Black On Campus
Higher Education and the African American Experience

Wordless Wednesday: Campus Life Before the Civil Rights Movement

July 23rd, 2008 by Ajuan Mance

In this photo UNC- Chapel Hill professor Wallace Caldwell (1890 – 1961) is being served by an unnamed African American domestic worker. Until southern universities degan to desegregate, Black people on campuses like UNC, Clemson, and Ole Miss, were present as laborers — in dining and residence halls, on the grounds and in the restrooms, in fraternity and sorority houses, and in professors living quarters, but never as students in classrooms. (Source: Learn NC)

Posted by Ajuan Mance

Posted in African Americans, Black History, Higher Education, race, UNC-Chapel Hill

5 Responses

  1. SjP

    {SMH}!!!

    This week’s WW at SjP’s is dedicated to finding Namia Vaught. I hope you and your readers will have the opportunity to stop by to see if you recognize her.

    Much obliged, SjP

  2. Villager

    Happy WW! Powerful photo that fits with the theme of your blog. I’m going to add your blog to my RSS feed today…

    Thanx for your earlier visit! I invite your blog readers to see a what it must be like for angels to take a shyt on my WW-post this week…

    peace, Villager

  3. a.eye

    It is horrible to see that it used to be this way. How far we have come, yet how far we still have to go.

    My WW post is the presenting the art of the artist called Bansky.

  4. Shelia

    As difficult as it is to be reminded of these circumstances, it gives me even more reason to thank God for the greater availability of educational opportunities today. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve come a long ways.

    Happy WW!

  5. Ajuan Mance

    I hesistated before posting this photo, simply because of the painful inequality that it represents. Most poignant for me: the fact that this woman is unnamed on the historical site where I found the photo. She is described simply as “a young black woman.”