Duke University to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Its Racial Integration

Duke University has announced a nine-month university-wide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the racial integration of its campus. “Celebrating the Past, Charting the Future: Commemorating 50 Years of Black Students at Duke” will begin in January with a reception at the Nasher Museum of Art.

In 1963 five Black students enrolled at Duke. Three went on to graduate. Two members of the “First Five,” Mary Vashtie Mitchell Harris, who graduated from Duke, and Cassandra Smith Rush who dropped out, have died. Gene Kendall dropped out of Duke after his first year when he lost scholarship money. He joined the Navy and then completed college at the University of Kansas.

Gene Kendall, Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke, and Nathaniel White Jr.

Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke graduated from Duke and later went on to become a law professor and served as a member of Duke’s board of trustees. Nathaniel White Jr. graduated from Duke and went on to become director of the Public Health Sciences Institute at Morehouse College.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

Arizona State University Law Presents the O’Connor Justice Prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Johnson Sirleaf was the first woman democratically elected head of state in Africa. She was elected president of Libera in 2005 - just two years after the end of a decades-long civil war.

NASA Awards Grants to Enhance STEM Education at Three HBCUs

NASA has awarded grants to Alabama A&M University, Morgan State University, and North Carolina A&T State University to enhance their STEM curricula.

Southern Education Foundation Reports on the State of Education for Black American Students

The report, Miles To Go: The State of Education for Black Students in America, outlines the current challenges and opportunities facing Black students in early childhood, K-12, and secondary education settings in the United States.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Robert Jones Announces His Resignation

Nine years ago, Dr. Jones was named the first African American chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He will retire at the end of the current academic year, following a decade of enrollment growth, academic improvements, and successful fundraising.

Featured Jobs