Professor emeritus George Henderson is a renowned professor and activist on OU’s campus. His decades of teaching and mentoring crossed and broke down boundaries for Oklahoma’s black community. His story is part of a series The Daily will publish throughout February in honor of Black History Month. Information throughout the story is from interviews and Henderson’s book, “Race and the University.”

By Jericka Handie

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efore going to work, George Henderson spent most of his mornings picking up trash that had accumulated on his lawn overnight.

The trash was from Norman residents who wanted to show their distaste for Henderson’s decision to come to OU in 1967. Henderson’s family moved to Norman so he could work as a professor. He would be the third black faculty member on campus, and his was the first and only black family to live in town.

“I would wake up in between 6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m. and clean all the garbage off the lawn that people would throw so my children would not see it,” Henderson said.

One morning, Henderson went out to clean his yard once again. But instead of trash, he found two of his students sitting in a car in front of his house.

“I said, ‘Why are you here?” Henderson recalled. “They said, ‘We have come to make sure nobody throws anything on your lawn again.’”

Moving forward, this gesture and many others like it gave Henderson hope that he was where he needed to be. Henderson met students on campus, prominent members of Oklahoma’s black community and white students and faculties who desired to be allies. He realized he could use his knowledge and experience to build up students of color and effect lasting change at the university.

“I was at the right place at the right time with the right group of students to continue my journey in terms of being an activist,” Henderson said. “For the very first time now, I am teaching race and human relations and I am living it, and I am learning and growing. By coming here, I got a chance to be authentic.”

George Henderson, professor emeritus, stands inside of the Henderson-Tolson building. Henderson was inducted into the African-American Hall of Fame on Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012. OU Daily File Photo.

In his time at the university, Henderson created the human relations department and has won upwards of 50 awards and honors from the university and the broader Oklahoma community. He was inducted into the Oklahoma African American Hall of Fame in 2003 and helped to create programs and groups for high-achieving students and students of color.

It’s been 52 years since Henderson joined the University of Oklahoma faculty as a full-time professor in sociology and education, and he said OU has come a long way since discrimination in administrative policies kept some students from excelling at the university.

“As bad as some people believe OU is now, it is light-years in social change ahead of where we once were,” Henderson said. “But if you have not lived that past, it is difficult to understand this.”

Henderson has continued to be outspoken on issues at OU, such as the closed presidential search process and recent racist incidents on campus. His influence will continue to strengthen community relations on and off campus in decades to follow as more students feel empowered to advocate for racial equality.

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efore going to work, George Henderson spent most of his mornings picking up trash that had accumulated on his lawn overnight.

The trash was from Norman residents who wanted to show their distaste for Henderson’s decision to come to OU in 1967. Henderson’s family moved to Norman so he could work as a professor. He would be the third black faculty member on campus, and his was the first and only black family to live in town.

“I would wake up in between 6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m. and clean all the garbage off the lawn that people would throw so my children would not see it,” Henderson said.

One morning, Henderson went out to clean his yard once again. But instead of trash, he found two of his students sitting in a car in front of his house.

“I said, ‘Why are you here?” Henderson recalled. “They said, ‘We have come to make sure nobody throws anything on your lawn again.’”

Moving forward, this gesture and many others like it gave Henderson hope that he was where he needed to be. Henderson met students on campus, prominent members of Oklahoma’s black community and white students and faculties who desired to be allies. He realized he could use his knowledge and experience to build up students of color and effect lasting change at the university.

“I was at the right place at the right time with the right group of students to continue my journey in terms of being an activist,” Henderson said. “For the very first time now, I am teaching race and human relations and I am living it, and I am learning and growing. By coming here, I got a chance to be authentic.”

George Henderson, professor emeritus, stands inside of the Henderson-Tolson building. Henderson was inducted into the African-American Hall of Fame on Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012. OU Daily File Photo.

In his time at the university, Henderson created the human relations department and has won upwards of 50 awards and honors from the university and the broader Oklahoma community. He was inducted into the Oklahoma African American Hall of Fame in 2003 and helped to create programs and groups for high-achieving students and students of color.

It’s been 54 years since Henderson joined the University of Oklahoma faculty as a full-time professor in sociology and education, and he said OU has come a long way since discrimination in administrative policies kept some students from excelling at the university.

“As bad as some people believe OU is now, it is light-years in social change ahead of where we once were,” Henderson said. “But if you have not lived that past, it is difficult to understand this.”

Henderson has continued to be outspoken on issues at OU, such as the closed presidential search process and recent racist incidents on campus. His influence will continue to strengthen community relations on and off campus in decades to follow as more students feel empowered to advocate for racial equality.

EARLY YEARS

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orn in Alabama in 1932, Henderson’s family lived in deep poverty. When Henderson was 6 years old, they fled to East Chicago, Indiana.

“My father had a fistfight with a white man who swore that he would put him in his ‘black place’: hanging at the end of a rope. It was not an idle threat,” Henderson wrote in his book “Race and the University.” “Consequently, we fled from the racism of the South to its northern version in East Chicago, where some of our relatives lived.”

Henderson struggled through his elementary years, still poor and wrestling with a rocky start to his education. But by the time he graduated high school, he had secured a track and academic scholarship to Michigan State Agricultural and Mechanical College. In 1951, Henderson met and married his wife Barbara. After Henderson served for two years in the Air Force, he, Barbara and their children moved to Detroit, and Henderson spent the next decade earning academic degrees, working professionally and leaning into community and racial activism.

“I believe that making friends with people who come from races different than my own can be accomplished through civil conversations, but I did not always believe that,” Henderson said at a talk in 2018 as part of OU’s “This I believe: OU” essay reading event.

In the 1960s, Detroit was seeing its most violent and destructive racial conflicts, which led to a deadly riot in 1967. Henderson was spending time serving in a wide variety of community leadership positions in Detroit while getting to know civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Among other things, Henderson advocated for racial equality and gradually learned more about advocating for civil rights through community programs.

A scan from Henderson's book, "Race and the University."

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orn in Alabama in 1932, Henderson’s family lived in deep poverty. When Henderson was 6 years old, they fled to East Chicago, Indiana.

“My father had a fistfight with a white man who swore that he would put him in his ‘black place’: hanging at the end of a rope. It was not an idle threat,” Henderson wrote in his book “Race and the University.” “Consequently, we fled from the racism of the South to its northern version in East Chicago, where some of our relatives lived.”

Henderson struggled through his elementary years, still poor and wrestling with a rocky start to his education. But by the time he graduated high school, he had secured a track and academic scholarship to Michigan State Agricultural and Mechanical College. In 1951, Henderson met and married his wife Barbara. After Henderson served for two years in the Air Force, he, Barbara and their children moved to Detroit, and Henderson spent the next decade earning academic degrees, working professionally and leaning into community and racial activism.

A scan from Henderson's book, "Race and the University."

“I believe that making friends with people who come from races different than my own can be accomplished through civil conversations, but I did not always believe that,” Henderson said at a talk in 2018 as part of OU’s “This I believe: OU” essay reading event.

In the 1960s, Detroit was seeing its most violent and destructive racial conflicts, which led to a deadly riot in 1967. Henderson was spending time serving in a wide variety of community leadership positions in Detroit while getting to know civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Among other things, Henderson advocated for racial equality and gradually learned more about advocating for civil rights through community programs.

In 1967, after accepting an offer to teach at the University of Oklahoma, Henderson was apprehensive about moving to Norman. Because Norman had only white residents, he worried that the people would not embrace him as the black community in Detroit did.

“Imagine spending all your life in a black neighborhood and then waking up one morning and everywhere you look in your neighborhood is all white faces,” Henderson said.

Listen to Dr. George Henderson give his “This I Believe: OU” speech from Feb. 8, 2018.

He addressed moving to Norman in his book, as well.

“As I found out later, the transition would be difficult for me as a professor, and it would be excruciating for me as a husband, a father, and a son-in-law,” Henderson wrote. “Indeed, it was one thing for me to jump into a hostile fire of community race relations; it was something else very troubling to pull my family in with me.”

But Henderson was elated to start learning and experiencing more about social relationships within the context of race and class divisions, and he was particularly excited to begin hands-on work with Oklahoma students.

“If I had neglected and systematically ruled out relationships with students who came from families whose parents did not like people who looked like me,” Henderson said. “ I would have been teaching to a very few small number of students in terms of helping them to change, because most of the students who came to OU who were white came from those communities who did not want us living among them.”

Henderson said in his first memories and moments in Norman, students guided his efforts for an establishing a more inclusive university.

“I was put into a position where individuals who did not want me living in their neighborhoods, going into their social clubs, did not want me teaching them or going to their church, sent their children to OU,” Henderson said. “The students became my friends. I would not have had this opportunity anywhere else.”

ACTIVISM AT OU

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s soon as Henderson arrived at OU, he got to work. By the end of 1967, students and faculty, including Henderson, created the Afro-American Student Union, which would later be named the Black Student Association. And two years later, he created OU’s human relations program.

Scan from Henderson's book "Race and the University."

Along with his tangible achievements, Henderson was also building relationships. White OU faculty members, a few neighbors and some prominent residents like doctors and OU football coach Bud Wilkinson were kind faces.

Henderson was also being drawn into Oklahoma’s strong and accomplished black community. He knew those who had won lawsuits to end segregation at the university and in Oklahoma City Public Schools, civic leaders, teachers and administrators and civil rights activists. Each new relationship brought strength and hope for Henderson and his family.

Pushed by other activists in the state, Henderson quickly realized that while he had come to OU simply for a job, there was more work he wanted and needed to do.

The 1960s and 1970s was “a period of black consciousness-raising and student demands for racial equality at historically white colleges and universities,” Henderson wrote.

At closed meetings with sympathetic students and faculty, students of color spoke of being name-called, ridiculed or ignored by white people on campus. They were denied opportunities and had roommates who wanted to be transferred. They were angered by white students wearing blackface. Many white students would not interact with them, so students of color were left out of study groups or could not get notes if they had to miss a class.

As one of the co-sponsors of the Afro-American Student Union, Henderson was working to promote the organization and its goals to his colleagues and superiors. He wanted to help the students network, to promote their ideas for social change and to provide them with whatever resources and guidance they needed.

His goal was to effect change as efficiently as possible, and one of his methods was to start with the policy makers at OU — presidents, vice presidents, deans, program directors and the like. He told students to get to know these movers and shakers, to build relationships with them, and eventually they could help make campus policies that were more inclusive and equal.

Henderson invited students of color and white student allies, academics and athletes to participate in OU’s civil rights movement. He became a “university politician,” learning how to navigate the campus bureaucracy so the students’ efforts would be more effective.

“Our students have done exceptionally well finding jobs that are people-oriented,” Henderson said. “I’m proud of that. I’m proud that my students have been able to carve out natures in communities that continue focusing on … social justice issues and without adequate resources.”

OU’s president from 1968 to 1970, John Herbert Hollomon, Jr., told Henderson he knew Henderson belonged at the university.

“‘George, teaching at the University of Oklahoma is your calling,’” Henderson recalled Hollomon telling him. “I did not quite understand that for many years, but he was absolutely spot-on with that.”

Scan from Henderson's book "Race and the University."

At closed meetings with sympathetic students and faculty, students of color spoke of being name-called, ridiculed or ignored by white people on campus. They were denied opportunities and had roommates who wanted to be transferred. They were angered by white students wearing blackface. Many white students would not interact with them, so students of color were left out of study groups or could not get notes if they had to miss a class.

As one of the co-sponsors of the Afro-American Student Union, Henderson was working to promote the organization and its goals to his colleagues and superiors. He wanted to help the students network, to promote their ideas for social change and to provide them with whatever resources and guidance they needed.

His goal was to effect change as efficiently as possible, and one of his methods was to start with the policy makers at OU — presidents, vice presidents, deans, program directors and the like. He told students to get to know these movers and shakers, to build relationships with them, and eventually they could help make campus policies that were more inclusive and equal.

Scan from Henderson's book "Race and the University."

Henderson invited students of color and white student allies, academics and athletes to participate in OU’s civil rights movement. He became a “university politician,” learning how to navigate the campus bureaucracy so the students’ efforts would be more effective.

“Our students have done exceptionally well finding jobs that are people-oriented,” Henderson said. “I’m proud of that. I’m proud that my students have been able to carve out natures in communities that continue focusing on … social justice issues and without adequate resources.”

OU’s president from 1968 to 1970, John Herbert Hollomon, Jr., told Henderson he knew Henderson belonged at the university.

“‘George, teaching at the University of Oklahoma is your calling,’” Henderson recalled Hollomon telling him. “I did not quite understand that for many years, but he was absolutely spot-on with that.”

LASTING LEGACY

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enderson has spent his life pushing boundaries to promote ethnic diversity and interracial understanding on the OU’s campus.

After receiving a nomination for the Sylvan N. Goldman Professorship in 1969, he created OU’s human relations program. His first week on the job, Henderson contacted directors in human or race relations programs in Oklahoma, but after sending 54 letters, he did not receive a single letter in return.  

Henderson later created an internship program to give students experience working with human relations projects in the department.

Because Henderson was building a program where students needed to learn from personal interactions, Henderson said the students needed to understand humility and be able to listen to one another.

“I wanted my students to have tenacity, be knowledgeable and understand that working with people is not a short-term thing,” Henderson said. “It is like love — if you really want good love, it is not a short thing. You have to work at it, and, sometimes, you want to quit. You just get tired and you have to make concessions, and, above all else, you have to know how to compromise.”

Photo provided.

Today, the human relations department promotes social justice, enhanced social relationships, human diversity, advocacy, inclusiveness and critical thinking.

Efforts to increase diversity across OU’s campus continued in 1999 when the Henderson Scholars Program was created to honor Henderson and provide opportunities for incoming freshman to participate in community service activities and think critically about issues within OU and around the globe.

Students in the program are required to attend weekly meetings, and, on occasion, Henderson will speak to students about a topic involving cultural and ethnic diversity. Amber Garcia, a Henderson Scholar pre-nursing freshman, said since joining the program, Henderson’s guidance has pushed her to find constructive and active steps to positively deal with social issues and conflicts and effect change.

Growing up attending classes at Carl Albert high school, Garcia said the majority of students were white and could not relate to her individual struggles.

“It was cool seeing people who looked like me and talked like me and just understood everything I have been through. That was honestly my first interaction like that,” Garcia said. “Especially after hearing Henderson talk himself, it has been amazing how much my perspective has opened up.”

Pamela Humphrey, assistant director for the Henderson Scholars program, said over time she has learned more about Henderson’s contributions and character.

“This program has given students the opportunity to not only get to know Dr. Henderson, but a chance to do some amazing things in their areas of study,” Humphrey said. “His presence on OU’s campus is very impactful as he is a warm, kind person and he really loves these students.”

Professor Emeritus Dr. George Henderson speaks at the Martin Luther King Jr. choir concert Jan. 21, 2019. Photo by Caitlyn Epes/The Daily.

Throughout the years, Henderson said his students taught him his greatest lessons.

“Coming to Norman gave me a chance to live what I was teaching,” Henderson said. “In this very special place, I have had some of the best teachers in the world, and they did not have Ph.D.’s. They were students. They were my students, and we grew and learned together and became friends.”

By coming to OU, Henderson said he received a unique experience that allowed him to speak to students and build strong relationships, cross and breakdown barriers and set young members of the black community up for future success.

“I was only going to stay in Oklahoma for two or three years. Then I would move on to a better place,” Henderson wrote. “I came for a job and it turned into a career. But that is not why I stayed … I stayed because of some very special people whom I would not have found elsewhere.”

“Together, we made the University of Oklahoma a better place … I found my destiny. Or better yet, I found my dignity.”

Story by Jericka Handie

Design by Paxson Haws