Philadelphia native, Tony Whitfield is a man of multiple talents and personas – a photographer, artist, designer, writer, educator and administrator. Receiving a scholarship to attend a predominantly white prep school during the civil rights movement, Whitfield learned to embrace his differences and strike a balance among the various worlds he lived in.
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I was among the second group of Community Scholars to enter Germantown Friends School in 1966. Recruited from my sixth grade class in a public school in West Oak Lane, which was rapidly transitioning from an integrated to a black neighborhood. In a period when much of the US was still segregated and no one in my family had gone to college, my parents immediately recognized the opportunity to go GFS as potentially transformative. For me, it was the beginning of life in two worlds.
At that time the civil rights movement was in full swing and the goal of many was equality. For much of the white progressive community, that meant the eradication of difference. As a result, when I entered GFS I was told by my counselor, “Don’t tell anyone you are on scholarship. They will treat you differently.” Or essentially, live a lie.
For me, a kid who was also struggling with the fact that he was gay, that appeared initially to be an important strategy. Little did I know, that on both counts anyone who cared to think about my circumstance could see through me. This strategy, while understood by my family, ultimately served as a source of constant tension because it shaped my social interactions. The notion that I thought I was “better than” was a constant source of conflict and shame. It served to compound my isolation through much of my teens. Now I know that isolation defines the lives of many teens, particularly gay teens. At that time, there was no place to talk about it.
However, I also recognized there were aspects of who I was that distinguished me. From a very early age I exhibited unusual artistic talents that were inherited from my mother. Equally talented, she was discouraged from pursuing a career in the arts because she was told, “there are no colored women artists.” As a result, she became a beautician and channeled her talents into an interest in fashion and design. The fact that GFS had one of the strongest art departments in the city and one that quickly recognized and embraced my talents made my mother deeply appreciative. It also made me at home in ways that some of the other community scholars never really were.
At GFS, there was pervasive respect for artists and the creative process as a part of the individual’s cultural and intellectual life. There was also a belief in one’s essential responsibility to do service in ways that improves the world we occupy. From early in my career, I have recognized that the work I wanted to do would balance creativity, service and analysis, all activities that I learned to value in the contexts of home and school. While the course of my career has been somewhat circuitous and unpredictable, ranging from the arts to government to education, those activities have always been present.
At this point, I am very happy that Germantown Friends School was a part of my life. I recognize its impact on the set of values that govern my life and the degree to which living in two worlds at such a young age gave me an understanding of the complexity and contradictions of one’s lived experience. I am reminded daily that variants of that complexity characterize the lives we all lead.
My new position at Parsons as the Associate Dean for Civic Engagement will depend on maintaining a level of comfort with and insight into such multidimensional experience. Largely, the position revolves around envisioning an educational institution in a variety of changing and often conflicting environments, while managing and nurturing their relationship to the diversity within the institution itself. It’s a big challenge but one that excites me in a way that I recognize is a response, in part, to my prep school experience.
I must also add that I am amazed that after four decades, out of classes of 80 students, there is a diverse group of more than two dozen with whom I have ongoing friendships. I think that is very cool and unusual. I’m lucky.
- Tony Whitfield
