In Mr. Freedman’s first honors math class, he noticed a student, John Gill, who looked similar to the students he had grown up with in New York, sitting alone in the middle row. Mr. Freedman decided to talk to him and they had a great relationship. It was only two months in to talking to this student every day that Mr. Freedman realized he was African-American. The other students knew he was African-American and purposely decided not sit with him because of prejudice. Mr. Freedman has since lost contact with him and John Gill has not reached out to Georgia Tech. One of Mr. Freedman’s roommates was also good friends with John Gill
Living on Campus
During Mr. Freedman’s first year at Tech he lived in Towers Residence Hall with a student from Winder, Georgia. His roommate had never met a Jew before, but they still got along fine. He was invited to leave by Georgia Tech. His roommate was a munitions expert and would fuse M-80’s and set them off in …show more content…
Third year was the year that Mr. Freedman slipped, and he regrets not participating in the activities that Tech had to offer outside of the fraternity. It was hard trying to study and cutting up in the fraternity. He still dressed the way he did in New York which was different from the way everyone else at Tech dressed. The first time an African American student integrated the living environment of campus was during Mr. Freedman’s time at Tech. His name was Enoch Ward, and he was moving to Atlanta from Augusta, Georgia. His first roommate was happy with him the first day, but his parents found out and moved him to a different dorm. His second roommate was a guy from New York who could care less where he was from or who he was. Mr. Freedman says that if he had roomed with John Gill he may have studied better. Mr. Freedman never knew Ron Yancey nor Fred Espy who were the first two African-American students to graduate from Georgia