One of Beasley's disappointments was being unable to join the UC choral group. It was a familiar exclusion. At Withrow High School, she had rehearsed regularly with the glee club, but could never take the stage with them. By the '30s, blacks at UC occasionally made it in the chorus of main-campus troupes, but little else had changed. Numbering only about 100 students, the African Americans on campus quickly disappeared into the student body of 11,000.
Alumni say that a sense of isolation consumed the group.
We came to school, went to work, went home to eat and sleep, and started over again. But college was supposed to be more than that. He knew it. He believed it. So he did something about it.