Louis Selders

Louis Selders attended Black Mountain for the spring of 1947 as a transfer student from LeMoyne College, and he intended to return to LeMoyne after the spring. He shared in his application to Black Mountain that he was the Student Director of Drama at LeMoyne, “which entitled making scenery, costumes and other things necessary for play production.” He also stated that he was interested in the relationships between minority groups of Jews and Negroes and aimed to learn from attending “the true meaning of the brotherhood of man.”

We know that Selders participated in music at Black Mountain because of the Rosenwald updates, “Louis Selders was the pillar in our tenor section. We performed the St. Matthew Passion by Shutz here, a very difficult work, and the whole group of twenty-four did marvelously. A few of our white students proposed that we perform the whole work in the Negro Baptist Chutch at Black Mountain (a previous attempt of mine to have it performed by our interracial chorus at the white Methodist Church failed)... It was a strange and moving thing how these simple and plain men and women crowded into the church and later thanked us for coming. A young Negro girl approached Mrs. Jalowetz with the request to study voice with her privately. I think we made many new friends and I hope that in the long run we may have a few good students from our near surroundings.”

He took Extraordinary Communities with Rondthaler, Voice with Jalowetz, Chorus with Schlesinger, Human Relations with Wallen, and Tutorial in Sociology with Miller. In his course evaluations, Ilya Bolotowsky shared “Intelligent and gifted. Hard worker. Good sense of color and design. An unusually mature beginner.”

John Wallen wrote, “A good student. Consistent, conscientious, regular. He participated easily in all class activities- discussion as well as role-playing situations. His comments were usually relevant and valuable. Heis performance in role-playing situations usually demonstrated a greater ease with human relations situation than that of others. He would probably make an excellent teacher or work well in some vocation which utilized his skill with people. Although he was not as at home with abstract concepts as were other, he continually worked with direct practical application of the course material in an excellent way.”

A poem written by Selders is in his student file at the Western Regional Archives.

ODE TO THE NEW YEAR - - Louis Selders

My eyes are open to a brand new Year

How strange it is to be sans fear

Of flying unseen shrapnel, and burning ill,

Whose destiny is to blight, to maim And kill!

My eyes are open to a restless World,

Toward it the restoration of a lasting peace is hurled.

Could I but see the end of this new,

Unsolved mystery!

Will it go down as but one page In history?

My eyes are open to a raised Unbowed head.

To those who lie close harness to a Pillowed bed.

Why, oh, Why! Could not these then Be spared?

That God might stayed the hand

That dared!

My eyes are opened to the heart

That bleeds.

To those who met grim death

From inhuman deeds.

I offer these lines to those

Who needs must cry,

Accepting consolation from Him

Our Lord on high.

My eyes are open to the men

Who find Harkening ears to the sounds

That bind Our hearts and minds to movements,

And agree

That all men are created equal

And free.

My eyes are open to a brand new Year

How strange it is to be san

Fear Of those who thrive on war’s

Bloodshed and strife,

And cause mankind to lose its peace - -

Its life.

o0o

Selders kept in contact with the College after leaving and shared with Lowinsky, “first I must thank you for one of the happiest experiences of my life. That is, my much too short stay at Black Mountain.”

Biography written by Amanda Hartman. Sources: Quotes from faculty and poem are in the student file for Selders; Correspondence with Lowinsky and the Rosenwald Fund can be found in the Interracial Program files, Black Mountain College Collection, Western Regional Archives, Asheville, NC.