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ASU Black History Month- Part I |
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Thursday, 01 February 2007 |
The Appalachian will celebrate Black History Month by honoring blacks at Appalachian who helped break down the race barrier.
William R. Neely
Neely was the first black graduate of Appalachian State University in 1968.
William
R. Neely was the first black graduate of Appalachian State University.
He received his bachelors of arts in psychology in 1968.
“The story of [desegregation] is of individuals who made their own
paths and acted in a heroic nature doing things others hadn’t done
before them,” Dr. Michael G. Wade, a history professor, said.
Little is known about Neely and the reasons why he chose Appalachian or
exactly what kinds of things were going on in his mind when he came
here vastly out numbered by white students.
The court case Sweatt v. Painter in 1950 was one of the first cases
involving segregation at a university, the University of Texas Law
School, because the comparable black law school was not as good.
There have also been cases going as far as into the late 1980s where
students were harassed and forced to sit in separate places in the
cafeteria and libraries due to their race.
While there have been strides made with increasing the amount of blacks
at Appalachian, there is still work that needs to be done, according to
the Diversity Council.
Currently, 6 percent of Appalachian’s student body are black students,
a number that the Diversity Council hopes to have increased by 2008.
“The image of Appalachian as a predominantly white institute in the
mountains associated with outdoor adventure activities such as skiing,
rock climbing and hiking is not usually an image that attracts students
of color,” according to the Diversity Council’s plan.
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