A Bit of History for Black History Month

by Mario diCesare

Many years ago, in Binghamton NY, I was the spokesman for the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality. In September 1963 we organized the very first racial-justice picket line in Binghamton’s history on behalf of a black couple. They were two dentists who had answered an ad for an apartment which they needed. They were sloughed off by the building manager with a patent lie—“Ain’t no apartments available.”

They brought the matter to CORE, we investigated, and we learned that
there were in fact two apartments available. We tried to negotiate with
the building manager, but he just walked away. So, finally, we set up a
picket line in front of the building. The manager may have assumed that
the local chapter of the John Birch Society would come to his aid, but
no such luck.

As spokesperson, I was nearly hit by a plank the manager angrily flung
at us. Plenty of hate mail followed, all, of course, anonymous. The two
local newspapers came down hard on such blatant prejudice as did the
local radio and TV commentators.

The event turned a harsh spotlight on racial prejudice in that town,
still smarting from recent memories of the Ku Klux Klan. Somehow we
survived it all. The local temper slowly but surely turned and
gradually, Binghamton became far less accommodating to racists.

I was a young faculty member at Harpur College, so on the Sunday after
we began our picket line, I went to a reception for new faculty. The
college president called me aside and chided me for bringing the
college’s name into the limelight of a racial dispute. He suggested I
should withdraw from such public activity.

Young and adventurous, I guess (certainly my first wife, a Southerner,
thought so), I reminded him that this was a moral issue and therefore I
would certainly not withdraw. Happily, he couldn’t “punish” me in any
way: I’d just landed a Guggenheim Fellowship; in those days a Guggenheim
Fellow could get a post at almost any good college. Academic freedom, a
moral issue, youthful bravado – whatever the combination, they trumped
fear on that occasion.

 Dr. Mario diCesare earned his PhD at Columbia University in 1960,
taught at Harpur College/SUNY Binghamton from 1959 to 1996. He has
taught at the College for Seniors at UNC Asheville every spring and fall
term (and others) since 1998.