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There’s a reason minority students are hailed as a commodity (read: showered in scholarships) when they enroll at prestigious universities nowadays. Not, it's not just guilt.
Diversity on college campuses was once as rare as sobriety is now, and black representation across many mediums, including film, television, government and business, set a strikingly low bar for racial tolerance.
Luckily for modern whippersnappers of color, the Civil Rights movement swept in during the latter half of the 20th century to save us from systematic oppression. But like anything involving raucous mobs of reactionary racists, arriving at that point wasn't easy.
Accordingly, the first black students at dozens of schools (not just in the south) faced countless hurdles in their journeys to obtain an education. Giant mobs, picket lines, nuisance fires, and militant rioters hurling profanities were all par for the rocky course these pioneers faced. Eventually, though, the men and women on the right side of history, the side pushing against the tide, prevailed.
Here are their trials and tribulations: The First Black Students Admitted to 15 Prestigious U.S. Universities, and Their Stories.
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15. Samuel Codes Watson
Year: 1853
School: University of Michigan
At a time when virtually no African-American physicians existed, when millions were still subject to slavery in adjacent regions, the University of Michigan defied all expectation by admitting a black student to its medical program.
Samuel Codes Watson, an aspiring physician, transferred to the school in 1853 after finding that the curriculum at Oberlin College in Cleveland did not include medicine. He discovered that the nearest large medical school was in Ann Arbor, and was surely caught off guard when he learned he was the first African-American to gain admission. Little is known about Watson's experience at the school, but his enrollment remains a source of pride in the U of M's racial legacy.
14. Ernest Houston Johnson
Year: 1891
School: Stanford
When it came to accepting its first black students, Stanford didn't waste any time. Ernest Johnson was admitted in the same year the school was founded. Johnson's father was regarded as an intellectual, despite only possessing a third-grade education, which was likely due to his in-depth study of Shakespeare.
Beverly Johnson bypassed the black primary school when it came time for his son to begin his studies, opting for a white grammar school. Ernest graduated from high school in 1891 and immediately applied to UC-Berkeley and Stanford. Berkeley accepted him first; he didn't hear back from Stanford initially. As fate had it, Beverly happened to know the eponymous Stanfords from a previous line of work, and the abolitionist family prodded its university's president to accept Johnson.
Reports say Johnson was popular among classmates, an athlete who worked as a printer's apprentice to pay for school. He graduated in 1895, with a bachelor's degree in economics, before attending Stanford Law School. He died of tuberculosis in 1898, a proud alumni of a trailblazing institution. So proud, in fact, that he took his diploma with him to the grave.
13. Robert Robinson Taylor
Year: 1888
School: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
In 1888, Robert Taylor became the first black student ever admitted to MIT. It's an incredible feat in itself, and his stellar academic record while enrolled only makes it more impressive. Records show that Taylor rounded out his college years near the top of his class, with the North Carolina native earning honors in trigonometry, architectural history, differential calculus, and applied mechanics. He never failed a course and graduated in exactly four years.
The MIT scholar went on build a college of his own, serving as the primary architect of Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee institute. A ground breaker in more ways than one.
12. John Chase
Year: 1950
School: University of Texas
John Chase was basically the first black everything in Texas. Federal marshals shadowed Chase when he first arrived to the University of Texas in June 1950. At the time, the Maryland native and graduate of predominantly black Hampton University, didn't intend on becoming an icon of progress in race relations. He just wanted to study architecture at a prestigious school.
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that UT was required to desegregate its graduate programs, the 25-year-old found his opportunity. According to Houston's Chron News, white faculty members were supportive of the aspiring architect, who would go on to become the first licensed black architect in Texas. Still, he had difficulty finding a job immediately out of school, so he started his own firm.
He went on to build homes, churches and union halls all along the Gulf Coast, and in nearby Austin. Later, he also became the first black president of the UT alumni group, and the first African-American to serve on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. We are all unworthy.
11. Gene Mitchell Gray
Year: 1952
School: University of Tennessee
Gene Mitchell Gray , despite being the first black graduate student enrolled at the University of Tennessee in 1952, and subsequently fired from his job. The 22-year-old father of two, according to a Jet Magazine news brief, was "frozen" out of his job at a Knoxville hotel following his acceptance into a graduate program at the school. Similar to so many cases at the time, Gray's admission resulted from a definitive court battle. When Gray applied for another job, the article said, he was given the cold shoulder. His mother, a vital source of financial aid, reportedly lost her job, too. Way too cold, Knoxville. Luckily, a group of African Americans in the area came to his assistance, allowing him the funding he needed to complete his biochemistry degree. Inspiring, indeed.
10. Silas Herbert Hunt
Year: 1948
School: University of Arkansas
Silas Hunt became the first black student enrolled at a state school in the deep south when he was admitted to the University of Arkansas in 1948. The World War II vet worked to pay for his undergraduate education at what's now known as the University of Arkansas-Pine bluff, before applying to the law program of the state's land-grand institution.
An attorney and a newspaper photographer accompanied Hunt to an interview with the law school's dean, who emerged impressed after a short meeting and review of his academic record. Against all expectations, Dr. Robert Leflar decided to admit Hunt to the law school. Hunt enrolled in the spring, taking segregated classes in a basement, where he likely received more individual attention than any public school student in history. White students weren't barred from attending, but he was joined by only three to five people per session. Unfortunately, illness cut short Hunt's tenure at Arkansas. He lost a battle to tuberculosis in 1949, dying at a hospital in Springfield, Missouri. Still, his perseverence in the face of difficulty will be remembered.
9. John Brandon, Ralph Frasier, and LeRoy Frasier
Year: 1955
School: University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Football games were still segregated by race when John Brandon, and brothers Ralph and LeRoy Frasier first attended the University of North Carolina as undergraduates. It took a federal court decision, but the three were finally allowed to become Tar Heels in 1955, when the school's blatantly racist admissions policy was struck down for the very first time.
Despite collegiate integration in the South being a famously touchy issue, the three friends' experience was relatively uneventful. Angry mobs were nowhere to be found, and no local politicians stood in doorways to greet them, or deny them entry. However, a minor conflict did arise: The students quickly learned that there were places and people they should avoid. Said Frasier of the ordeal, "We were kids. I was probably thinking about when we were going to eat."
8. Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Hamilton Holmes
Year: 1961
School: University of Georgia
So much for that Southern hospitality. In 1961, Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Hamilton Holmes arrived at the University of Georgia to chants of "2-4-6-8; we don't want to integrate." Hunter-Gault, the university's first black female student, remembers the stench of tear gas piercing the cold air and a brick crashing through her window after a federal judge ordered that the university allow her to attend. One student threw a quarter at her, and told her to change her bed sheets.
"They didn't have a clue who I was or what my dreams were, and the fact that my dreams were the same dreams they had," she said. Her ambition didn't fade with the heckling. Hunter-Gault would go on to graduate with a degree in journalism, later working as a reporter for the New York Times, a local news anchor and a foreign correspondent for NPR. Holmes would go on to earn his M.D. from Emory, becoming the first black student in its school of medicine.
7. Fred Patterson
Year: 1889
School: Ohio State University
Little is known about Fred Patterson, the first black student to attend Ohio State, other than that historians also consider him the first African American to suit up for the Buckeyes. Patterson played varsity football at the school for three years. We know that his father was born a slave, and later escaped to become a blacksmith. Patterson never graduated, but eventually took over his dad's carriage business in 1910. He built automobiles through the 1920s. It's believed that the Great Depression then took the business under. Still, a pioneer in a number of ways.
6. A.P. Tureaud, Jr.
Year: 1953
School: Louisiana State University
Discrimination and abject hatred would eventually force LSU's first black student to pursue an education elsewhere. A.P. Tureaud, Jr. enrolled at the school in 1953, becoming its first and only black undergrad after his family filed a lawsuit to gain him admittance into the school. In an interview with NPR, Tureaud called life in Baton Rouge "a challenge," which might just be the understatement of the century, at least in terms of the Civil Rights movement.
"When I got to LSU, I was miserable," Tureaud said. "The students wouldn't speak to me. I think someone had decided that if they totally isolated me I would leave."
Tureaud's classmates were apparently masters of torture, keeping him up at night with loud music and by banging on walls. When he walked into the showers, he said, everyone else walked out. Professors wouldn't even touch his papers. When, one day, a black man accompanied by his 7-year-old-son walked up to Tureaud and told him "I want him to meet you, because I want him to know that this is possible for him - to come to this school - thanks to you."
Rather than being flattered, Tureaud grew frustrated. "I said to him, 'You've just ruined my day! I want to get out, I want to get out - and now I can't,' because I became the symbol of integration." The harassment eventually got so bad that Tureaud departed for Xavier University in New Orleans, where he graduated in 1957 with a degree in education, and presumably less mental turmoil.
5. Gregory Swanson
Year: 1950
School: University of Virginia
A lawsuit allowed 25-year-old Gregory Swanson to attend the University of Virginia in 1950, the first black student at an all-white school. The Howard University graduate had already been admitted to the Virginia Bar and was a practicing lawyer by the time he applied to UVA's law program. After university officials voted unanimously that Swanson be admitted (he boasted a stellar academic record), the state Board of Visitors rejected his application on the basis of a state provision against integrated schools.
A three-judge panel then ordered that Swanson be admitted to the school, in a case that lasted less than thirty minutes. Judges cited the lack of a similar tax-funded programs from black students. But once Swanson arrived to campus, there was little celebration to be had.
He enrolled in the university's law school in 1950, but wasn't allowed to live on the school's grounds. He was barred from social activities, prohibited from attending school dances, and essentially isolated from the rest of the student body. So in July 1951, after finishing his first year, Swanson withdrew from the university. He described "an overwhelming climate of racial hostility and harassment." Justice is hard to find sometimes, even if you're a lawyer. And especially if you're a black lawyer in Virginia mid-20th century.
4. James Meredith
Year: 1962
School: University of Mississippi
Perhaps the most iconic figure of university integration, James Meredith entered the University of Mississippi less than two weeks after being barred by school officials. Attorney General Robert Kennedy had to intervene in the matter to see that Meredith was allowed to attend, and the state's governor finally budged.
State residents, however, weren't so compliant. When Meredith showed up for class, segregationists and white students gathered en masse on the Oxford campus to protest. Three thousand were estimated to have turned out to the riot, in which card-carrying Klan members and normal citizens alike banded together to ritually harass a man for seeking knowledge. President Kennedy was forced to send in military police and Army National Guard troops to quell the violent clash, in which two people died because thousands more harbored ill feelings toward blacks.
The harassment didn't end when the riots did. Fellow Ole Miss students reportedly ostracized Meredith, opting to move elsewhere when he sat down for lunch. Others bounced a basketball incessantly on the floor above his room at odds hours of the night. Like everyone's junior nightmare all over again, but on a much, much grander scale.
3. Autherine J. Lucy
Year: 1956
School: University of Alabama
After Autherine J. Lucy was admitted to the University of Alabama in 1956, an angry, violent mob of students and community members formed on campus to welcome her. Protesters hurled rocks and eggs at Lucy as she walked to her first classes, prompting local authorities to intervene, escorting the graduate student around campus for her protection.
The loud threats and mob-dealt jeers were apparently audible from Lucy's classrooms. Concerns for the girl's safety eventually forced school officials to suspend her only three days after she attended her first class. She was ultimately expelled from the college. Somehow, this still signifies progress. That's Alabama for 'ya.
2. Beverly Garnett Williams
Year: 1847
School: Harvard
Protests broke out after Harvard admitted its first black student, Beverly Garnett Williams, in 1847. Students, faculty, and pro-slavery Southerners (apparently a large faction back then) rioted upon hearing the news. But the anger was all harbored in vain.
Williams died just before the academic year began, and thus never entered the college. Harvard wouldn't accept another black student for 23 years. School higher-ups surely didn't regret admitting Richard T. Greener in 1870. The first African-American to enter the college and complete the undergraduate curriculum went on to win the school's chief prizes in writing and speaking. Not too shabby for someone of any race.
1. James Pennington
Year: 1834
School: Yale
Always ahead of the educational curve, Yale played host to its first black student when slavery was still thriving. But if you're under the impression that the gesture was a beacon of racial progress, think again.
Born a slave and later escaping as a fugitive, James Pembroke (later Pennington) settled in New Haven, CT some time around 1834. He became the first black man to attend classes at Yale that year, but never became the first to graduate because the university didn't permit him to earn a degree. The most he could do was observe classes at the divinity school for no academic credit, which bears an uncomfortable resemblance to one of his earlier ventures. All work, no pay.