Watertown WI wanted Colored Leon Todd Out of Town

Watertown WI wanted Colored Leon Todd Out of Town
Memoirs Set lwt-nwc-001
Leon Todd

I arrived at my new college and went straight to my dorm room. I thought I was at home till I would graduated with a college degree 4 years hence. On the first night of dorm living I was asked to report to the dean's office. I thought nothing of the request, these notes were something that was part of the life of a new a freshman getting settled.

When I walked the short distance to the dean's office, after a short unconcerned stay in the outer office, I was invited into the Deans office. The dean asked me politely to be seated. I was dismayed with what I heard. The Dean told me my application to college was being challenged, and challenged by the mayor of the city; Watertown, WI. I was bewildered, what did the mayor have to do with my college stay I pondered.

The Dean indicated that the city had a old law that colored people could not stay over night in Watertown WI and that the college would have to challenge the law if I were to attend college. I asked if that was what the college intended to do if the city persisted in holding up the law as an objection to my attendance. It appeared neither the city nor the college wanted any trouble and we all knew what that meant.

I asked how long would I have to wait to know if I could attend college, at least this college. The dean said he did not know and would seek resolution as we all needed to know whether we were going to send Leon home.

After a few days the city attorney had become involved in an effort to see if a compromise could be reached. Changing the law did not seem to be an option, after all it was now a decade since Dr. Ralph Bunche became the first colored man to win the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize, after all it was only 5 years after the Warren Court Landmark Brown Decision; and it was now just 4 years after what was described as the brutal lynching of Chicago Youth, Emmett Till, for whistling at a white girl. Was the country now headed backward or just at a standstill. And maybe I couldn't go to the college of my choice, in the city of my choice, up North.

But a few days later the city, the college ala Leon Todd reached a decision based on the Doctrine of Separation of Church and State and concluded that because the college that I was seeking to attend was a parochial college as long as I stayed on campus, over night, I would have an Isle of Refuge on Northwestern College Campus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_African_American_Civil_Rights_Movement