A Personal Sacrifice to Pay Homage to Dr. King’s Legacy

By

Sherman N. Miller

October 10, 2007

When I attend a birthday party, I usually expect a gala affair. However during summer 2007, I went to a surprise 60^th birthday party for Leroy Tate that was underpinned by the personal sacrifice this African American man made in 1968 to elevate the stature of

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to veneration at Delaware State University.

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, he was viewed with great disdain in some white communities.  It was obvious that the white racists understood that the assassination of Dr. King would decimate the US civil rights movement. The white racists appeared to work under the premise that if you killed the head the body will die. Yet these white racists learned nothing from the Romans attempt at stamping out Christianity by martyring Christians because they would have realized that martyrdom tends to idolize the victim.

The white racists’ worst nightmare evolved overnight as Dr. King became venerated through their assassination. This veneration of Dr. King touched many quarters in the African-American community.  In some places, it evolved into riots.  But at Delaware State University it turned into the African American students’ desire to see a new student center named after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leroy Tate led the African-American student movement at Delaware State University to challenge the administration in getting the new student center named after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  A nontraditional style demonstration by the African-American students was deemed disrespectful to the Governor of the State of Delaware. Tate found himself kicked out of Delaware State University without any hope of getting a degree.  There was no graduation on the DSU campus in Dover, Delaware, in 1968, it was an off-campus affair.

Tate reveals that the late Dr. Luna I. Mishoe, President of Delaware State University in 1968, worked quietly with him to complete his degree by allowing Tate to take courses at the University Of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Tate got “A” grades at Wharton.  At Tate’s birthday party many of the African American students that participated in the leadership of the demonstration for Dr. King’s name being etched in stone on the student center were there. Some people had masters, doctoral and professional degrees; hence, there were very high caliber students at Delaware State University in 1968.  

There was a resolution read by Stephanie Bolden, a city councilperson and DSU alumnus, from the city of Wilmington, Delaware, that paid homage to Tate’s courage in the fight to get Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., venerated at Delaware State University. Tate also had grown up in Wilmington, Delaware.

This Tate birthday party shifted to a higher level of seriousness, as I watched the people standing with their hands on their hearts listening to the Star Spangled Banner. Then one of Tate’s daughters who had just retired from the US Air Force marched into the room replete with full dress uniform and white gloves with a folded American flag in her hands. She marched slowly up to her father, then she saluted him. Sergeant Tate then presented the flag to her father as one would have expected to see at a full military funeral. With wars in Iraqi and Afghanistan presently underway sending home dead soldiers daily, I could only think of how joyous it was for Tate to get a flag of life from his child versus the flag of death at her funeral.

The birthday party morphed into a homecoming. Many people were reminiscing the great times they had as students at Delaware State University.  Then finally the Tate birthday party evolved into the gala fair that everyone expected.  His wife, daughters and family members had the meal professionally catered and a DJ with the right music for the crowd. His family also had the party occur months before the actual birthday, so Leroy Tate was floored when he finally arrived.

Tate’s birthday party left an indelible mark on my mind for it proved that Tate did not commit socioeconomic suicide for his belief in the respect for Dr. King’s legacy. He symbolized the strong African American males that never compromised their belief in gaining civil rights for all blacks even though they may have sacrificed their own upward mobility in the short term. It would have been easy for a man of Tate’s talents to have remained mum, thereby defrocking his African American heritage by morphing into a White American “boy toy” to gain rapid advancements in the economic mainstream.

I believe the present schism between many members of the “Black Talented Tenth” and everyday African Americans would not be a reality today if the vilification of Tate’s caricature was not given Mainstream American legitimacy in yesteryear. That is, “Acting White” by pursuing academic excellence would not be a curse for today’s talented blacks. Black talent should have the reverence it so rightly deserves where socioeconomic advancement in the economic mainstream also would be an African American dream versus many young blacks looking to a life of crime for socioeconomic upward mobility. 

Clearly, Tate and his fellow DSU classmates that fought to elevate Dr. King’s legacy are both “Black Talented Tenth” and true believers in Dr. King’s dream. Today, Dr. King is revered at Delaware State University and it would be a sacrilege for the white racists to attempt to denigrate it.