The History of Integration Wake Forest University •

Home , Wake Forest University

THE HISTORY OF INTEGRATION AT WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY

E. Kemp Reece, Jr. Age of Individualism: 1950's-1960's Dr. James Howell Smith, Instructor

April 30, 1981

• THE HISTORY OF INTEGRATION AT WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY

Although the history of integration at Wake Forest University barely spans

a generation, the period is, nonetheless, rich in its heritage. Integration

began in the early 1960's with the Woolworth's sit-in and the acceptance of

Edward Reynolds to the college, but was not firmly established until the Steve

Bowden/Omega Wilson controversy of the early 1970's. During this ten year

period, Black students at Wake Forest University made many notable achievements

and contributions, not only to the college community, but to society as well.

In early February of 1960, Blacks in Winston-Salem began protesting

segregated lunch counter service at several downtown department stores. At the

downtown Woolworth's store, on February 23, Wake Forest students, led by George

Williamson, Jr., were arrested, along with twelve Winston-Salem State students.

The twenty-two students were charged with trespassing, but were·later released

and acquitted. (Ironically, five days after the sit-ins at Woolworth's,

Edward Reynolds from Ghana and an unidentified Winston-Salem Black youth were refused admission to the college solely on the basis of race).1

By March ..... desegregation was the subject of discussion among students and faculty members at Wake Forest. The student legislature passed, on

March 3, by a nine to four margin, a resolution asking the Board of Trustees,

"to take .a positive stand on Wake Forest's admission policy in regards to - 2 -

race."2 Furthermore, the legislature strongly reconnnended that there be no

racial discrimination in the admission of students to the college. On

March 8, sixty Wake Forest faculty members addressed the issue of desegregation

by petitioning five Winston-Salem variety stores, (S.H. Kress, L.H. Green, i.J:algreen

F.W. Woolworth, Number 1 & 2) to end lunch counter segregation. 3 Wake Forest

Chaplain, Edgar D. Christman, called this resolution "extremely significant"

because the Wake Forest faculty was telling businessmen in the City of Winston- Salem how to runt h eir. b usinesses.. 4 However, by the end of the month, the mood of the student body, numbering 1,778, had apparently changed. Iri a poll taken

in the Chapel on March 29 (administered by Jack Pryon; 29 year old accounting student), 1,346 students particiapted and voted as follows: 'neverI integrate, II 742; "integrate in the immediate future," 282; "integrate in the relative near

future," 322.5 Dr. Clarence H. Patrick, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at

Wake Forest, called the poll "worthless" because of the conditions and atmos• phere under which it was conducted.6

In the ensuing days, the faculty felt compelled to examine more closely

the role of Wake Forest regarding integration. In a faculty meeting on

April 11, 1960, J. Allen Easley, Professor Emeritus of Religion at Wake Forest,

was appointed chairman of a special faculty committee created to study "the practice of racial discrimination in college admission.117

The members of the Faculty Committee included Harold M. Barrow, John C.·

Broderick, J, Allen Easley, George J. Griffin, Phillip J, Hamrick, J. Robert

Johnson, Jr., and Henry S. Stroupe. The Committee was to begin its study of the admissions policy in the following school year.

In May of 1960, during a Baptist Student Union Training Seminar at Wake

Forest Baptist Church, students were studying the Rise of Communism in Third - 4 -

Reynolds ' arriva.. 1 13 One of the more interesting methods of raising money involved several members of the administration and faculty. Dressed as waiters,

they served meals in the Magnolia Room, on the Wake Forest Campus, and gave

their tips to the ASP.14 Twenty-five dollar pledges were received from students

and faculty, Money was also donated by the Wake Forest Baptist Church, whose pastor, coincidentally, was Glenn Blackburn's father.15

In the following school year, wh.ile students were working to secure

pledges for the ASP, the Faculty Committee was confronting the question of de•

segregation. The Committee's first meeting was held on October 10, 1960, and

for the next four months the membe-xs :tnvestig,ctte!d desegregat:Lqn in No;r.th. Oca,+io..,.

lina Colleges and Universities; reviewed pronouncements of the North Carolina

Baptist State Convention; surveyed desegregation in Southern Colleges in

general, and examined available articles and reports on desegregation. 16 The Committee also circulated a memorandum, inviting all persons interested to

appeal before the group to discuss their views, "There was only one person

·who took a decidedly negative position," Dr. Easley recalled, "He raised the

question as to whether integration of the student body would damage the in- come. 1117

The Faculty Committee reached a unanimous decision on Fehruary 13, 1961,

stating that it was "no longer proper to exclude applicants from Wake Forest

College, in. the ory or prac ti ce, so 1e 1 yon tuet:. t;uasis o f race or color. 1118 The Trustees were then invited to join the faculty in changing the admission policy of the college; the Trustees, however, requested that Dr, Easley appear before their committee. Dr. Easley went before the Trustee Committee "of not more than three," and reviewed the operations, activities, and conclusions.of the 19 Faculty Committee's study. "I was left with the feeling," Dr, Easley said,

lj - 5 -

"that they (the Trustees) certainly weren't too excited about integ;ration.1120

After the Faculty Committee made its proposal to the Board of Trustees,

the Wake Forest community anxiously awaited the Trustees decision. Dr. Robert

Gregory, the ASP Faculty Advisory, had submitted Edward Reynold's application

to the Wake Forest Admissions Committee early in 1961; therefore, the ~ttention

of students and faculty were rivetted on the April 28th meeting of the Board of

Trustees. William G. Starling, Director of Admissions at Wake Forest, recalled

that "while no formal policy existed which excluded Blacks from entering the

college; nonetheless, tradition here was as powerful as law.1121 However, on

April 28, 1961, the Board of Trustees broke tradition and allowed the Law

School, Medical School, and Graduate Schools to "use their own discretion with. regar d toteh a dmi ssions. po 1.icy. ,,22 Although a battle had been won in the fight for desegregation, the war waged on to relax racial bars in the undergraduate school.

·On June 5, 1961, the Board of Trustees took a step closer to desegregating

the undergraduate school of Wake Forest, by voting to admit Blacks to the

summer school and night classes. Kenard C. Rockette, a twenty-one-year old

Winston-Salem mathematics major at North Carolina Agricultrual and Technical

State University, enrolled at Wake Forest on June 12, 1~61. He became the first Black to attend the college since the Trustees' decision. Rockette and two other Winston-Salem Blacks, Mary Ann Hollins and Odell Hatcher, attended· the second session of the Wake Forest summer schoo1.23 Rockette said in a telephone interview that "I wanted to see if any Blacks would enroll, and when none did, I didn't want the opportunity to slip away."24

Since the trustees had altered the Faculty Committee's proposal, denying

Edward Reynolds admission to the undergraduate school, the ASP found it - 6 -

necessary to alter its plans concerning Edward Reynolds.

During the summer of 1961, Edward Reynold's application was sent to Shaw

University, a Black College in Raleigh, North Carolina. The intention of the

ASP was to send Reynolds to Shaw University for a year, and then have him trans•

fer to Wake Forest as soon as the Trustees relaxed the admissions policy.

Reynolds was accepted at Shaw University and members of the ASP prepared for his

arrival in the United States at the end of August. On August 25, 1961, Reynolds

arrived in Winston-Salem and was welcomed into the home of Dr. Gregory. Classes

started at Shaw University on September 14th and Reynolds entered, eagerly

awaiting a change in the admissions policy at Wake Forest University. Mrs. Gloria

c. Goore, a Math Instructor at Winston-Salem State Teachers College, and Roland

H. Hayes, a teller at Wachovia Bank, enrolled on September 8, 1961, for evening classes at Wake Forest. 25

Throughout the fall term of 1961, members of the ASP continued to solicit

pledges from Wake Forest students and faculty. Letters were written to the

Trustees encouraging them to reconsider admitting Edward Reynolds for the next

schooi year. Reynolds made excellent progress in the short time he had been at

Shaw University; he was treasurer of the Campus Theological Society; Progress

Chairman of the Student Christian Movement, and in the meantime managed to main• tain a 4.0 grade point average.26

Further progress was made in the desegregation struggle, wh.en the Baptist.

State Convention met at the Memorial Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina, on

November 14, 1961. The Christian Life Committee recommended to the Convention that it go on record as commending the the constructive steps which has been taken (desegregating the graduate schools, the summer school, and the evening classes) and urged the Trustees to move as "quickly as possible toward a policy

'i. - 7 -

of opening the doors of knowledge and service to qualified applicants regardless of race.1127

The next Board of Trustees meeting was scheduled for January 12, 1962.

Again, the Trustees refused to sanction desegregation at Wake Forest, but voted

unanimously to refer the question to its Race Relations Committee. The Committee

was requested to study desegregation at Wake Forest and directed that it return

on April 27th at the Board's next scheduled meeting, and present a proposal. 28

The Wake Forest Baptist Church became the first Baptist church in North

Carolina to open its membership to Blacks. The issue was brought up at a congre-

gational meeting by the Christian Life Committee. The members of the church

voted "overwhelmingly" to admit Blacks in the Sunday service on March 4, 1962.29

It was a truly joyous occasion on April 27, 1962, when the Trustees passed,

by a seventeen-to-nine margin (with four abstentions), a resolution allowing·

Blacks to enroll in the undergraduate school at Wake Forest College. 30 Walter

E. Christman, a Trustee from High Point, North Carolina, read the resolution of the Race Relations Committee to the Board, which stated:

This Committee recommends to the Trustees that we carry out the will expressed by the Baptist State Convention last November and allow students to Wake Forest regardless of race.31

For the first time in the history of Wake Forest College, Blacks were allowed to enroll in the undergraduate school.

Edward Reynolds, the first Black student to be graduated by Wake Forest

College, enrolled in the first session of the 1962 Summer School. The only other

Black student enrolled in the first session was Patricia Tillman, who was ex- pelled from the college for misconduct, Reynolds, recalling the episode which lead to her expulsion said that "she went downtown one night, got drunk, came TE;N-YEAR LISTING OF BLACK GRADUATES AT WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY

1964 Edward Reynolds

1965 William R. Ojo

1966 Patricia A. Smith

1967 NONE

1968 Sylvia Rousseau

1969 Julius Imosun James R. Johnson Howard L. Stanback

19'70 James C. Warren

1971 Joel Bowden Louise W. Jennings Thomas J, Gavin, III Freeman A. Mark Norwood L. Toddman 1972 Rodney S. Bowden ·John R. Bristol Gerald T. McKoy Mohammed A. Horri Robert I. Neal Lawrence B. Hopkins Franklin B. Roberts Thomas L. Jones Franklin D. Robinson Archied D. Logan Dow M. Spaulding Gerry L. Terrell 1973 Clement Brown James F. Clennnons Muriel E. Norbrey Awilda Gilliam Bertha P. Richardson Deborah J. Graves Camille R. Russell Love James W. Moore Clarence C. Watkins

1974 Shirley Colquiett Eugenia Eckard George A. Parker Carolyn Davis Richard c. Parker James W. Harrison Betty L. Rankin George W. Harvey Deborah F. Sims Sandra A. Hill James A. White Elaine L. Wright

'i. A YEARLY LISTING OF BLACK STUDENT ENROLLMENT AT WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY

1962 ------2 1963 ------1 1964 ------3 1965 ------3 1966 ------4

1967 ------14

1968 ------20

1969 ------14

1970 ------21