David Fankhauser ‘71 is an Hopkins alumnus, who graduated with a PhD in Molecular Biology and worked as a Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the University of Cincinnati. At Hopkins, Fankhauser participated in anti-Vietnam war student demonstrations in May 1970. Fankhauser also participated as a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights Movement. In an interview with The News-Letter, Fankhauser reflected on his time at Hopkins, his experiences with activism and his advice for current students.
The News-Letter: How would you describe your time at Hopkins?
David Fankhauser: It was, in one word, fabulous. I just felt so fortunate to be there. Like probably a number of people from low-income backgrounds, I feel like I somehow snuck in. How did I wind up here? But one of the things that happened that was so reassuring was the first meeting with the incoming students. This would have been in the fall of ‘65; Dr. McElroy, the head of the biology department, met with us, and he said, “Let me first reassure you, if you are here, you're capable of doing the work.”
The quality of the faculty, the quality of the environment, generally, except when it came to politics, was very supportive. I had a wonderful advisor, and the thread that runs through everything, in my experience at Hopkins, is quality. The highest quality of faculty. And not all of them were really great teachers, but they all were superb researchers, and the ones that were good teachers were outstanding.
My advisor finally said, “You're done. Get out of here!” I was in no rush to leave.
N-L: Could you talk a little bit about your role in the anti-Vietnam war protests that took place while you were a graduate student at Hopkins?
DF: Well, it was memorable. Of course, the 60s are famous because it was an age of student revolution, and there was a cultural change. You can see it in the music. You can see it in the fashion and the clothing. You can see it in student awareness of the role that they and their universities played in society, and it was not only in the United States, but it was around the world.
Students were adamantly against the Vietnam War, except for a few, and we resisted two major actions. One of them was the University’s direct support of the military machine, in terms of the Applied Physics Laboratory. They had very large, significant secret defense contracts, and who knows what they were working on?
The other thorn in our side was that the military recruiters were given an open house on campus. They could set up desks and try to recruit people to join the military. Plus, many college campuses had Reserve Officer Training Corps groups. Those were two major triggers on Hopkins’ campus.
We first started [trying], probably during early April of 1970, to get the ROTC closed down and the military to stop its recruitment on campus. That did not go well. Lincoln Gordon, the president at the time, just kept postponing and avoiding and so on and so forth. It became more and more heated, and a number of faculty got involved. I remember there were a couple of small demonstrations over at Levering Hall.
Then we moved to Homewood House [now the Homewood Museum], because we thought, well that's where the levers of power are located. At first we had a sit-in on the front steps of Homewood House and then Gordon ordered an injunction against us having any demonstrations on campus. One of Gordon's assistants said that they had to keep those ‘barbarians’ out of the Homewood House. They called us barbarians.
N-L: I heard that students set up a tent in front of the house.
DF: We decided that we would set up a tent in the front, more as guerrilla theater. We set up a tent and made a huge, long sign: fight the injunction, stop the way. We got some plastic, we got three bamboo poles, and I think we had about 15 people sleeping in there for about three days during the protest. The students went on strike for three days and shut down the university.
Coming out of that, Lincoln Gordon, who at first said that there's no way that he was going to change the policy, finally agreed to a vote. It was overwhelmingly passed. The referendum said halt recruitment on campus and close down the ROTC, so they did. So we had a little success there.
N-L: How did you get involved with Freedom Rides during the Civil Rights movement?
DF: I was a product of reverse affirmative action.
I come from a long line of activists. My parents, who were Quakers, intentionally lived below the poverty limit so they wouldn't have to pay war taxes. Quakers, historically, are against war and against slavery and so on. A significant proportion of our taxes go to war, so their idea was, if they live below the poverty line, that they wouldn't have to pay too many taxes. So we were living on a shoestring. But when it came time to go to college, we didn't have funds to go to college.
The only black school in Ohio was called Central State College. A professor of philosophy at Central State, a friend of our families said, “Well, you know, Central State is 99 percent black. They would like to get some diversity.” He thought that there would be some money to help me if I wanted to go to Central State.
The combination of a loan and scholarship and work study, helped me go to Central State College. It was a Black school – 2000 students, and only eight of us were white. I recommend that experience to everybody. Everybody should experience what it really means to be a significant minority, because it gives you insight that you would never get any other way.
At this time, the Freedom Rides were underway, but a lot of the Freedom Riders had been beaten up and hospitalized, and they needed new replacements. So when they were looking for replacements, they called around to the Black schools in the eastern half of the United States to see if anybody could come. As a 19 year old, I got the call on a Tuesday, and I flew down there Wednesday morning to join the rides. Students are not bound by responsibilities, and also their brains aren't properly formed yet so they do things without full appreciation of what the ramifications are. Students. Thank God for students.
N-L: What are your thoughts on the student demonstrations and encampment that took place at the Homewood campus earlier this year?
DF: I went to Earlham College, and we had a study tour of Palestine and Israel. So I spent time with a family in Palestine and saw firsthand the abuse of Palestinians by the Israeli military. I believe that for all of history, students have been the fertile ground for new and progressive thought. Over and over again, you see students rising up when the adults seem incapable of dealing with it. I felt that this was the case in the 1960s and I think that it is the case now as well. I was so proud that the students came out and had encampments in support of Palestinian rights.
I think it's shameful the way that universities allowed themselves to be kowtowed into essentially supporting the party line: that we can't have disruption of University function. I think one of the most important functions of a university is to provide fertile ground for new thought. That expresses itself in ways that the administration may not like, but they need to embrace it, because it's that vitality of new thought and the engagement of students that is so important.
N-L: How do you respond to those that claim that chanting and demonstrations such as the ones we have discussed are not productive actions?
DF: When I was in Parchman State Penitentiary with the Freedom Riders, we were on death row. For the first time in the same cell block, we had Blacks and whites together. It is not in jest that I say that the Black Freedom Riders taught us white boys how to sing. Freedom songs. We sang and we sang and we sang. They took a mattress away, they turned off the water, they salted our food, they opened the screens and then they sprayed us with DDT, because we wouldn't stop singing.
Okay, so what's the point? That singing, like chanting, is a form of spiritual cohesion. Of course, you don't only do chanting – you have to do action as well. But chanting, or singing, binds people together in a way that I think is important for the spirit of revolution. I am all in favor of chanting, but not to the exclusion of action. I will tell you that when the guards were hostile to us, we were not singing out of anger, but out of spirit.
N-L: You teach at a jail now that you are retired. How does that teaching experience differ from the rest of your teaching career?
DF: The thing is, at the jail, the people are constantly changing. I mean, I typically get a probably 20 or 30 percent turnover every week, so you can't build a curriculum. I finally gave up trying to plan. I would put together a PowerPoint but I tell them ahead of time, you ask a question, and we may not cover any of this. We' ae just going to go wherever your questions lead, and that is just a joy to me. It turns into a dialogue, an exploration, instead of a monologue of spelling things out.
I've hardly done anything more rewarding in my life. They are so grateful. My relationship with those men is wonderful. Some of them are catatonic, and I cannot get through. But the teacher in me is constantly looking for ways to draw everybody into the discussion.
But I'm reminded of that Quaker saying, ‘There's that of God, and every man.’ These guys in here made a mistake. Maybe it was a serious mistake. Maybe it's a political mistake, which I consider drugs to be somewhat of a political mistake. People said, ‘Oh, aren't you afraid to go in there and be with those prisoners?’ And the answer is not in the slightest. I feel like they are very warm. They respond well and my attitude helps draw that out of them.
You won’t be surprised to know that the prison system is not a correctional system. It is a humiliation system. And I see that over and over again. I saw that when I was a prisoner. They did that in Parchment Penitentiary like crazy. I think one of the things that helps is that I do treat them like human beings, that they have value and that they are capable of thinking.
A lot of these guys say, “If I had a teacher like you, I might have graduated high school.’“ They've been told all their lives that they're worthless and, of course, when you exclude people from society, you expect them to behave in an anti-social way. It's the highlight of my week.
N-L: What advice do you have for Hopkins students that are trying to make a difference in the political space?
DF: I'm trying to make the answer as broad as I can, but try not to be forced into a rut or into one direction. Keep your interests and don't be afraid to step out of the safe zone and do something else. I think that especially in such a high-powered institution as Hopkins, people can feel that they are now confined into a particular role, and that this is what they're going to have to do. But I would advise to vary from that, straight and narrow, as it were, to follow your tangents.
