The Mississippi University for Women will be holding a ceremony to celebrate the unveiling of a historical marker on campus in honor of the Black students who ultimately integrated the school.
The marker will be displayed on Thursday at 3 p.m. It will be placed in Pioneers Plaza, beside Carrier Chapel.
Undergraduate students Diane Hardy, Barbara Turner, and Laverne Greene, as well as graduate students Jacqueline Edwards, Mary Flowers, and Eula Houser, stepped foot on the campus of MUW in 1966 to open the door for future generations of African-American students.
The six women and their families have also been invited and will be recognized during the proceedings.
In 2016, Dr. Erin Kempker, professor in the Department of History, Political Science, and Geography at MUW, had her students research the six students who desegregated the school. The research was turned into the “In Their Footsteps” exhibit for the 50th anniversary of the school’s integration.
The original exhibit will be on display in Cochran Hall on the day of the marker’s unveiling.
Chuck Yarborough, a history teacher at Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, had his students take that research and add to it, ultimately proposing the wording for a new state historic marker on MUW’s campus.
“My students didn’t do entirely new research. They dug around some and added a little of their understanding of the topic. The groundbreaking work by Dr. Kempker and her students laid the foundation for the wording that my students proposed,” Yarborough said.
The wording for the marker was approved by President Nora Miller and then sent to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for consideration. The wording was approved and a marker was ordered.
The effort is part of Yarborough’s MoreStory project. In addition to this marker, a second one will be unveiled in the spring. It honors the founding mothers of the university.
“The idea behind MoreStory is to develop means of exploring a more complete history in classrooms and communities across the State of Mississippi, the South, and the nation as a whole,” Yarborough said.
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