Class News
Dennis Upper ’64 wrote about MLK’s Yale degree ceremony
January 17, 2022
On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 2022, Dennis’s wife, Nancy Upper, reread Dennis’s recollections of King’s honorary degree ceremony at our Yale Commencement, June 15, 1964, written in Dennis’s memoir Long Story Short (2007). Dennis passed away on September 18, 2018 (see his obituary).
Here is the excerpt from Dennis’s memoir ...
Monday, June 15, 1964 is a beautiful spring day — sunny, blue sky filled with puffy white clouds, flowers everywhere. I'm sitting with my fellow classmates, all of us soon to be Yale graduates, in rows and rows of folding chairs on the lawn of the Cross Campus, between Berkeley and Calhoun Colleges. In the aisles all around and through our section, eager parents and relatives swarm, taking pictures from every angle and with every type of camera imaginable.
We're wearing Yale-blue caps and gowns, and each of us has been given a white clay pipe with a small bowl and a long stem, along with a bag of tobacco and a book of matches with a gold Y on it. This is to honor the tradition of having a symbolic final smoke with one’s classmates, after which the pipe is broken so that it can never be smoked again. The final group smoke is supposed to take place sometime near the end of today’s ceremony, but I can already see smoke rising from several places in our section, and from the smell I’m not sure that regulation tobacco is the only thing being smoked.
In front of us, in the shadow of Sterling Memorial Library, a stage has been erected, and on it sit President Brewster, assorted University officers and officials, and the dignitaries who’ll be receiving honorary degrees today. I’ve heard that we’ve landed a particularly stellar group of honorees for our graduation ceremony, and I check out my program to try to match names with the faces I see on stage — Averell Harriman, Phillip Jessup, Sargent Shriver Jr., Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, and (the one person I recognized immediately) Martin Luther King Jr.
When the news came out that Martin Luther King Jr. had been bailed out of a Florida jail to receive an honorary degree from Yale, the newspapers had a field day. The northern papers were generally positive, citing Yale’s “good example” and “openness to controversial views,” but the southern press was less supportive (in some cases even vitriolic), calling King a “petty criminal” and “Doctor of Terror.” Among the students, at least the ones I hung around with, it wasn’t much of an issue. In fact, in the bustle of final exams, packing our stuff to take home, and preparing for graduation, I hardly recall hearing King’s name mentioned at all.
Soon the ceremony begins — welcome to parents and grads, introduction of notables, droning speeches about “bright futures ahead” and “going forth to do good deeds” — most of which goes in one ear and out the other because I’m focusing on walking across that stage to get my diploma and then meeting up with family and friends to party afterwards. Dr. King and the others receive their plaques and hoods and rounds of applause, and then it’s time to pass out the sheepskins.
We’re seated alphabetically and, since there are over eight hundred graduates in our class, it takes a while for me to get my turn up on the grand stage. As I’m coming up the steps, I hear the announcer say, “William Albert Turnage . . . David Charles Turner . . . Robert John Twiss ... ” and finally, “Dennis Upper.”
I stride across the stage, receive my diploma from one of the deans, shake Kingman Brewster’s hand, and begin my exit. Dr. King, who’s sitting at the end of the front row near the exit stairs, happens to look up as I approach and our eyes meet. I hold up my diploma proudly and smile at him, and he smiles warmly and nods at me in return.
As I walk down the stairs and return to my seat, I’m thinking, You know, Dr. King, you and I are not that different. We each came here like a fish out of water. Now we both have our Yale degrees. Let them put that in their pipes and smoke it!
Classmates may want to listen to the prayer King delivered to us in Battell Chapel.
Also on MLK Day 2022, Jeremy Scott Wood ’64 sent the full citation of King’s honorary degree.
