Working with the YWCA at UNC to offer a welcoming environment for newly integrated African American students
Queen briefly discusses the process of integration at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when she worked there as director of the YWCA and the YWCA-YMCA. Queen outlines some of the challenges African Americans faced, such as the conservative leanings of the school following the Frank Graham Porter years, and the efforts of the Y and student government to foster a welcoming environment.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Anne Queen, April 30, 1976. Interview G-0049-1. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
Well, when the job became vacant, they asked me to come
over for interviews and I did and I was ready to stop traveling and this
was sort of a dream come true, to come to Chapel Hill. I
didn't have any idea I'd stay as long as I did. I
came in 1956; and I came for my first interview just about the time that
the court decision was made on the admission of black students.
- JOSEPH HERZENBERG:
-
The first undergraduates.
- ANNE QUEEN:
-
Yes, the first three undergraduates; and that was the Frazier brothers
and I've forgotten the other one, but
they all three flunked out. I think that it is partly because they just
didn't pursue their academic responsibilities. They also
probably came from inferior schools. Then came Thal Elliott and David
Dansby. had lunch with Edith today and we were
talking about Thal's freshman year and about David
…David was the first student, first black student to graduate
from the University. Thal went off to Med School before he had gotten
his bachelor's degree. The Y and the Student Government were
very much involved in the recruitment of the first black students here.
So, the Y, when I came was involved in trying to help prepare the
environment in which the black students who came could study and have a
full and well-rounded life at the University. So, it became a center
where black students felt at home.
- JOSEPH HERZENBERG:
-
I have the general impression that the early and mid-1950s in Chapel Hill
were very much a conservative reaction against the Frank Graham years,
not just because Frank Graham wasn't here anymore, not just
because Gordon Gray was president in the early fifties; it was part of
the national …
- ANNE QUEEN:
-
Yes, the Eisenhower years. I remember that I think I said that in that
little talk I gave. We were suffering the scars of the Eisenhower years,
but the spirit of Frank Graham was here.
