A pleasant college academic year -- with a bomb

Our Southern years had been turbulent and, following those, a year in the Pacific Northwest had several successfully handled challenges on a number of worthwhile fronts.  We were glad to accept a good Sociology friend's suggestion that we fill in for her -- AY 1968-69 -- at Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa  while she took a year's sabbatical. (Her late husband, also an academic, had been a good friend of Jim Dombrowski and SCEF.)

So we did.  The academic year flowed normally for the first semester.  But when the second semester began with 1969, there were some interesting things.  A newly hired "manager" -- I can't recall the precise title -- unilaterally slashed the wages of the 33 maids and janitors at the college and jacked up their work loads.  My Social Conflict seminar immediately abandoned some of our purely academic stuff and began appropriate field work -- which quickly organized the workers into an independent union and, forthwith, affiliation with AFSCME [even though Coe is a private school.]  Though it took a little time and  growing student and faculty support, they secured a good contract. All of my seminar students got As, of course.

And at their request, I became the small Black Student Union's ad hoc advisor in a quickly successful campaign to get a Black cultural center. 

 I was able to help get an old friend to Coe as speaker, Floyd McKissick of CORE. The radical Southern poet, John Beecher and his spouse, Barbara, a fine artist, came for a visit with us and added much sparky spice to the college atmosphere.

And then there was this:  I was awakened close to midnight by a frantic student and informed that a very small group of students were planning to blow up the Coe administration building. (Campus security was extremely minimal.) In fact, the student told me breathlessly, they were on the actual scene with a bomb they'd constructed.  But a couple of kids were having second thoughts and sent the runner to bring me.  He and I got there very fast -- our home was only a couple of blocks from the campus --  and, upon arriving and finding the little entourage sitting under a couple of trees close to their target, I immediately took personal possession of the bomb and defanged it.  And then, in a big brotherly/seasoned activist fashion, I quietly read them the riot act.  I think they were all glad I'd come.  Swore everyone to absolute silence and secrecy and dumped the bomb in the Cedar River.

And then, before long, we were on the Chicago South/Southwest Side.  And there I occasionally kind of missed our tranquil academic year at Coe.

Hunter

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
and Ohkwari' 
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)
 
For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial Introduction by me:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
 
Our community organizing course:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
 
Personal Background Narrative (with many links):
http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm