Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
RACE, ACTIVISM, AND HILLARY CLINTON AT WELLESLEY
Note to mods: the headline is in caps. I merely cut and pasted.http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/race-activism-and-hillary-clinton-at-wellesley
Really nice story from someone who knew Hillary at Wellesley ....
The two things that are said perhaps most often about Janet Hill—that she is a lawyer and that she was Hillary Clinton’s roommate at Wellesley College, in the late sixties—are not true. “That legend was started by the sportscaster Dick Vitale, in 1991,” she said recently, of the Clinton story. Hill’s son Grant was then a star at Duke; he would become a star in the N.B.A. as well, and is now a basketball analyst for Turner Sports. “He focussed all the time on Calvin,” Hill continued, referring to her husband, a retired N.F.L. star. “Then, one day, his cameraman widened the shot—and there I was. Dick said, ‘Oh, my God, there’s Grant’s mother! She went to Wellesley with her roommate Hillary Clinton! She’s a lawyer in Washington, in the Bush Administration!’ The only correct part is: I’m Grant’s mom and I went to Wellesley. Hillary and I were just good friends there.”
Janet Hill has known Hillary Rodham Clinton since 1965, when they were freshmen at Wellesley. “She played a big role in encouraging me not to leave that first week of college,” Hill, who serves on the boards of Dean Foods, the Carlyle Group, and Duke University, said. “It was culture shock: being in an all-female, predominantly white environment. I grew up in segregated New Orleans, and suddenly I’m at Wellesley, with only five blacks in my class. But my mother told me I couldn’t come home, and Hillary told me I couldn’t leave school.”
Hill and the other four African-American women who graduated from Wellesley’s four-hundred-and-twenty-person class of 1969 remember Clinton, with whom many of them still communicate, fondly. (A sixth African-American student in the class transferred after her sophomore year, and has since passed away. There were also two black students from outside the United States.) “What I liked about her was that we did not seem to be novelties to her,” Nancy Gist, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., said recently. “There were a lot of white women at Wellesley who hadn’t really had much contact with black people, especially people like us. They didn’t quite know what to make of us. Hillary did not communicate any of that. I don’t know that she had spent time around black people, but for whatever reason she did not seem to be so mystified.”
“I remember us correcting each other’s art-history essays in her room,” Alvia Wardlaw, a leading expert on African-American art, who lives in Houston, recalled. “It was me, Hillary, and Lillian Miller. I remember I had used a phrase that Lillian tried to correct, and Hillary said, ‘No, that sounds good.’ She was a very approachable and positive classmate. That’s what I appreciated about her. She was very open. And you could hear that big laugh of hers all through the dining hall.” Freshmen were required to carry heavy trays of milk, water, and food to tables where students ate together, family-style. “It was some heavy lifting,” Wardlaw added. “But Hillary would joke about it being good exercise.”
Janet Hill has known Hillary Rodham Clinton since 1965, when they were freshmen at Wellesley. “She played a big role in encouraging me not to leave that first week of college,” Hill, who serves on the boards of Dean Foods, the Carlyle Group, and Duke University, said. “It was culture shock: being in an all-female, predominantly white environment. I grew up in segregated New Orleans, and suddenly I’m at Wellesley, with only five blacks in my class. But my mother told me I couldn’t come home, and Hillary told me I couldn’t leave school.”
Hill and the other four African-American women who graduated from Wellesley’s four-hundred-and-twenty-person class of 1969 remember Clinton, with whom many of them still communicate, fondly. (A sixth African-American student in the class transferred after her sophomore year, and has since passed away. There were also two black students from outside the United States.) “What I liked about her was that we did not seem to be novelties to her,” Nancy Gist, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., said recently. “There were a lot of white women at Wellesley who hadn’t really had much contact with black people, especially people like us. They didn’t quite know what to make of us. Hillary did not communicate any of that. I don’t know that she had spent time around black people, but for whatever reason she did not seem to be so mystified.”
“I remember us correcting each other’s art-history essays in her room,” Alvia Wardlaw, a leading expert on African-American art, who lives in Houston, recalled. “It was me, Hillary, and Lillian Miller. I remember I had used a phrase that Lillian tried to correct, and Hillary said, ‘No, that sounds good.’ She was a very approachable and positive classmate. That’s what I appreciated about her. She was very open. And you could hear that big laugh of hers all through the dining hall.” Freshmen were required to carry heavy trays of milk, water, and food to tables where students ate together, family-style. “It was some heavy lifting,” Wardlaw added. “But Hillary would joke about it being good exercise.”
12 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Good highlight! 
kismet ... 
Like how we see HRC's personality already in place while at the same time growing, changing and evolving in a deep and thoughtful way! Interesting also because it shows how things have changed in America when it comes to Race and Woman's roles!
Also it shows that her comfort with African Americans came naturally to her! Not a show! Just her!
Her former classmates are not surprised, in any case, that Clinton is on the verge of the nomination—they could see that coming a long time ago. “There was a sheet of paper in our elevator at Freeman Hall, during senior week,” Hill said. “People wrote the name of a senior and predicted what would happen to her. Several said that I’d marry a football player; that wasn’t a stretch. But we predicted Hillary would be the first female President of the United States.”
They knew!
that so many different people from so many different stages of her life have such wonderful memories of her! 
and I like confirmation that she always had that laugh!!! 