Highlights: 45 years of Blacks in education

Jet, Nov 3, 1997

Blacks have made great strides in education-overcoming racial barriers and accomplishing great achievements. Following is a list of some of the major events in the field reported in Jet over the past 45 years.

1951

University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA, and the University of Maryland Medical School admit their first Black students.

1952

Eight of nine theology faculty members of the University of the South in Sewanee, TN, including the dean of the School of Theology and its chaplain, resign positions on the staff to protest the university's ban on admission of Blacks to the school.

1954

U.S. Supreme Court in landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision declares racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

1955

Supreme Court orders school integration "with all deliberate speed."

1956

Autherine J. Lucy is first Black student admitted to University of Alabama, Feb. 3. She was expelled on Feb. 29.

1957

President Dwight Eisenhower orders federal troops to Little Rock, AR, to enforce court-ordered desegregation of Little Rock schools.

1958

President Eisenhower orders National Guard removed from Central High School in Little Rock. Ernest Green is first Black to graduate along with 600 White classmates.

1960

Four students from North Carolina A&T College start sit-in protest at a Greensboro, NC, five-and-dime store. Movement spreads through colleges across the South, and more than 1,000 students are arrested.

1961

White students riot at University of Georgia in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent enrollment of two Black students, Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes.

Adam Clayton Powell is elected chairman of the House Education and Welfare Committee.

1962

Two killed and more than 100 are wounded in anti-integration riots at University of Mississippi, Sept. 30-Oct. 1. Some 12,000 federal soldiers restore order and James Meredith, escorted by federal marshals, registers at the school.

1963

Two Black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, escorted by federalized National Guard troops, enroll at the University of Alabama despite the opposition of Gov. George C. Wallace.

1964

Hundreds of thousands of children in cities across the country participate in school boycotts to achieve integration.

1965

Vivian Malone is first Black student to graduate from the University of Alabama.

1968

Police officers kill three students during demonstrations on the campus of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg, SC.

1969

U.S. Supreme Court orders end to school segregation "at once."

1970

Dr. Clifton R. Wharton becomes chief executive of the largest school ever presided over by a Black man when he became president of Michigan State University.

1971

U.S. Supreme Court rules that busing is a constitutionally acceptable method of ending school segregation, April 20.

1976

Dr. Mary Frances Berry, a historian and legal scholar, is chosen from among 300 candidates to become chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

1977

Dr. Clifton R. Wharton is named chancellor of the State University of New York, the nation's largest university.

1979

Karen Stevenson, a 22-year-old native of Washington, D.C., becomes the first Black American woman to win a Rhodes Scholarship.

1980

Dr. Maurice Clifford becomes the first Black to head a major non-Black American medical school, The Medical College of Pennsylvania.

1982

Little Rock Central High School is named U.S. landmark.

1984

Sixteen-year lawsuit over desegregation at Tennessee State University ends. Court rules that the historically Black school set goal to achieve 50-50 Black to White student ratio by 1992.

1987

Black educators report that SAT and ACT College entrance exams are culturally biased.

1988

Bill Cosby and his wife, Camille, give a record gift of $20 million to Spelman College. The gift is the largest single gift to a Black school. The Cosbys make the announcement of their donation during inauguration activities of Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, the school's first Black woman president.

1991

Prominent lawyer Willie E. Gary gives $10 million to his alma mater, Shaw University in Raleigh, NC.

1995

Dr. Ruth Simmons is named the first Black president of the prestigious women's institution, Smith College, in Northampton, MA.

Oseola McCarty, who earned her living washing other people's clothes, donates $ 150,000 from her savings to the University of Southern Mississippi.

1996

A decision by the Oakland, CA, school board to recognize Ebonics, or Black English, as a second language sparks a national debate on the controversial issue.

1997

Affirmative action is not used in the admissions process at University of California law schools, which results in drastically fewer Black students.

The Little Rock Nine walk through the doors of Little Rock Central High School on the 40th anniversary of their integrating the all-White school. This time President Bill Clinton holds the door open for them.