Thirty of the first black students to graduate from the University during the 1950s and 1960s will return to Grounds this weekend for events in their honor, said Marcus Martin, interim vice president and chief officer for diversity and equity.\nThe Early Days Celebration will recognize these former students who desegregated the University and "opened new territory for future generations and with courage and dignity, set an example for others to follow," Martin said.\nWalter Ridley, who graduated from the Education School in 1953, was the first black alumnus to receive a degree from the University. Engineering alumnus Robert Bland, who Martin said will be attending the events, was the first undergraduate to graduate in 1959.\nAlso attending are 1967 graduate Vivian Pinn, the second black female to graduate from the Medical School; David Temple, the first black student to desegregate the interfraternity system during the late 1960s and early 1970s; and 1958 graduate John Merchant, the first black to graduate from the Law School, said Carolyn Dillard, news officer for public affairs. These three alumni will join three University students in a panel discussion titled "Looking Back, Moving Forward."\nEnglish Prof. Deborah McDowell, who is also the director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute, will moderate the event Friday at the Harrison Special Collections Library from 9 to 11 a.m.\nMcDowell said it is always significant when alumni return to Grounds, but for these alumni, she said the event holds even greater importance.\n"Their return, at one level, allows the University both to see the distance it has traveled since they were here, but more importantly, the distance that still needs to be traveled particularly insofar as the African-American graduate student population is concerned," she said.\nAfter the panel, the alumni will take part in two tours of Grounds titled "History of Women" and "Slave to Scholar," both of which will be conducted by the University Guide Service. An honorary dinner at Alumni Hall Friday night will culminate their first day back on Grounds.\nSaturday, the alumni will attend a social at Carr's Hill prior to the football game versus William & Mary and will watch the game from the private box of University President John T. Casteen, III, who personally invited each of the former students back to Grounds for the events, Dillard said.\nMerchant, who also established the Walter N. Ridley Scholarship Fund in 1987 in honor of the University's first black graduate, praised the University and event organizers for their work in recognizing black alumni.\n"I think it's to the credit of the University that they are saying 'thank you' to those who came and laid the foundation for more to come," he said.\nHe also emphasized the importance of remembering the obstacles many of the honorees faced.\n"To look back and think that just because things worked out, it wasn't so bad - that's a damn lie," Merchant said. "It was bad. It's easy to forget that it was another world in the '50s and '60s, especially in the state of Virginia"
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