[Alumni-chat] Chatterjee's Legacy at Antiocy and with Coretta Scott King

[Michael Brower]

Friday Dana Patterson, Director of the Coretta Scott King Center at  
Antioch posted on the Antioch “Pulse” a short tribute to Coretta on  
the 80th Anniversary of her birth.  Duffy copied and posted it here  
for us.  And yesterday, SisterSara responded.

I write to strongly endorse what SisterSara suggested, and to make a  
couple of suggestions.  First,  I will quote below parts of her message.

“Coretta Scott as an Antioch Student, selected Manmatha Nath  
Chatterjee as her mentor -- Chatterjee was the professor of Sociology  
at Antioch from the late  1920's till the mid 1950's.  He was not  
trained as a Sociologist, rather as an engineer, with graduate work  
in Germany and then he received his doctorate from Edinburgh in the  
late 1920's.  He was sent to the US by Gandhi as his personal  
representative.  Arthur Morgan hired him, and simply re-baptized   
him  as a Sociologist in the late 1920's -- but from then on he was  
essentially  the ambassador for Gandhi and Gandhi's methods of  
conflict resolution in the US.  One of the attractions for Coretta  
coming to Antioch in the 1940's was  to study with Gandhi's close  
friend and personal rep -- and you know she took every class he  
offered while she was on campus.  (Before it is too late,  could you  
please get participants in these courses to write about them, and   
perhaps about Coretta's participation?)” . . .



“She was far more the classically trained learned intellectual on the  
whole of the subject [of non-violence]than was Martin -- and in fact,  
Martin had to learn from her.  While many of the people who knew  
about such things are now dead -- try to find out about things like  
the influence of Chatterjee in sending Bayard Ruskin to Montgomery in  
early 1956 to help with the Bus Boycott because of Coretta's  
requests. Try to answer the question as to why Non-Violence was her  
life long philosophy and how she constructed it.”

And SisterSara continud by urging us to also learn and record about  
Coretta’s relationship with her Advisor Walter Anderson and with  
Jesse and Paul Treichler.

Again, I do think that this is very important.  Here are a couple of  
starting points.  One person still in Yellow Springs who knew  
Chatterjee well is Irwin Abrams.  Irwin founded the Chatterjee Peace  
Fellowship, and actually lives in the house that Chatterjee used to  
live in. Irwin is still a “young” 92 years old and it would be great  
if someone could interview Irwin and record some of his memories  
about Chatterjee and his teachings, and perhaps also about what  
Coretta learned from him.  Also, perhaps the members of the  
Chatterjee Fellowship Committee. I think that Professor Tom Haugsby  
is, or was, chair of that Committee. Is that right Tom?

Any voluneers among anyone reading this chat list who might want to  
work on this project?  Irwin, Tom, Dana, Duffy -- any ideas on  
current or recent students, or staff, who might be willing to work on  
this project?  It would be great to get it rolling and recorded  
before this valuable history is lost.  Today, more than ever before  
in our violence-ridden society and with our violence-based foreign  
policy it is vital that we learn and record and adopt and spread and  
act with the non-violence that Ghandi and Chatterjee and Irwin Arams  
and Coretta Scott and Martin Luther King tried to teach us.

Mike Brower ’55 and Member, Alumni Board