W. Ahmad Salih deejaying for “The Ghetto” at WTBS, 1972. Courtesy MIT Museum

Reflections of an MIT Student Activist

Part III: Uniting the Spirit of the BSU through Music

By Dr. Waayl Ahmad Salih, MIT ’72, SM/EAA ‘73

This four-part reflection on being a student activist during a time of social upheaval and transformation at MIT and nationwide is written by Dr. Waayl Ahmad Salih with parts adapted from his 1999 interview with Clarence G. Williams in Technology and the Dream: Reflections on the Black Experience at MIT, 1941–1999 (MIT Press, 2001).

“You could stand outside almost anywhere in the Boston metro area and hear the party.”

The Gospel Choir

The MIT Gospel Choir grew out of the Christian Fellowship, a group of about ten to twenty black students who wanted to get together and praise the Lord. Some students attended St. Paul AME church in Cambridge, but a few others went to Union Baptist Church. The choir was organized in 1971 by Ricardo Hall, who was also the pianist, and was directed by Lee Allen ’77, SM ‘94.

They performed at local religious and black cultural events. The group sang traditional gospel, spirituals and hymns. Their repertoire included: “The Way O Lord,” “Joy Joy, I’ve Come A Long Ways,” “Jesus Lover of My Soul?,” “God So Loved the World,” “All You Need,” and “Soon Ah Will Be Done”. Whenever they sang, the people loved them.

MIT Gospel Choir performs on Killian, November 1974. Directing at right is Lee Allen ’77, SM ‘94. Front row from left to right: Elaine Harris ’78; Cordelia Price 78, SM ’82; Yolanda “Jinx” Hinton ’77; Wanda Mason ’77; Mae White ’75; Inez Hope ’73, SM ’75; and Celia Berry ’78. Second row: Carolyn Disnew; Dorleena Sammons; Ann Johnson; Gloria Bass; Leigh Watlington ’77; and Diana Waters ’78. Third row: Charles Taylor’77; Austin Harton ’79, SM ’79, PhD ’88; William “Bill” Gilchrist ’77, MA/MAR/SM ’82; Ricardo Hall (choir president and co-director); Jimmie Russell ’77; and Gary Wilkes ’74, SM/ ’76. Not shown: Angela Chaney ‘76/’77. Courtesy MIT Museum

Radio — “The Ghetto”

The other big part of my early MIT years was radio. I got my first-class license from the FCC and, along with James “JC” Clark ’74 (now president of South Carolina State University), created The Ghetto in 1969.

The Ghetto was the MIT Black Students’ Union (BSU) radio show on WTBS, MIT’s student radio station. The call letters were later sold to Ted Turner in 1979, and the station is now called WMBR (Walker Memorial Basement Radio).

The Ghetto also provided a large part of the station management. One of our deejays, DJ J.C. (James Clark), was elected station general manager in 1971, and yours truly was the first licensed engineer and later the station comptroller.

We named “The Ghetto” radio show after Donny Hathaway’s 1970 song.

We started out having one half-hour show once a week in 1969. The station had only 8 watts of power, which effectively only covered the MIT campus. By 1972, we were broadcasting non-commercial FM stereo with 720 watts, all night, seven nights a week, making us the number-one Black radio in the entire Boston metropolitan area. We used this vehicle to sort of help in uniting the black community.

A few years later the BSU at Boston University produced The Drum, our major competition. When celebrities came to Boston (e.g., War, Stevie Wonder, Richard Pryor, Donnie Hathaway, The Bluenotes, The Stylistics, Aretha Franklin, The Isley Brothers, The Manhattans, and Grover Washington), they would all stop by The Ghetto for interviews and promos.

Courtesy WMBR

The music was mostly R&B, plus late-night Jazz and Sunday gospel. We also had a daily news show featuring local, national, and international news. Other schools’ BSUs and community service announcements were a daily feature of the news department.

The Ghetto also provided a large part of the station management. One of our deejays, DJ J.C. (James Clark), was elected station general manager in 1971, and yours truly was the first licensed engineer and later the station comptroller. We had an all-volunteer staff, but some of us made money by emceeing concerts and deejaying around town. Our faculty advisor was Amar Bose ’51 — yes, the one and only. He was an electrical and sound engineer, professor at MIT for decades, and founder of the famous Bose company.

W. Ahmad Salih deejaying in Lobby 10, 1972. Courtesy MIT Museum

In 1972, we hosted one of the largest concerts ever at MIT, starring War, with over 20,000 attendees. J.C. got the idea to have a “City Party”. The hub was at Walker Memorial, and we had satellite parties at Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern, Harvard, Tufts, Wellesley, University of Massachusetts, Simmons, and other schools and community centers around town.

What made it a City Party was that everybody in their homes and cars were urged to turn on The Ghetto — and to play it loud! We would rotate the broadcast from different satellite locations and have everybody “check in”. You could stand outside almost anywhere in the Boston metro area and hear the party. People were dancin’ in the streets! We charged 50 cents and made almost $10,000 — and I’m sure at least half the people didn’t pay.

For more on the The Ghetto, read “The Ghetto: Five Years of Black Radio,” The Tech, 11 April 1975.

The Ghetto reunion, 1995. About half of the former staff — RIP Reggie Moseley ’77 (2nd row, 2nd from right). Source: W. Ahmad Salih (1st row, right)

Sports

Along with music, sports also played an important role in uniting the black community at MIT. The BSU fielded intramural basketball and touch-football teams. The football team frequently played Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) — my former fraternity — for the championship, which occasionally ended in fights.

In addition, a number of black students competed in intercollegiate basketball and track. Harold Brown ’72 set school-scoring records in basketball that lasted for almost 20 years. J.C was the coxswain on the intercollegiate Varsity 8 crew that competed internationally and won the 1976 Olympic trials.

Black Students’ Union Intramural Basketball Team, 1968. Here’s a picture of the BSU IM basketball champs, with a few wannabes. Left to right: William F. Eagleson ’64 (2nd from left); Robert Maurice Preer, Jr. ’65 (7th from left); Patrick C. Mbanefo ’64 (8th from left); James Henry Williams, Jr. ’67 (9th from left). Courtesy MIT Museum

Project Interphase

Project Interphase (today Interphase EDGE) was a pre-entry summer program that grew out of the original demands of the founders of the BSU in 1968. The program began in 1969 and continued after my tenure as BSU co-chairman with Warren Shaw ’72 in 1970 -71. Interphase was later enlarged to include Latinos and other disadvantaged students.

Project Interphase featured courses that helped prepare students for the academic year by offering lectures and problem sets in the style of 18.01 calculus and 8.01 physics, MIT’s typical first-year courses. No formal credit was earned by the students, but many participants reported decreased anxiety about the coming first-semester courses after completing the program.

I served as Interphase social activities chairman for two summers, attempting to get the students to have fun and get to know each other by planning dances, picnics, study breaks, and local outings.

BSU Tutoring Program

The BSU Tutoring Program was the brainchild of Inez Hope ’73 (daughter of Dean Mary Hope and later spouse of Warren Shaw). She saw the need for tutoring during her freshman year and took the initiative to coordinate a program. Over the summer of 1970, Inez designed the program, wrote a proposal, and presented it to the BSU leadership, which subsequently received approval by the MIT administration. The BSU Tutoring Program began in 1970 as a volunteer program of tutors recruited by Inez and Sylvester James Gates ’73, PhD ’77 and was paid for by the MIT Administration.

What I remember most was that tutoring others required me to really learn the subject matter in order to explain it in different ways to different students. This solidified my knowledge of the basics and set a firm foundation for the core courses in my major. The BSU Tutoring Program helped me as much as it helped the students I tutored, and it allowed me to overcome the academic deficits I had created for myself after all the partying and politics during my sophomore year.

Note

This article is Part 3 of a four-part series. To learn more about Dr. Waayl Ahmad Salih’s story, read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 4 here.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Warren Shaw ’72 and Inez Shaw ’73 (formerly Hope), Beverly Morrow ’73 (formerly Dalrymple) and Curtis Morrow ’73, Larry Dean ’76, James Clark ’74, Mae Wesson ’75 (formerly White), Clarence Williams, Elliott Borden ’73, and David Lee ’76 for their help with jogging my memory about key dates and events. Also, thanks Nelly Rosario ’94 and Elaine Harris ’78 for inspiring me to share this story.

About Dr. Waayl Ahmad Salih

Dr. Waayl Ahmad Salih was a student activist at MIT who later became an engineer and then a physician. He holds SB (1972), MS (1973), and EAA (1974) degrees, each from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT; an MS (1977) in Biomedical Engineering from Stanford University; and an MD (1985) from the University of California at Irvine. Prior to his medical practice, Dr. Salih worked for several years as an engineer with various aerospace companies in Massachusetts and southern California. As a board-certified emergency physician, Dr. Salih has worked at multiple facilities — from small community hospitals to academic level-1 trauma centers — during his 28-year medical career. In 1995 and 2005 he served as a diplomate of the American Board of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Salih retired in 2015 and lives in Rancho Santa Margarita, California.