial lines‚ which I really should not have had. It was a function of my upbringing. And my belief that there was a real danger there‚ that I had to be careful of. Time has caused me to forget some of the things that I thought were real bad. An example of that would have been not having enough dances where I could go to dance and meet new people‚ not having enough events‚ at least initially‚ where things occurred that I was really interested in‚ that were related to my background. I can vividly remember the first time we had a dance where I thought we had a worthwhile entertainer. It was Booker T. and the Mg's and we thought that was just terrific. We waited for two months for them to come and we went backstage and got to meet all of them. Of course out of the response of the college to what happened during the time I was here‚ we had a lot more of that kind of thing go on during the later years when I was at Grinnell. And that was part of the reason I enjoyed it more. I can't think of anything that I intensely dis1ike now except for rny first semester which was as much my fault as it was the school's. The thing I liked most about Grinnell was‚ given my experience with other educational institutions‚ it was a place where there was a real opportunity to deal with people as individuals. As much as we talk now and you probably hear me talk about the problems of communicating with individuals‚ I saw far more opportunity here‚ if people made the effort‚ to get to know someone and get to know them as an individual and learn from their experiences. The people here are smart people‚ learn from their experiences and benefit from them. That opportunity is much greater here than it is at Yale. There is far less of the economic class divisiveness that I saw at Yale‚ even between blacks. Yale is an Ivy League eastern school with all the trappings of what that portends for individuals. It is difficult to cross those class lines whether you're going black to black or white to black or black to whatever‚ and that's not true here. This is a school where they very high quality educational program actually gives access to a variety of information and access to a variety of people without those kinds of lines‚ and without those kinds of constraints that an Ivy League system places on you. I had real problems with a lot of people that I dealt with at Yale‚ believing that they v1ere better than I was because they were from the east and I was from the west‚ because they went to a private school and I went to a public school. The socio-economic class structural problems are far more evident I think for people on the east coast.

Yeager: That was pretty much all that I want to ask you other than that was there a black or white autMor that had a great influence on you during the times you were at Grinnell?

Farbes: I'd have to say I don't remember a single person‚ I don't remember a single author. If you are talking about individuals who were here at Grinnell who had a great influence on me. Dean Wall had a great influence on me‚ as did Al Jones and I was influenced by a lot of individual students‚ whose names I won't go into‚ not necessarily because they were models for me but because I learned a lot from them whether they knew it or not.