Freedom Facts and Firsts. Jessie Carney Smith

College for Women was founded in 1873. The Freedmen’s Aid Society took over the coeducational school in 1874, and oversaw its growth for 50 years. After a group of emancipated slaves acquired the present site in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1878, the Women’s Home Missionary Board of Education of the Methodist Church oversaw its transition to a college for women. When four students at nearby Agricultural and Technical State University (A&T) sat at the “whites only” lunch counters in Greensboro on February 1, 1960, the student sit-in movement was born. Although public acknowledgement has gone to the young men, what is often unmentioned is the major contributions of Bennett College’s administrators, faculty, and students. According to author Linda Brown, “One of Bennett College’s finest hours was the historical moment of the Civil Rights Movement.” It was characterized by three years of intense social activism for Bennett and others involved. Their students joined others from A&T, three other colleges, as well as all-black Dudley High School and sought desegregation of lunch counters at S.H. Kress, F.W. Woolworth’s, and the tea room at Meyer’s department store. The demonstration increased and members of Greensboro’s establishments were unsuccessful in persuading Bennett’s president, Willa B. Player, to stop student participation. She also was the first person to return her credit card to Meyer’s department store when it refused to desegregate its dining room. Bennett’s students regularly attended organizational meetings at various sites, including their own campus. Player maintained close contact with organizers and gave them advice. These students, along with other protesters, were arrested during the sit-ins. At the apex of the struggle, about 40 percent of Bennett’s student body was jailed and the college’s participants numbered more than half of the total students from other colleges. In 1963 Player visited the students in the makeshift jail and later saw that they received toiletry supplies and class assignments so that their education would continue. She also ensured faculty protesters that their jobs were secure.

       Although public acknowledgement has gone to the [A&T students] …, what is often unmentioned is the major contributions of Bennett College’s administrators, faculty, and students.

      Jessie Carney Smith

      Delaware State College (est. 1892)

      As a result of the students of Delaware State College, as it was known then, challenging the laws of segregation, two local cases were later filed and subsequently included in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954. The black students of Delaware State College were dissatisfied that their college was not given equal services from the state, as was apparent from the numerous services offered at the University of Delaware, which was attended by white students. The separation of services, as supported by the laws of segregation, were challenged in court by the students. On August 9, 1950, Parker v. University of Delaware was filed and the Court of Chancery of Delaware ruled in favor of the plaintiffs (black students from Delaware State). The University of Delaware became the first public university, by court order, to admit black students. This victory made way for the cases of Ethel Belton and Shirley Bulah, who challenged segregation laws for local schools. Both cases received from the Delaware Court of Chancery, and affirmed by the Delaware Supreme court in 1952, a ruling in favor of the black students. Unfortunately, the decision only applied to schools in Delaware. The cases of Belton and Bulah were combined into the Belton v. Gebhart case, which was included among the five cases submitted under Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The Belton v. Gebhart case was the only case with a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs.

      Lean’tin L. Bracks

      Fisk University (est. 1866)

      Since its founding on January 9, 1866, Fisk University has remained at the center of civil rights and race relations activities, becoming prominently known for its race relations institutes and its leadership in the sit-in movement. The school was founded six months after the Civil War ended and just three years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. The university’s first five presidents were white; it was not until 1947 that sociologist and race-relations expert Charles Spurgeon Johnson