Say "Yes" to Fisk Fundraising Reception, April 21, 2012

Since 1866, Fisk University has seen its’ graduates impact our nation and the world across many fields; most notably medicine, arts and music, politics, public policy and even sports. Fisk continues to be highly respected for its’ academic programs as it is currently the #1 producer of African-Americans who obtain masters degrees in physics. However, despite this significant achievement and other academic success, our beloved university finds itself at a critical crossroad.

Unfortunately, the university is currently faced with declining enrollments, financial deficits, brand erosion and the prospect of losing its’ accreditation. While our alumni giving over the five-year period ending June 30, 2011 averaged $1, 070, 659.13, our 20 university trustees gave an average of $44, 428.78 over the same period, significantly dwarfing the amount each alumni gives on an annual basis. As friends of Fisk and people of good will we must do better!

Despite its academic record, Fisk has seen its student enrollment decline almost 58% since 2007 having at that time over 940 students, declining to 550 by the end of the 2011 school year. Yet, these challenges, while daunting, if seen through a different lens offer the institution, its’ future president, alumni and supporters the opportunity to truly transform Fisk University by re-inventing itself for the 21st century. But we must deal with our current situation first in order to begin anew. SACS, our accrediting body, is requiring us to raise $8.5M by June 30, 2012.

Our approach to addressing this critical moment in our history must be done with a "Passion for Fisk" like we have never before exhibited, demonstrating energetic endurance and patience with the expectation that something ‘great’ is going to happen!” This fundraising event on April 21^st in Atlanta is an important first step in this process. Similar efforts are taking place in other cities.

Now is the time for us all to take notice of the university’s current circumstances with foresight and understanding, however, time is of the essence and we must respond with a sense of urgency and be willing to stand together and boldly announce that:

I am personally joining with “Atlanta Friends of Fisk to

“Say Yes” to Fisk University’s

commitment to the transformation and reclamation of the title of “Best in Class,”

living up to our motto that

“Fisk Cultivates Scholars and Leaders One by One.”

Say "Yes” to Fisk Atlanta Friends of Fisk Fundraising Reception

April 21, 2012, at 6:00pm

The Borghese, 3286 Northside Parkway, Atlanta, GA, 30327

Commitment: $1000.00 per person or more

Inquiries: ld@hope4360.com

Atlanta Friends of Fisk Event Committee

P. Andrew Patterson, '65, Lawrence Drake II, 76, Robyn Sims, 76,

Gwenne Campbell, '74, Linda Gulley, '65, Bernadette Jones, '65

(This event is not affiliated with the Atlanta Fisk Club)

Charles Johnson | Holland & Knight
Partner
1201 West Peachtree Street, N.E., One Atlantic Center, Suite 2000 | Atlanta GA 30309
Phone 404.817.8530 | Fax 404.881.0470
charles.johnson@hklaw.com | www.hklaw.com

________________________________________________
Add to address book | View professional biography

The Civic Club Dinner, March 21, 1924

More than 100 publishers, magazine editors, artists and writers gathered at New York City’s Civic Club on March 21, 1924 to acknowledge and celebrate the emerging abundance of black creative talent. The event was the first of a number of interracial promotional events organized by Charles S. Johnson to draw attention to the young writers of the Harlem Renaissance. The idea for the dinner had been discussed among the members of a group that called itself the Writers’ Guild, it met in Harlem and included Johnson and a number of other writers. Reportedly, the dinner originally was conceived of as a “coming-out party” that would raise awareness of works such as Jessie Fauset’s novel There is Confusion. But as Johnson began to make the arrangements, he made it clear in a letter to Alain Locke that he wanted to include as many writers as possible rather than having an event focused exclusively on Fauset.

The site of the dinner, the Civic Club, had been established in 1917 by, among others, founding members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); it was one of the few places in New York City that welcomed both black and white members. The guest list was carefully interracial: It included scores of African American writers, many of the most influential white editors and publishers of the time, and key figures in a number of important organizations, such as the NAACP, the National Urban League, and the YMCA. In total, about 110 people attended, including such luminaries as Eugene O’Neill, Ridgely Torrence, Zona Gale, H.L. Mencken, and Clement Wood.

The attendees heard a number of speeches by editors and publishers, including Charles Johnson; Locke; Horace Liveright, whose company had purchased Jean Toomer’s book Cane in 1923, as well as There Is Confusion; W.E.B. Du Bois, the editor of the NAACP’s magazine, Crisis; James Weldon Johnson, who had just edited the Book of American Negro Poetry; and Carl Van Doren, editors of Century magazine. Albert Barnes also spoke, about his collection of African art. Fauset did speak, but so did Walter White, whose novel Fire in the Flint had recently been accepted for publication; Countee Cullen and Gwendolyn Bennett read poems. Montgomery Gregory, the chair of the drama department at Howard University, and poet Georgia Douglas Johnson were also recognized.

The appointed master of ceremonies for the affair was Alain Locke. The philosopher and scholar had already served as mentor to several of the writers recognized at the dinner, and many were looking to him to provide further intellectual leadership to the new generation of black writers and artists. Paul Kellogg, editor for Survey Graphic magazine wrote to Locke and expressed his vision of what he believed the growing movement in black culture cold achieve: “We are interpreting a racial and cultural revival in the new environment of the northern city; interpreting the affirmative genius of writers, thinkers, poets, artists, singers and musicians, which make for a new rapprochement between the races at the same time that they contribute to the common pot of civilization.”

As if to draw a very clear line between the past and the future, Locke used the dinner as an opportunity to thank such venerable veterans of African-American letters as W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson for the literary contributions they had made and upon which the younger writers hoped to build. Addressing the assembly in turn were Walter White, J. Montgomery Gregory, Jessie Fauset, and Carl Van Doren. As the editor of Century Magazine, Van Doren’s comments were particularly striking in his description of the African American condition as an aesthetic advantage to black artists. Concluding the occasion’s program were poetry readings by Countee Cullen and Gwendolyn Bennett. Of those writers later recognized as principal contributors to the Harlem Renaissance, Jean Toomer, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston were not present at the dinner. Toomer had been invited but elected not to attend. McKay and Hughes were out of the country, and Hurston had not yet made her inimitable entrance into New York.

Appreciative of all that had been seen and heard during the dinner, Paul Kellogg approached Charles Johnson to inform him that he would like to devote an entire issue of Survey Graphic to the work of the new writers. Johnson passed on to Alain Locke the task of actually collecting the work to appear in the magazine and reserved his own responsibility that of alerting black writers and artists throughout the country that a new black cultural movement was under way. The edition of Survey Graphic featuring the younger generation of black artists sold out two printings and garnered a readership of more than 40,000. It also laid the ground work for The New Negro, also edited by Alain Locke and destined to become the defining text of the Harlem Renaissance.

With the Civic Club dinner having set the stage, the movement advanced further with the establishment of literary prizes for plays, essays, poetry, and short stories published in Opportunity and Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races magazines. White publishers backing the works of black writers saw themselves both as assisting the cause of such writers and simultaneously providing American literature overall with a much-needed shot of new energy and inspiration.