Cobb Stresses ‘Double Gift’ in Black Students

Cal State Fullerton President Jewel Plummer Cobb, opening the college’s Black History Month observance, told a lunchtime crowd Tuesday that she was pleased to join them in acknowledging “how proud we are as black folks concerning our own rich and marvelous heritage.”

Speaking to several hundred people ringing a university patio, Cobb urged black students at the overwhelmingly white university to “make a very conscious attempt to learn a little more to add to your own body of knowledge about a culture which, in general, you are not exposed to in the normal walk of life.”

Only 550 of Cal State Fullerton’s 24,000 students are black.

Cobb cited two prominent figures in Afro-American history, historian W. E. B. Dubois and activist-entertainer Paul Robeson, both of whom attended predominantly white institutions in the early part of this century. She urged black students to learn from their experience because “you must be ready to take up the leadership.”

Imbued With ‘Double Consciousness’

Cobb quoted Dubois, who studied at Harvard, writing that black Americans are imbued with a “double consciousness,” having been “born with a veil and gifted with second sight.”

She asked the black students to consider that concept and “what it means for you in the 1980s” because “truly you are two citizens--two gifted hearts and minds in one body. Your legacy as a black and as an American is an overpowering state of double consciousness. I call upon you now to rally to that richness, that double gift.”

The theme of the monthlong celebration, sponsored by the Assn. of Afro-Ethnic Students, is “Together We Can Make It.” The activities will include a reggae concert today with the group Sunsplash, numerous lectures, an art exhibit, a fashion show, a gospel program, a lecture by former Rams football player Roosevelt Grier and an Ethel Waters film festival.

Before and after Cobb’s remarks, the Orisha Experimental Theater, an Afro-Cuban music-and-dance troupe, performed on the quad area, which was ringed with tables offering ethnic food and handicrafts.

Cobb told the racially mixed crowd that “we are at this university because we understand that education is the most important way for upward mobility and for service to all the people of America.”

Cobb recalled for the crowd that, during the 1960s, people were urged to choose between being part of the problem or part of the solution.

“I can easily regale you with all the injustices that beset our folks,” she said, “and all the past problems on campuses and the attitudes of the majority population, i.e., the white population in America, but we don’t have time for those complaints. Instead we have to get on with the solution.”

As students, white and black, she said, “you must be ready to take up the leadership you are now being educated for.”

The responsibility of leadership, Cobb said, is “in some ways a terrifying one, and yet a very exciting one in other ways.”