Analog tape digitized by Michael Lee at Rare Records in Winchester, TN in Fall 2022
Digital audio transferred from the Google Drive to Microsoft Teams by Lindsay Boknight on February 10, 2023
Edited by Jaylynn Brantley on November 10, 2023
Edited and Curated by T. DeWayne Moore on November 12, 2023
LINK to the 1981 Convocation Program
Alice Clemons, Miss Prairie View 1981-1982, delivers the introduction of Dr. Woolfolk.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to introduce our speaker for the occasion. I know the speaker was born, raised, and educated in Louisville, Kentucky. He earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Louisville Municipal College and the University of Louisville, the Master of Arts in History from Ohio State University, and the Doctor of Philosophy in History from the University of Wisconsin.
This learned historian is a member of the Executive Council of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, a member of the Board of Editors of The Journal of Negro History, a member of the Executive Council of the Texas State Historical Association, the technical advisor to the Waller County Historical Commission and vice chairman of the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Texas. I could go on and on with his many professional involvements, but [I] would like to mention a few of his publications.
Included among his numerous publications are “Cotton, Capitalism, and Slave Labor in Texas” in the Southwestern Social Science Quarterly, June 1956; “Taxes and Slavery in the Antebellum South,” in the Journal of Southern History, May 1960; “Social Literacy, the Social Studies, and Negro Youth,” in The Texas Standard, June 1962; “And The Word Became Flesh,” in The Journal of Negro History, Spring 1966; a book entitled The Free Negro in Texas 1836-1890, published in 1976, and perhaps his most special treatise, published in 1962. Prairie View: A Study in Public Conscience, 1878-1946.
Our illustrious speaker, who is married to the former Douglas G. Perry, has one son, George Jr. At this time, I take great pride in presenting to you the chairman of the History program at Prairie View and an outstanding member of the Prairie View family since 1943, our speaker Dr. George Ruble Woolfolk.
[Pause for applause]
At 3 minutes and 3 seconds, Dr. Woolfolk begins his address:
I’d like to speak briefly this morning on the general subject, “Prairie View: A Success Story,” in keeping with the theme of the golden anniversary for this year. At the homecoming convocation, it is fitting that we review the accomplishments of this institution.
It is [fitting that we] take pride in its development, in what it has done, and how our students have contributed to the great development of the state, nation, and their particular localities. I said in some writing a few years ago, in thinking about the institution: