In this exhibit you can explore the different phases of Solitude’s history. We begin during the period when this place was indigenous land, and go on to explore its history as a slave plantation in the nineteenth century.
FORGING A STUDENT COMMUNITY
For many, when asked to describe Virginia Tech, their answer is easy, “This is Home”. However, while Virginia Tech has served as a home away from home for thousands of students, many others came to campus to find feelings of isolation and alienation from their peers. Since Irving Peddrew became the first black student to enroll at Virginia Tech in 1953, black students have continually worked to turn Virginia Tech into the Home that they were promised on brochures, websites, and campus tours. In doing so, black students established their own organizations, carved out spaces on campus, and fostered a black community among Virginia Tech students.
Although Irving Peddrew III was the only black student enrolled at Virginia Tech in 1953, the roots of the first unofficial black student organization coincide with his arrival in Blacksburg. Original members of the group included local pastors Jerry Bonet and Ellison Smyth, Irving Peddrew III, local barber John Sears, Maryanne Matus, and several white students. While originally organized to study and find solutions to preserve education in the area amid Virginia’s campaign of massive resistance, the Council of Human Relations has continually evolved with the goal of “promoting better relations between the University administration, the campus community, and the black minority students on campus”
The Council remained a predominantly white organization throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but as more black students began matriculating to Tech and joining the organization in the late 1960s and 1970s, more and more white students began to leave it. Not only did the Council provide black students with opportunities to socialize in a group setting, but it also offered the first opportunity for black students to participate and lead an organization that was officially recognized by the University.
Human Relations Council, 1968 Bugle
Human Relations Council with Dick Gregory, 1971 "Black Week"
Human Relations Council in 1969 Bugle
Black Student Alliance in 1979 Bugle
In the early 1970s, many members of the Council were active in the campaign to end the playing of “Dixie” and use of the Confederate flag at sporting events. Additionally, the Council sponsored an annual “Black Week” where black culture was celebrated on campus. In 1978, the Council of Human Relations reorganized into the Black Student Alliance, which has since shifted its primary purpose from politics to programming. BSA is currently the largest black organization on campus and sponsors a variety of campus programs, including the Black Excellence Gala, movie nights, and annual concerts in Burrus Hall such as Kanye West, Gucci Mane, and most recently, Meghan Thee Stallion in 2019.
Black Student Alliance Logo
Black Student Alliance, 1980
Muhammad Ali vistis Groove Phi Groove, 1969
Members of Groove Phi Groove at a reunion in 2000
Groove Phi Groove, 1969
Groove Phi Groove, 1970
While the Council of Human Relations remained focused on achieving increased visibility and rights for black students on campus in the 60’s and 70’s, a second black organization with a more socially minded focus was founded. In the spring of 1968, James Darnell Watkins, Stan Harris, Dwight Crewe, Steve Pyles, Byron Rimm, and Larry Beale founded the Virginia Tech “Gobbler” Chapter of Groove Phi Groove Social Fellowship, Inc., a social fellowship organization started at Morgan State University in 1962.
After making a pact to transfer from Virginia Tech at the conclusion of their freshman year due Virginia Tech’s celebration of Dixie and the lack of diversity on campus, James Watkins attributes the founding of Groove Phi Groove as the reason he and 7 fellow black students remaining at Tech,
“The positive thing about it was nobody wanted to quit. No one really wanted to quit. They were just dissatisfied by some of the things that they found here. Now that we had Groove, we could have a little something that we felt like was our own, that we could identify with, and that made Tech important to us. We just built on that.”
Groove Phi Groove continued to grow in size throughout the 1970s, and their house on Jackson Street served as a vital place of congregation off campus for the increasing number of black students at Virginia Tech. Groove Phi Groove was instrumental in introducing black students to one another on campus. As Watkins recalls,
“I mean I would venture to guess I knew the mothers' name of most of the black students that were on campus, and you knew where everybody was from because you knew everybody. There were so few of us, it was easy enough to do that. At some point, they were going to pass through the Groove house.”
In addition to Groove Phi Groove, several black Greek organizations were founded at Virginia Tech in the 1970s. In 1973, a group of nine black students known as the “Fine Nine” founded the Theta Iota chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. The following year, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. became the first black sorority on campus. By the mid 1980s, six more black Greek organizations had been established at Virginia Tech. In the 1970s and early 80s, approximately 42% of Black students were members of one of these eight fraternities and sororities. When compared to the mere 8% of white students who were involved in Greek life, it becomes clear that these organizations offered Black students a support network that they, unlike their white peers, found difficult to find on campus.
In 1983, black Greek students held the first ever Overton R. Johnson Endowed Scholarship Step Competition, a stepping competition which raised scholarship funds in honor of Overton Johnson, Virginia Tech’s first black professor. This was the first institutionalized step competition on a college campus and is still held today.
Alpha Phi Alpha Sorority, Inc., Jefferson National Park, 1975
Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., chartered in 1979
Alpha Kappa Alpha became the first black sorority on campus in 1974
Alpha Kappa Alpha founding members, 1975
With numerous black organizations now on campus, the Black Organizations Council was founded in 1982 to serve as an umbrella organization for all the predominantly black organizations on campus, acting as a liaison between black undergraduates and the university administration.
This serves both as a reflection of the Universities increased enrollment of black students, as well as the need black students clearly still felt to foster communities separate from their white peers. Although black students were now at Tech in greater numbers than ever before, in terms of social interactions, Virginia Tech was still very much a segregated community.
Overton Johnson Step Competition, 2001
Overton Johnson Step Competition, 1995
Alpha Phi Alpha Step Show outside of Dietrick Hall
