The Desegregation of Land-Grant Institutions in the 1950s: The First African American Students at North Carolina State University and Virginia Tech

• In Event: Higher Education Activism Across Time and Space

Abstract

This paper focuses on the first African American students at two land-grant universities, North Carolina State University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. Although these institutions in the Upper South integrated in the 1950s, most of the current desegregation scholarship focuses on the Deep South institutions in the 1960s. Examining the integration process during this decade at two similar universities in two Upper South states offers a balanced comparison of institutional integration not previously studied. Desegregation at both NC State and Virginia Tech was a slow and continuing process; however, integration was relatively quiet and gradually became accepted compared to the Deep South.

Authors

• Ashley Brooke Clayton, Louisiana State University

• Brian Anderson Peters, North Carolina State University