Prejudice and the Foreign Student

A front page article in the New York Times on Sunday, February 19, discussed "the humiliating problem of finding a place to live" which confronts diplomats from newly recognized African nations. According to the United Nations escort who accompanied the diplomats throughout their search, all the Africans expressed shock at racial discrimination "in the living example of democracy." Although many had heard of discrimination in the South, they were not at all prepared to find it in the North.

Cambridge, too, is plagued by prejudice. It disillusions many of the foreigners attending the schools in the area, among them, James Freeman, a Liberian in his second year at Tufts' Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. "My point is this," he explained, "anybody can write a book on democracy, but the real test is to put the ideal into action. We (Liberians) hear a lot about American democracy before we come here and are profoundly disillusioned when we find that we can't get a room because of our color. The millions of dollars which Americans spend on propaganda in Africa are wasted when their claims are refuted by an African's son's story of his experience with an American landlord."

It took Freeman more than a year to discover northern racial prejudice. Last year, his first in America, Freeman lived in a Tufts dormitory and encountered no prejudice. When he and two fellow Liberians decided to rent an apartment off campus this fall, they soon found a suite of rooms on Massachuetts Avenue. Freeman was shocked, therefore, to encounter discrimination this winter when he sought a room for a Liberian friend. For two days Freeman and friend sought shelter at houses which sported room-for-rent signs. At each they were turned down; at each the landlord explained that the room had been leaned that morning or the night before. All along Beacon Street and Newbury Street the students hunted for a room until finally, after almost two days of rejection, Freeman realized that the vacant rooms were occupied one after another not by coincidence, but by prejudice.

Freeman's disenchantment was compounded by the experience of another friend who, frustrated by stares of contempt and superiority, returned to his native Liberia after just one term at B.U. The boy was crushed to discover intolerence in what he had thought to be the most advanced civilization in the world. Frightened that he might commit suicide if the ubiquitous stares continued, the Liberian returned home.

Recalling the experiences of his friends, Freeman said, "It had never occurred to me that color prejudice would be practiced in New England."

"The need for housing for people of colors isn't being answered today," according to George B. Pettengill, Executive Director of the International Student Association. "More than half Cambridge's landlords refuse to accept colored people." Pettengill is concerned that "we point to the trouble in New Orleans and are glad we live in the problemless Boston--but there is a problem here!"

The problem for the universities is how to provide housing for the 4,000 students in the area. The universities can't possibly houses the students themselves. Harvard alone has 1,423 students and scholars from overseas; one quarter of them are from Asia and Africa, and about one fifth are married. Harvard at present provides rooms for about one half of the graduate student body.

For students living in dormitories there is no housing difficulty--but foreign students living off campus face an acute problem. Cambridge and Boston are crowded cities in which any new resident has difficulty finding suitable place to live. For foreign students the difficulty is compounded by consideration of location, finances, and prejudice.

Several agencies have been established to assist graduate students in finding homes. For example, through PBH Harvard offers the student a list of apartments whose landlords have signed a pledge promising "not to refuse to rent to any student of Harvard University and Radcliffe College because of race, creed, color, or national origin." MIT has a similar listing, as does the International Student Association.

But the lists are frequently ineffective. Mr. Anthony Amos, a Ghanian student at MIT, and his wife spent four days searching for suitable accommodations. They spent from 7 a.m. to 12 midnight each day tracking down Harvard and MIT lists; landlords who had no vacancies, charged too much, or had only dingy rooms to offer, Amos recalled "after giving up on the housing lists, we tried calling from newspaper advertisements and visited real estate agents. Finally, on the fourth day we found our present apartment--the walls were falling apart, the floor was black with dust, the room was unfurnished, we had to pay for our own gas and electricity, and the landlord charged $80 a month. Out of desperation we took it."

Amos is sure that at least twice he was refused rooms because of his color. In one instance a landlord assured the international Student Association that he had three or four vacant apartments, but denied that any were available when Amos visited the building in person later that day. The Harvard School of Public Health last year studied the condition of graduate apartments. Accommodations were found so inadequate that the school purchased three apartment buildings on Park Drive, and furnished them for occupancy this fall. Currently 141 students, 71 foreigners and 70 Americans, live in the buildings.

Certainly the creation of an International House like those in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago would be one solution to the problem of graduate housing. But such projects are expensive and politically difficult to achieve. Other remedies have been tried. In 1955 the Civic Unity Committee gave a tea for local landladies at Phillips Brooks House--lengthy discussion persuaded several women to change their discriminatory policy. The Congress on Racial Equality tries to establish test cases for the Massachusetts fair housing practices law. Various local organizations have expressed their view vocally--WCRB editorially on November 20, the Cambridge Fair Housing Committee through a full page advertisement in the CambridgeR-