Spring Break
From BSU to Baptist Bishop: one alum's story of perseverance
Issue date: 2/21/08
Douglas Miles came to Johns Hopkins as an undergraduate in 1966 from the projects of Baltimore.
He entered as one of only 14 black students in his freshman class and graduated having helped found Hopkins's Black Student Union. He then went on to seminary school to become a Baptist bishop.
The civil rights activist has continued to remain active in the community and has become a leader in Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development, an organization rooted in the city's neighborhoods and churches. For 30 years the group has worked to improve housing, increase job opportunities and rebuild schools.
The News-Letter sat down with Miles at the Koinonia Baptist Church to talk about his life, his experiences at Hopkins and what he feels the University needs to do to improve its relationship with the city:
N-L: What did your parents do?
DM: My father was a long shore man and a minister. My mother did domestic work basically all of her lifetime from when she was eight years old to when she finally retired in 1972 ... So my brothers, sisters and I feel blessed that we had someone upon whose shoulders we could stand, who made sure her children had an education. My father, though a minister, left our family when I was two years of age and so basically I was raised under my mother's hands.
N-L: What was your major?
DM: I started out pre-med and eventually ended up being one of the first humanistic studies area major to come out of Hopkins. I majored in education and triple-minored in philosophy, world history and sociology. I sat under one of the first teachers of an African-American course at Johns Hopkins, Hugh Davis Grant, a Southern white. That shows the state of mind at the Hopkins at the time - he was a Southerner and thus understood black people.
N-L: What was the attitude of the student body towards you at the time?
DM: At the time I came to Hopkins in 1966, there were mixed reception on campus. There was one fraternity that I went to pledge for and the fraternity song was "Dixie." I said I would never be a part of that fraternity.
He entered as one of only 14 black students in his freshman class and graduated having helped found Hopkins's Black Student Union. He then went on to seminary school to become a Baptist bishop.
The civil rights activist has continued to remain active in the community and has become a leader in Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development, an organization rooted in the city's neighborhoods and churches. For 30 years the group has worked to improve housing, increase job opportunities and rebuild schools.
The News-Letter sat down with Miles at the Koinonia Baptist Church to talk about his life, his experiences at Hopkins and what he feels the University needs to do to improve its relationship with the city:
N-L: What did your parents do?
DM: My father was a long shore man and a minister. My mother did domestic work basically all of her lifetime from when she was eight years old to when she finally retired in 1972 ... So my brothers, sisters and I feel blessed that we had someone upon whose shoulders we could stand, who made sure her children had an education. My father, though a minister, left our family when I was two years of age and so basically I was raised under my mother's hands.
N-L: What was your major?
DM: I started out pre-med and eventually ended up being one of the first humanistic studies area major to come out of Hopkins. I majored in education and triple-minored in philosophy, world history and sociology. I sat under one of the first teachers of an African-American course at Johns Hopkins, Hugh Davis Grant, a Southern white. That shows the state of mind at the Hopkins at the time - he was a Southerner and thus understood black people.
N-L: What was the attitude of the student body towards you at the time?
DM: At the time I came to Hopkins in 1966, there were mixed reception on campus. There was one fraternity that I went to pledge for and the fraternity song was "Dixie." I said I would never be a part of that fraternity.
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