N ewton's idea that people can see further by standing on the shoulders of giants should have particular meaning and resonance for today's black students who have benefitted from the giants who integrated Duke's campus more than 30 years ago.
The first black Duke students to step onto University grounds began an era of change for the school and provided the foundation for other black students to follow in their footsteps.
"Our purpose there was to be part of a general movement," said Constance Jackson Carter, a member of the second class of black undergraduates. "We were there to allow students after us to go to schools wherever they wanted to. Decades have seen the fruit of that struggle."
Carter came from a family with a rich history of involvement in the civil rights movement and a feeling that her presence at Duke was her contribution to the larger struggle. "I came in there as a fighter," Carter said. "But I wasn't prepared to deal with some of the subtleties of the fight."
According to Legacy-a publication celebrating 30 years of black students at Duke-the University's official integration policy was instituted March 8, 1961, when the Board of Trustees announced students would be admitted to the University's graduate and professional schools without regard to race, creed or national origin.
University Archivist Bill King said this move came after years of attempts to change the policy, most of which came from the Divinity School. "The issue was debated on the moral side, saying 'This is the right thing to do,'" he said. "But obviously that wasn't working."
King said the final integration decision was probably motivated by moral concerns, the fear that the federal government would withdraw funding from the school and a change in the makeup of the University's governing body. "The authority was in the Board of Trustees," he said. "A change of leadership and infusion of new members probably did change the vote."
While the administration grappled with the decision, students were contemplating integration as well. According to documents from the archives, Graduate School Dean Allan Carter remembered a poll showing that 89 percent of the University's graduate students favored the change.
Mary Mitchell Harris, one of the first five black undergraduate students, said her initial welcome to Duke was positive. "It wasn't unnerving at all. It was great receptiveness," she said. More than anything else, Harris said, she was treated as a curiosity, but the students, especially women, were well prepared for her arrival.
Classmate and fellow Durham resident Nathaniel White said he thinks the integration was not very dramatic because of the paucity of black students. "The numbers were so small, we were fairly negligible."
White, like Harris, experienced few racial incidents while at Duke. "It was an insulated community," he said. "Duke could create their own environment." He said seemingly small incidents like playing "Dixie" at sports games and finding a black cat in his dresser drawer were daily reminders of where he was.
White, Trinity '67, said the University's racial climate only began to mirror that of the surrounding community during his senior year, when black student enrollment rose. "That's when, as the white people would say, the trouble began," he said jokingly. When word got around that the first five black students would be graduating, White said, there was a bomb threat at the ceremony.
Carter, Woman's College '68, experienced a more hostile Duke climate following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. her senior year. "After the Dr. King assassination, there was an immediate emergence of anger in the black students," she said. She participated in several picket lines and protests, for the rights of both students and black employees. She said the employees provided students with a link to the black community.
Though a native of Durham, Harris said she experienced culture shock when she stepped onto Duke's campus. "The experience was surreal," she said. "It was like another world altogether."
Both Harris and White were chosen as part of Duke's search for promising black students, and while the majority of their peers attended predominantly black institutions, they understood the importance of being the first black students at a private southern institution. "Our presence meant change for everybody," Harris said.
Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke, another of the first five black undergraduates, said she and her peers knew it would be a trying time. "In the midst of all the other adjustments you had to make, you also had the stress... of being seen as different," said Reuben-Cooke, now a member of the Board of Trustees. "The kind of support structures that people take for granted were not there."
Nevertheless Reuben-Cooke, who was crowned the May Queen while at Duke, said she never regretted her decision to matriculate. "It wasn't easy," she said. "It was at a point in time when everyone was involved and committed to the civil rights movement. It was my part."
Although Duke had a fairly smooth and slow integration process, both faculty and students were involved in the more acrimonious battles that were raging just outside the University's walls.
Zoology research professor and civil rights activist Peter Klopfer came to Duke from England's Cambridge University in 1958. What he anticipated would be a three-year stint at the University turned into more than 30 years filled with protests, arrests and Supreme Court rulings. "I spent a lot of time in jail," he said.
Klopfer decided to get involved in the movement when he began picking student protesters up after demonstrations so that they would not be mobbed by civil rights opponents. After a while, he said, he was no longer satisfied with this minimal role, and he decided to become more active.
He first participated in a faculty sit-in. "We never got inside," he said. "We were jumped by Klansmen and beaten to the ground." Incidents like these did not deter Klopfer, but rather led him to more protests and an arrest and subsequent hearing before the Supreme Court. The resulting decision, Klopfer v. North Carolina, applied the Sixth and 14th amendments to North Carolina.
Klopfer called Durham's racial climate "really grim." He told himself that all his struggles would not be in vain, thinking, "This is the price we pay for progress." While he thought that progress was inevitable, he didn't know how quickly things would change. He said he thought, "Maybe my children, or at least my grandchildren, will benefit."
Looking back on their years at Duke, the alumni speak fondly of the past and the changes that have come about because of it, but also stress the work that is left to be done.
"The richness of Duke was that it forced me into relationships and forced learning about people and dealing with people [of a different race]," said Reuben-Cooke.
Harris said given the Duke's diverse student body today, learning from other cultures should be a priority. She also applauded the University's handling of racial issues. "The University setting is open and honest enough in its racial evolution to grapple with it in public," she said. "At least you're talking. This allows students to pick apart the fabric of their thinking and weave a new one."
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