CLEMSON, S.C.
When the final whistle blew, the scoreboard in Death Valley read Clemson 54, South Carolina State 0, but on this Saturday in late September, there was more than a football game being played.
It wasn’t just a game, it was history with bloodlines. There were friends and fellowship, some rich and some poor, and, most importantly, there was Clemson University, a public land-grant school creating opportunities to become more diverse academically and athletically by establishing a partnership on more than one front with a historically Black college.
It was the first meeting between Clemson and its sister school from Orangeburg, S.C., which is only in existence because of the state’s flagship university’s inability to diversify enrollment over a century ago.
“This game displays racial good will for the state,” said Dr. Louis Lynn, a Clemson trustee. “We are not where we need to be yet with interracial relations, but the game allowed us to make contacts within the two universities. In America there is no better ice-breaker than a college football game.”
The History
Founded as a land-grant college in 1889 following the passage of the Morrill Act (1862), Clemson’s mission was to establish a “high seminary of learning” through its historical land-grant responsibilities of teaching, research and extended public service.
