In 1960, Wesley Harris and Virginius Thornton arrived at the University. Harris was a black undergraduate pursuing a degree in aeronautical engineering, and Thornton was the first black graduate student to enter the doctoral program at the University. The community, which maintained a culture of racism throughout the 1960s, was hostile to black students around Grounds — impeding many of them from either attending or completing their education at the University.
These stories are part of an underemphasized aspect of the University's history: the administration’s resistance to integration, which was not completed until several years after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling mandating the desegregation of schools. As the University makes efforts to memorialize and acknowledge its history with slavery, it should also devote resources to recognizing the administration’s discriminatory practices during its periods of segregation and integration.
Given the myriad of ways in which the University recognizes and discusses elements of its institutional history, one would expect this period to be well-documented and frequently discussed. Instead, the bulk of easily-accessible information about the University’s resistance to integration and its inability to foster a welcoming environment for black students throughout the 1960s comes from limited sources, such as a website created in 2003. The University should take steps to amplify the platform of speakers and groups — such as the Black Student Alliance — which educate students about this history outside of a classroom setting.
During the 1960s, the University actively impeded the course of equal rights in education. The realities of this period must be given the same attention afforded to other aspects of its history. Increased student awareness about this time period would give a deeper appreciation for the struggles black people had to go through to attend this University.
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