Two weeks ago, Mercer celebrated Founder’s Day, a day celebrating Jesse Mercer founding this beloved school. This year’s ceremony was different. This year the school has been celebrating fifty years of integration on Mercer’s campus. The editor of the Mercer Cluster, the campus newspaper, in 1963, the year of integration, Bob Hurt was the keynote speaker. He regaled the audience with tales of the things he experienced here at Mercer, namely integration.
The ceremony commenced with Dean Pearson giving background of Founder’s Day. According to the SGA Mercer Heritage page, “Founders’ Day is an annual event in which Mercer invites a prominent alum back to the University to share how Mercer has influenced his life. It’s a time where students, faculty, and alum can all gather to celebrate Mercer’s history and gain insight into Mercer’s past.” There were several alumni in attendance, including professors, many of whom attended Mercer. They all had on their formal regalia, and carried themselves with a prominence that you do not see every day. During Founder’s Day, it was easy to see how proud of the University everyone is. Founder’s Day is a celebration. Dean Pearson said, “Founder’s Day is about connections. It’s about embracing the past and embracing the future.” Guest speaker Bob Hurt expanded on that idea during his speech.
Victoria Conley introduced the audience to Bob Hurt, a former Mercer student. He began working with the Cluster his freshman year, and became editor his junior year. He later became a correspondent for the Atlanta Constitution. He has worked for congress, and is very active in D.C. life today. He is a very important Mercer alumni, having documented and witnessed integration firsthand.
Throughout his speech, Hurt captivated the audience with humor, but he presented his story with the seriousness it deserved. He provided perspective on the Mercer of his day versus the Mercer of today. In the 1960s, there was a draft, there was mandatory chapel attendance three days a week, and tuition of his day was a fraction of tuition today. He set the stage well before he got into the real reason he was speaking. He was there to talk about the “bizarre racial climate” of the Mercer of the 1960s.
Bob Hurt said that his challenge of the day was trying to describe to the Mercer students of today how real segregation was. He told several anecdotes about racial relations in Macon and at Mercer. It was tense all over the South. Race was a hot-button issue. “Trouble was brewing. When I came to Mercer in 1961, the South was catching fire for the sheer injustice of racial prejudice,” Hurt said. He spoke about segregation with an obviously heavy heart. At one point he quoted an Alabama governor, George Wallace, and you could feel the silence in the room, as though it were an entity. You could feel the realization sweep over the crowd: this was real. This was real life. He quoted George Wallace directly, “‘No other son of a bitch will ever out nigger me again.’” After these powerful words, he paused so that the audience could feel the enormity of the issue set in. Wallace had lost the previous election for being “soft on integration.” He had been endorsed by the NAACP. Hurt said all of this to “give you a sense of the social, moral, and political turmoil that was smoldering right outside the border of Mercer campus.”
The speech went on for many more minutes, giving a more detailed account of the students’ integration. “Desegregation at Mercer would happen in the context of faith and human dignity. It was not just that Mercer would desegregate, but how,” Hurt said.
Looking back is the only way we can move forward. Bob Hurt gave a clear picture of how the Mercer University of the past became the Mercer University of today. Fifty years ago, the University became integrated, giving all people a chance to receive a Mercer education. The University became a “community of respect”, something Mercer holds dear to this day. No person is less than another anywhere, especially on Mercer grounds.