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GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS | 2021– 2022 49 return to its prewar isolation - ist traditions. As these things take time, a camera crew of 12 filmed reenactments of the conference about a month later along with scenes about town. Harold Igo, recognized founder of the conference, authored the script for the production, a two-reel short entitled “More Than A Parade” that the OWI translated into 28 languages for distribution around the world. While the original goal of guaranteeing employment for returning service members was not entirely achieved, some significant progress was made in other areas, most impor- tantly in the far-reaching deci- sion to adopt the city manager form of government for the village, which is still in place. In addition, the delegates drew up a charter for the conference in the name of the 250 villagers then in military service, commit- ting themselves “to a better Yellow Springs” with the creation of a Permanent Plan- ning Board, still a distinctive feature of Village govern- ment now known as Planning Commission. Finally, the charter pledged a four-point policy “to favor freedom from class, creed, and race prejudice … to pro- vide our young people with opportunity for self-develop- ment and productive careers at home … to be a good neighbor to other communi- ties and to play our part in the development of the new world …[and] to make our community more liveable for our returning service men.” Historically often ahead of the curve, Antioch College hosted its first conference on the postwar world even before the United States entered World War II. The graduates of the Class of 1940 decided to have sub- stantive discussions about the future as part of their commencement exercises. It was a fairly modest begin- ning for an annual run of much larger conferences on campus 1943–48 sponsored by the Institute of Interna- tional Relations, a branch of the American Friends Service Committee. Known collectively as the Postwar Reconstruction Conferences, it was the AFSC series that brought the heavi- est of heavy hitting speak- ers to campus, headlined by the First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, in the summer of 1944. Also on hand that year were Pulitzer Prize-winning author Pearl Buck and perennial Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas. Subsequent conferences boasted such prominent figures as diplomat Ralph Bunche, the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950, U.S. delegate to the United First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt and Antioch Col - lege President Algo D. Henderson exit Antioch's Main Building during Mrs. Roosevelt's visit to campus to address The Postwar Reconstruction Conference, July 1944. | PHOTO BY PROFESSOR OF PHYS ICS GWI LYM OWEN, COURTESY OF ANT IOCHIANA, ANT IOCH COLLEGE Nations Dorothy Kenyon, economist and pacifist Scott Nearing, Chicago newspa- per publisher Marshall Field, and two founding members of the Communist Party of the United States — Bertram Wolfe and Lewis Corey. Another heavy hitter from another time, Coretta Scott King (class of 1951), was an Antioch College under- graduate in 1947 when she heard pioneering civil rights organizer and activist Bayard Rustin, then with the Fel- lowship of Reconciliation, address the 1947 conference with a speech called “Old and New Armor,” a moment she recalled in her memoirs as life-changing. She thence- forth committed herself to nonviolent social action for which she and her future hus- band Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. became best known. ♦ *Sanders is the archivist at Antiochiana, Antioch College. Investing is about more than money. At Edward Jones, we stop to ask you the question: “What’s important to you?” Without that insight and a real under- standing of your goals, investing holds little meaning. Contact your Edward Jones financial advisor for a one-on-one appointment to discuss what’s really important: your goals. Eight local artists producing elegant, functional, contemporary pottery. Located in Kings Yard, Yellow Springs, OH 937-767-1666 • www.YellowSpringsPottery.com