Throughout the years, the University of Louisville has been impacted by contributions of Black innovators who have paved the way for current students, faculty, staff and even future students who have big dreams for their lives.

While UofL commemorates Black History every day in spaces like Charles H. Parrish, Jr., Freedom Park and UofL Library’s guide, we will observe Black History Month in February on our social media channels by highlighting “UofL Black History Makers: Past & Present.”��

From legends like Eleanor Young Love to Woodford R. Porter, Sr., we will share stories from our archives in the spirit of keeping Black Cardinal trailblazer legacies alive. We also must uplift those in the present, because many UofL Black History Makers are still working to change the future.��

Follow along on our to see the videos, photos and stories that we’ll highlight from our archive throughout the month.

We also will share insights from departments and organizations around campus including the , and

During Black History Month, we invite the Cardinal community to express thoughts��through our story by asking: “What does Black History Month mean to you?” This page will be updated as we receive answers.��

UofL SGA President Dorian Brown was the first to answer:

UofL News: What does Black History Month mean to you?

Brown: Black History Month is important to me because it serves as a powerful reminder of the contributions of Black Americans that came before me that had an incredible impact in the fight for equality and the struggles that came with it. Black history is American history. It is a celebration of the achievements and accomplishments of the many Black Americans that paved the way for the opportunities that we have today. Without them, I would never have had the opportunity to be in the position that I am in today as UofL’s Student Body President. But we are still not where we need to be when it comes to racial equality and equal representation in the United States. Black History Month is a time to confront the injustices of the past that we still experience today.

UofL News: Who comes to mind when you think of UofL Black History Makers: Past and Present?

Brown: Marian Vasser. I had the chance to speak with Marian on multiple occasions this year and I can feel her passion and her drive as I hear her talk. I first met Marian after hearing her give a presentation at the Cultural & Equity Center and I was immediately blown away by her dedication to diversity education, inclusion and acceptance. Marian knows the truth is sometimes hard to face, but we must face them in order to move forward. With more than 29 years of diverse service at the University of Louisville, her commitment to creating environments that are more diverse and inclusive has had a direct impact on the progress that is UofL’s Black History, and she continues to be involved in the progress that still needs to be made.

By Gabrielle Lawless

In late April 1969, in fact, a group of students occupied then-president Woodrow Strickler’s office demanding more efforts to recruit minority students and teachers, among other things. It was shortly before this time when the late Gwendol Fay (Brown) McCaskill helped integrate the on-campus dorms.

Gwendol, a psychology major from Earlington, Kentucky, lived in Threlkeld��Hall and graduated in 1968. She passed away in 2016, but her daughter, Annissa McCaskill – also a former UofL student – shared some of her story with UofL News.

Gwendol Fay Brown McCaskill, who eventually became Reverend Dr. McCaskill, chose to attend UofL because her older sister, Barbara Brown Walker, was enrolled. Barbara was part of the initial group of students at the newly desegregated campus.

“(Barbara) was originally scheduled to attend Kentucky Teacher’s College (now Kentucky State). My grandmother read that to encourage enrollment by Black students into the day program in their efforts to desegregate it, UofL was offering a tuition that was lower than what the costs would be at Kentucky Teacher’s College. My grandparents decided to send my Aunt Barbara to UofL and have her stay with my grandmother’s sisters in Louisville. My mother would follow behind,” Annissa said.

While a student, Gwendol belonged to the Wesley (Methodist) Student Association and the Psychology Student’s Association, while also helping to desegregate student housing. Annissa calls her mom a sort of accidental activist.

“It wasn’t so much an effort to integrate UofL’s on-campus housing, but rather just the times she was in. I don’t think she saw herself as an activist, but rather as someone who had God-given talents and who would not let others’ negative perceptions of her due to ignorance or racism deter her from accomplishing everything she was capable of,” she said.

After earning her bachelor’s from UofL, Gwendol continued her education at Temple University and then earned a PhD in human and organizational development from Vanderbilt University.

She went on to become a social worker, educator, administrator and consultant. Notably, she was the first African American to serve as a social worker in Hopkins County, Kentucky, and one of the first to serve in the state of Kentucky.

Gwendol later pursued a ministry career and was ordained under the Missionary Rule of the AME Zion Church. Throughout 37 years, she served as supply minister to churches in the Madisonville District, as well as pastor in Sebree, Kentucky, Nashville, Tennessee, White Plains, Kentucky, Russellville, Kentucky and Madisonville, Kentucky.

In 2004, she was appointed presiding elder of the Madisonville District – the first woman to hold this position in the Kentucky Annual Conference. She continued in that capacity before stepping down after eight years and served as pastor of Zion Temple AME Zion Church for over 20 years, retiring in early June 2016.

Gwendol and her husband, Alexander, had three children, including Annissa, who is executive director of Dutchtown South Community Corporation; Alexia, who is a licensed attorney and serves as senior director for professional development at the University of Colorado School of Law; and Alexander, who is an elementary school educator.

The McCaskills returned to Kentucky after the father retired from the military. They would visit Louisville often to see family, and Gwendol would also spend time in the city as part of her job. Annissa said she liked to visit UofL’s campus whenever she was in town.

“We are very proud of her,” Annissa said.

As she stood in front of the National Pan-Hellenic Council plots outside of the admissions building during homecoming in October of 2020, Terina Matthews Davis was almost in tears. Her decades-old fight to empower Black Greek life on UofL’s campus was coming to fruition.��

The National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) was established at Howard University in 1930 with the purpose to “foster cooperative actions of its members in dealing with matters of mutual concern.” In Davis’ words, “NPHC, to me, embodies the principles of Kwanzaa.”

Although NPHC did not have a presence on UofL’s campus until 1992, Black Greek life was at the core of the Belknap campus’ student life for several years prior.

“We were an HBCU (Historically Black College or University) within a PWI (Predominantly white institution),” said Dr. Beverly Dilworth Frye, a 1988 College of Arts and Sciences and 1995 School of Medicine graduate. “The Black community was very close knit. We were a huge commuter school – most students were gone at 5 p.m. and the only people left on campus were African American students.”��

There were only a handful of Black Greek members on campus when Frye was a freshman in 1985. While she was somewhat familiar with historically Black fraternities and sororities as the stepdaughter of a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, it wasn’t until a casual conversation in the lobby of Miller Hall that she decided to pursue membership in a Delta Sigma Theta.

Without an active chapter on UofL’s campus, there was work to be done. With the help of some like-minded women and a persuasive petition to area and regional alumnae, the Xi chapter of Delta Sigma Theta reactivated at UofL in 1988. The oldest collegiate chapter of any Black Greek organization in Kentucky, originally chartered in 1922 at Simmons College, welcomed Frye in a group of 10 women that spring.��

The sorority’s reactivation followed a group of men initiated to Omega Psi Phi just a week before and line of women initiated to Alpha Kappa Alpha the previous semester. Their chapters were joined by Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity and, in seemingly no time, there was an active Black Greek presence at the University of Louisville.

“It just seemed like this fire that was catching on, but we still didn’t have our own entity,” Frye explained.

By the time Davis, a 1993 graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences, set foot on campus, eight Black Greek organizations were active at the university.

“Because of [Dr. Frye], I’m a Delta,” Davis said. “If there hadn’t been those 30 women who wrote that letter, Xi wouldn’t be here.”

Although she says she’d advise against it, Davis was dead-set on attending a school with a Delta chapter. Without that petition in the 80s, Xi may not have existed at UofL when the soon-to-be-voice of the students’ fight for NPHC was choosing a university.

When Davis was initiated in 1990, Black Greek organizations were operating under the guidance of the Panhellenic Council and Interfraternity Council (IFC). ��Although Black Greek organizations were required to have representation at IFC and Panhellenic meetings, some chose not to attend. Davis noticed stacks of missed-meeting fines piling up in the fraternities’ mailboxes, which was a catalyst for change. Black Greek organizations needed guidance that truly represented them. They needed a place for themselves within UofL’s campus to do the work of Black Greeks and the Black community. They needed NPHC.

The road did not come without a few bumps along the way.

As the student government vice president at the time, Davis had a seat at the table to represent the Black Greek community – and she used it. She used it to represent students who historically did not have the choice to join a Greek organization, so they made their own. She used it to voice students’ desire for an organization that would foster the needs of the Black community and would allow students to thrive in a space that was uniquely their own.

Initially seen as a form of separation by administration, the request for NPHC was not immediately met. The students didn’t waver. Instead, they became more persistent. They took up camp in front of the administration building to ensure their collective voice was heard by Dr. Golden, then-vice president of Student Affairs. When they were brought inside, in an act that could only be described as “true grit” by Keira Martin, UofL’s Coordinator for Fraternity and Sorority Life, they slept in front of his office.

“It wasn’t just the Black Greek community, [IFC and Panhellenic] had to support us,” Davis explained as she noted that the groups showed support by bringing food to the administration building. “At the end of the day, we knew that we all had to come together to make this a reality.”

Their efforts paid off in 1992 when Golden agreed to meet with then-National NPHC president, Daisy M. Wood, a Delta from the Louisville Alumnae chapter. Soon after, NPHC was brought to the University of Louisville which is now home to chapters of each of the Divine Nine historically Black fraternities and sororities.

After being founded in 1913, Delta’s first act of social activism was to participate in the women’s suffrage march. Frye noted that since the sorority was established, the active members and alumnae have continuously used their voices to say that Black people, Black women, matter.

“[Rosa Parks] didn’t know what that day would result in,” Davis noted. “I need Black students to understand – don’t give up the fight.”

Frye and Davis agree, the fight for social justice does not end after graduation.��

“At the end of the day, you take away Delta Sigma Theta, you take away Alpha Kappa Alpha, you take away Zeta Phi Beta, Sigma Gamma Rho, you remove Omega Psi Phi, Kappa, we’re still African American men and women who endure the same struggle,” said Frye. She tearfully continued, “The fight that Terina and the NPHC organization went through, it established a place that belongs to us on the University of Louisville’s campus.”

The University of Louisville does not shy away from the fight for equality. Instead, UofL tackles the issue head-on while celebrating diversity and fostering equity. UofL’s commitment to this effort can be seen through programs such as the Cardinal Anti-Racism Agenda, Black Male Initiative and Martin Luther King Jr. Scholars program, among others.

But perhaps the most foundational effort in UofL’s commitment to diversity and equity is the Pan-African Studies department.

The origins of UofL’s Pan-African Studies department can be traced back to the late 1960s when there was unrest not only across the country, but also on campus. Ricky Jones, chair of the Pan-African Studies department, said during this time, there was a student-led effort to develop more Black Studies opportunities.

“Black students wanted to see themselves represented in the classroom and intellectually. We had a partnership of people in the community, students and their advocates both on and off campus who protested and fought to bring Pan-African Studies and other Black studies departments into existence,” he said. “It was a student movement as the students partnered with the greater Louisville community in the 1960s and ‘70s.”����

After hiring a small faculty, the Pan-African Studies department was officially established in 1973 to explore the original divide in America: the divide of race. The department is only five years younger than the first ever Black Studies department in the U.S. at San Francisco State University, making it one of the first departments of its kind in the country. It was the first such program established in the south.

While many colleges and universities created classes or programs in the Black Studies discipline, UofL dedicated its resources toward a full, comprehensive department. Instead of following in the footsteps of many other universities at the time that only focused on African-American studies, UofL intentionally broadened the scope of their department to focus on the global Black experience, as well as the American Black experience.����

Jones said the all-encompassing nature of UofL’s Pan-African Studies department and the faculty, staff and students who have passed through the department throughout its 48 years are what make it so unique and put UofL on another level.

“The people and history of people who have come through our department really make us stand out,” he said. “UofL has been lucky to hire many dynamic luminaries in this department. People like Blaine Hudson and Robert Douglas.”

Hudson, who was kicked out of school and was once told he would never move up, worked to become a professor in the Pan-African Studies department and eventually rose to dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

“These types of personalities helped build Pan-African Studies to what it is,” Jones said. “There are strong professors in this department who also have strong commitments to the community and strong commitments to the ideals of Black studies, which is commitment to academic excellence and social responsibility. Pan-African Studies has had a long history of professors who take that very seriously.”

Kaila Story is one of those dynamic professors.

With a joint appointment in the Pan-African Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies departments, Story empowers her students to break barriers, encourages community engagement and emphasizes the importance of a holistic and intersectional learning experience.

“Pan-African Studies has always prioritized intersectional learning and activism with the courses it offers,” Story said. “Because my identities have always lived within those intersections as Black feminist lesbian, I always wanted to obtain a job that would allow me to build intersectional curricula. Being dually appointed has not only allowed me to do my intersectional research, build intersectional curricula and engage in community activism that is intersectional in scope, but both departments have welcomed and encouraged that work.” ����

That work and the Pan-African Studies department have helped UofL create a lasting impact not only on its students, but also society and beyond, by continually expanding research and education in Black studies.

“We’ve been creating global citizens for a very long time,” Jones said. “Whether students major with us, minor with us or just take a few classes, our students leave us seeing the world through a different lens.”

Students can earn a bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, minor or PhD in Pan-African Studies. The department also offers field study and internship experiences and special courses on research methods, race, gender, diversity and intercultural education.

Jones said graduates of the department have gone on to varied career paths, including education, law and even coaching. But the thing that unites them all is the ability to view the world through different perspectives.

“Our students understand the world with a higher level of maturity about race, diversity and justice and understand that this isn’t a monochromatic world,” Jones said. “So if they go on to work in Louisville or beyond to even more diverse places like San Francisco, Atlanta, Miami or New York, our graduates fit into those worlds easier. We don’t just create good students, we create good citizens for humanity.”

Featured photo courtesy of .��

Among the ACC’s initiatives during Unity Week:

• Social media
• All league social handle profile pictures will feature the ACC UNITE logo
• The ACC will highlight specific themes of UNITY each day of the week (below)
• The Conference office will produce a video highlighting our institution’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives
• ACC has provided all student-athletes a UNITE wristband to wear during the week
• UNITE logo will be included in ACCN television broadcasts
• Packer and Durham/ACCN to wear UNITE shirts and wristbands on air
• Virtual roundtable hosted by Dalen Cuff on former ACC Trailblazers (ACC Unite: No Struggle, No Progress) on Monday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m.��
• Feature on Duke field hockey student-athlete Darcy Bourne on Tuesday, Feb. 16 at 10 p.m.
• Unity Week information and initiatives will be highlighted on the league’s communications platforms

ACC Unity Week Daily Themes – “Leadership Matters”
•�� Monday, Feb. 22: “Why Leadership Matters” – the importance of leadership in unifying people for a common, positive goal
•�� Tuesday, Feb. 23: “What Leaders Do You Admire?” – celebrating the leaders who inspire us
•�� Wednesday, Feb. 24: “Leadership In The Community” – highlighting those who demonstrate leadership by service to their community
•�� Thursday, Feb. 25: “I Lead By” – demonstrating leadership in different forms and styles��
•�� Friday, Feb. 26: “We Are All Leaders” – everyone is a leader, despite position or title
����

The University of Louisville commemorates Black history every day through the Charles H. Parrish Jr. Freedom Park, created in 2012 between Second and Third streets on the Belknap Campus. That location is intentional, as it used to be adjacent to a monument erected in 1895 to honor Confederate soldiers who died during the Civil War. That monument has since been removed from UofL’s campus.

The park also pays homage to nine civil rights champions with ties to the University of Louisville, who are featured on glass panels on the pergola. Some of these names may sound familiar, including:

• Anne M. Braden– A journalist and nationally known civil rights leader, Braden taught civil rights history for the decade before her death. The Anne Braden Institute at UofL carries forward her legacy.
• Rufus E. Clement– The first dean of Louisville Municipal College in 1931, Clement built a strong faculty before leaving to become president of Atlanta University in 1937.
• Lyman Tefft Johnson– Johnson was the plaintiff in the lawsuit that forced the desegregation at the University of Kentucky Graduate School in 1949. He then launched a campaign to desegregate UofL, which led the Kentucky General Assembly to end racial segregation in all Kentucky colleges and universities in 1950.
• Lucy Freibert– A faculty member from 1971 to 1993, Freibert taught UofL’s first women’s studies course in 1973 and helped establish the Women’s Center and the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies.
• Charles Henry Parrish, Jr.– UofL’s first African-American professor, he joined the university in 1951, the first African-American appointed to the faculty of a historically white university in the south.
• Eleanor Young Love– Dr. Love was the first African-American librarian at the University of Kentucky in 1955. A decade later, she became the first director of Project Upward Bound and an assistant dean at UofL.
• Joseph H. McMillan, Sr.– A 1950 UofL graduate, McMillan returned in 1976 as an assistant provost, professor of education, director of the Office of Minority Affairs and founder of the National Conference on the Black Family in America.
• Woodford R. Porter– A community and business leader, he was the first African-American chair of the UofL Board of Trustees. He served four terms as chair.
• Wilson W. Wyatt, Sr.– Former Louisville mayor and Kentucky lieutenant governor, Wyatt also was a UofL trustee and made the first motion to desegregate the university in 1949.

J. Blaine Hudson, who ideated Freedom Park, is also featured on a glass panel. Hudson was a student leader of UofL’s Black Student Union in the late 1960s and was once arrested for occupying an administration building as part of a call for creating a Black studies program. Years later, his advocacy came full circle as he joined UofL as an employee, working his way from staff to history instructor to tenured professor in the Pan African Studies Department – one of the first such departments in the country and the first in the south. Hudson eventually served as dean of the College of Arts & Sciences before his death in 2013.

His idea of Freedom Park came about to provide a complete historical account, balancing out that once proximate Confederate monument. In addition to those glass panels, the park also includes 10 black granite pillars detailing Louisville’s history in chronological order:

• , 1750
• , 1775-1865
• , 1830-1860
• , 1815-1865
• , 1863-1865
• , 1865-1877
• , 1865-1900
• , 1900-1940
• , 1940-1970
• , 1970-today

Notably, the park itself surrounds the Playhouse, which was constructed in 1874 as a chapel for the House of Refuge, a municipal institution for orphaned children. It was first used as a theater in 1925. In 1977, the Playhouse was dismantled and placed in storage to make way for Ekstrom Library. It reopened in 1980 at its current location. With 344 seats, the Playhouse is home to performances by UofL’s acclaimed African-American Theatre Program.��

His No. 31 is one of just four retired numbers in UofL history, and he is one of just five Cardinals to earn over 1,000 rebounds during his career. That’s on top of his 1,686 points.

that Unseld was the player who changed the Cardinal program, quoting fellow UofL legend Darrell Griffith, who said, “He paved the way for everybody that came after him at the University of Louisville, that first true African-American superstar.”��

Unseld’s legacy extends well beyond Louisville.

He was selected as the second player overall in the 1968 NBA Draft by the Baltimore Bullets. The Seneca High School graduate went onto play 13 years for the Baltimore/Capital/Washington Bullets, where he became the second player in NBA history to be chosen NBA Rookie of the Year and the Most Valuable Player in the same season. He was a five-time NBA All-Star and was named the Championship Series MVP when he led the Bullets to the 1978 NBA title.��

Unseld earned a spot in the Hall of Fame in 1988 and was selected among the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history in 1996 to honor the 50th anniversary of the league. He served as head coach of the Bullets from 1988-1994.��

His impact on the Washington Wizards/Bullets franchise was recently featured on as part of a Black History Month series. The story examines Unseld’s leadership and unselfishness on and off the court. In 1979, Unseld and his wife, Connie, opened Unselds’ School in Baltimore, which features small classes, personalized instruction and a focus on social and emotional learning, according to .��

His son, Wes Unseld Jr., an assistant coach with the Denver Nuggets, told NBC Sports that his father did whatever he could to make sure the school was a success, including cooking lunches and cleaning the floors.��

“How many lives he directly or indirectly impacted, I think those are the things that are most meaningful,” Unseld Jr. said.��

The Black Male Initiative formally began at UofL in 2011 as the African American Male Initiative. In its 10 years, the student success program’s objectives haven’t wavered – increase the retention, graduation, engagement and overall success of Black males.

The program has done this in a number of ways; for example offering academic coaching, community service and leadership workshops. However, perhaps the most effective initiative is the BMI’s laser-sharp focus on creating connections among peers.

Those connections have become ever more critical now in a largely virtual environment, and Brandyn Bailey, assistant director at the Cultural Center and adviser of the BMI, touts the work the team has done to ensure programs and discussions on topics like mental health continue. One such initiative that is ready to launch, for example, is a new video series on YouTube called Wednesday Wisdom. The idea is to increase access to mentors – both on and off campus – virtually, and cover topics like financial literacy, healthy relationships and internships.

Bailey has overseen the BMI since October 2018 after a stint at the Muhammad Ali Institute. Prior to that, he was part of a program called the Campaign for Black Male Achievement and was selected from a national pool to be a part of the inaugural Building Beloved Community Leadership Fellowship. He has taken much of what he learned from that program to create his vision for the Black Male Initiative into its second decade.

“I want to make Black male achievement at UofL the expectation and not the exception and doing so by building out an infrastructure that supports Black male students who are not athletes or are not on scholarship,” he said. “Those are the students most affected by adverse circumstances outside of the classroom.”

Such circumstances can make it hard to even get into UofL, let alone get a degree. Bailey said a number of students he works with have to work to make ends meet, and that’s when balancing classes and grades becomes a particular challenge.

To navigate this challenge, he has recruited staff and faculty across campus who identify as Black males and who represent a variety of professional fields to be mentors.

“I want to create a large enough network so if a student tells me he wants to be a social worker, I can connect him with someone on campus who looks like him and who has social worker experience so they can show what that profession looks like on a daily basis,” Bailey said. “The goal is for them to build relationships with those individuals, and myself, so they have multiple people as accountability partners and so their idea of success no longer remains in this esoteric space, but is something that is achievable.”

Bailey pulls his motivation and this strategy from his personal experience growing up in Louisville and attending Noe Middle School, where he witnessed fights “literally every day and a lot of students living far below poverty levels.”

“All of this stuff was happening, these traumatic pieces that you take in at 11 or 12 years old, and you’re still expected to pass a math test in the middle of the afternoon. My priority is making sure our students have folks around them to not only make sense of all of their experiences but also helping them get through,” Bailey said. “We have to take this hands-on approach because these students might not have people in their lives who reflect the future that they want to have.”

The BMI uses a platform called Cardsmart to match students to specific advisors or academic coaches who work with students based on an identifying marker. Bailey said there is a lot of growth opportunity with this networking program. At the beginning of the 2020-21 school year, there were about 980 students who identified as a Black male. A few are distance or nontraditional students, others are student-athletes or scholarship awardees, and 100 or so are Metropolitan College students employed by UPS.

“That leaves about 400 or 500 students I’m trying to get to. The others are going to be OK. I want to get to them, but they have resources, or at least not as many barriers,” Bailey said.

Bailey has also put into place a BMI Wise Council, which gives students even more networking opportunities.

“I believe the council will be a difference maker. In theory, if there are more people to choose from for mentorship or coaching, then we’ll be able to see more students a year,” he said. “We have to accept that a vast majority of education in the scope of higher education happens independently of the classroom. That’s where the rubber meets the road. In that scope, I want to provide healthy and artistic platforms for our students to build community and self-esteem with that ultimate goal of graduating everybody.”

It’s hard not to see some progress here. According to a recent report card from the University of Southern California’s Race and Equity Center,. Scores were based on factors like the percentage of Black undergraduates and the six-year graduation rate for Black students.

Still, much work remains. In 2018, UofL’s six-year graduation rate for Black students was about 47%, compared to the school’s overall graduation rate of 53.2%. Boosting these rates is a priority of President Neeli Bendapudi, and the Black Male Initiative has been .����

Bailey is up to the challenge and is extremely optimistic about the program’s future.

“We have a foundation now and it’s time to grow it and scale it,” he said. “We also want to sustain it to make sure sophomores and juniors in high school see UofL where they can come and foster a path to success, so they know there are folks here to support you.”

Editor’s note: What does Black History Month mean in the context of the University of Louisville? Some highlights from “University of Louisville Belknap Campus,” by Tom Owen and Sherri Pawson, and “The University of Louisville,” by Dwayne D. Cox and William J. Morison illustrate part of this history. We’ve distilled some information from those two books into a story depicting our history and how it was shaped by the contributions of African American community members, faculty, staff and students.

Did you know that UofL’s current Belknap Campus location was determined in large part by Louisville’s African American voters?

When Arthur Ford was the university’s president (1914-1926), one of his major initiatives was to seek increases in city appropriations for the university, citing inadequate physical facilities and increasing enrollment. By the fall of 1920, student enrollment exceed 600, and the college had outgrown its home at Second and Broadway streets downtown.

The family of William R. Belknap, a local hardware dealer who had recently died, donated funds for the school to acquire a 79-acre tract in Louisville’s Highlands neighborhood, prompting the university to submit a $1 million municipal bond to develop the campus. But voters, especially African American ones, defeated that 1920 bond proposal at the polls.��

At the time, African Americans were prevented by state law from attending the university, despite paying city taxes. Essentially, black Louisvillians who cast the deciding votes refused to support an institution they could not attend.

“Awareness of the growing political and economic strength of African Americans during and after WWI had eluded UofL officials. Just as they had not reckoned with this black renaissance, they also had failed to take account of the rise of a new generation of black leaders, who relied on fellow blacks, rather than influential whites, for support,” the Cox and Morison book notes.

After this defeat, President Ford assured black opponents that if the issue were passed on a future ballot, a portion of the money would be set aside to support higher education for African Americans. The bond passed in 1925, but Ford died shortly after and his promise went unfulfilled, save for a provision of extension classes at Simmons University.

Discouraged by their defeat at the ballot box, university officials in 1923 sold the Highlands property acquired through the Belknap family, which was quickly developed as a University Park – a residential area that now includes Princeton, Yale, Harvard and Sewanee streets.

The university’s Plan B was to purchase property at Third and Shipp streets, which disappointed the Belknaps, the book notes. However, President Ford believed he lacked the resources to develop a completely new campus, even if the bond was resubmitted and approved.

As such, the Belknap Campus today is largely accessible via Third Street, while the formal address of the Belknap Academic Building is 201 E. Shipp Street Walk.

Louisville Municipal College for Negroes

President Raymond Asa Kent (1929-1943) fulfilled President Ford’s earlier pledge to provide higher education for African Americans by establishing the Louisville Municipal College for Negroes in 1931.

This was the period of the mass migration of blacks out of the rural South. By this time, “The University of Louisville” book notes, school segregation had been burned into Kentucky law, fueled by the 1904 Day Law prohibiting the teaching of both whites and blacks in the same school.

The Day Law, which survived an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908, “effectively and devastatingly ended black higher education in Kentucky” with the exception of the State Normal School for Colored Persons in Frankfort, and Simmons University in Louisville.

Simmons, originally the Kentucky Normal and Theological Institute, opened in 1879, and eventually offered training in medicine and law. Charles H. Parrish Sr. was named president in 1918, and the school was renamed in honor of the school’s first president, William J. Simmons. However, the school struggled to secure funds necessary to meet accreditation standards.

Black leaders met with UofL officials in 1926 and 1927, urging them to revisit Ford’s promise to provide higher education to African Americans. Eventually Kent acted in 1929 with the establishment of the Louisville Municipal College.

Louisville Municipal College for Negroes opened in 1931 on the site at Seventh and Kentucky Streets. The first students – 83 of them – enrolled in Louisville Municipal College for Negroes on Feb. 9, 1931.

The first graduate was Florence Johnson, who received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1932.

Functioning as a “separate institution under the administration of the board of trustees of the University of Louisville,” it was the only full-fledged black liberal arts college in Kentucky and the only one in the nation supported by city funds.

In 1936, LMC was granted full accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. In 1942, the UofL board of trustees removed the words “for Negroes” from the school’s name after LMC students petitioned for the revision.

Additionally, it was at that point when the students’ diplomas were changed to read “University of Louisville,” rather than “Louisville Municipal College for Negroes.”

For two decades, however, LMC would remain a segregated undergraduate division of the University of Louisville.

The school bustled with student activities, including clubs, debate teams, theatre arts, fraternities, sororities and athletics. In fact, On New Year’s Day in 1947, LMC played its first college bowl game, which means it was the first bowl game played by any UofL squad.

A number of factors led to the closing of LMC and the integration of all UofL academic units in 1950 and 1951; namely, the high cost of running two separate colleges and the idea of integration gaining favor. Following WWII, the Louisville chapter of the NAACP pressed UofL to open its graduate and professional schools to blacks.

In 1949, President John W. Taylor and the trustees were split on the issue. Taylor favored integration and student sentiment toward integration was also growing. The Student Council permitted a vote on a referendum on racial discrimination. A total of 2,136 out of 5,000 eligible students voted, the largest number in a campus election to that point. The measure failed by 46 votes, despite support from the student newspaper.

However, following challenges from the NAACP and with the support of the governor and lieutenant governor, legislation to add an amendment to the Day Law to integrate the university carried on March 2, 1950. With that passage, blacks could attend any Kentucky college so long as the institution’s trustees approved. At UofL, faculty and administrators, with the exception of the dental school, favored integration.

In April 1950, UofL trustees approved a schedule for the desegregation of the university, including the integration of graduate and professional schools by the fall of 1950.��The Municipal College closed in the spring of 1951, and the college of Arts & Sciences enrolled its first black students in September of 1951.

President Taylor’s report claimed that the University of Louisville was “the first in the South to open all of its facilities to Negroes.”

Before it closed in 1951, the LMC had enrolled 2,649 students, 512 of whom graduated with degrees. Notably, “many more women than men attended.”

Only Charles H. Parrish Jr., a sociologist, was retained from the LMC, becoming UofL’s first black faculty member. Parrish retired in 1964.

Parrish Court, named in honor of him and located in the heart of the Belknap Campus, opened 1977.

Student unrest in the 1960s and 70s

Despite full integration, UofL was not immune to the racial tensions that proliferated in the U.S. in the late 1960s. In April 1968, UofL black student protesters urged the university to do more than highlight its few African American faculty members and high profile black athletes.

On March 4, 1969, the Black Student Union submitted a plan calling for more efforts to recruit minority students and teachers, increase financial aid for black students and offer new courses in black history and literature.

After the university failed to meet all of the BSU demands, on April 30, 1969, a group of students and other sympathizers occupied President Woodrow Strickler’s office for a few hours, then quietly left. The next day, 21 black students took over the A&S dean’s building and were forcibly removed by police. Some were arrested.

Blaine Hudson III, one of the black student leaders, later recalled that Strickler wanted to remedy past injustices, but couldn’t fully appreciate that the black students had legitimate complaints, rather expecting unrealistically quick results.

A the time of the confrontation, trustee Woodford R. Porter Sr., UofL’s first African American board member, warned that if moderate protesters were denied victories, more militant leaders would seize control of the Civil Rights Movement. One direct result of this series of protests was the creation of the Office of Black Affairs to assist in the recruitment of more black students and faculty, create tutoring programs and coordinate black studies in the curriculum.

The creation of the Multicultural Center

Although the specific plans and funding for the Multicultural Center were a direct result of discussions arising out of the 1991 Fiesta Bowl controversy (), that unit’s roots can be traced to the aftermath of an incident of racial prejudice which had occurred a year earlier.

In November 1989, a student reported she had been the target of racist notes to the effect that she did “not belong” in the Panhellenic dormitory. A freshman from Ohio, she was the only African American resident of that building at the time. In support of the student, more than 100 students conveyed a list of demands to President Swain, including calls to eliminate “the segregation of the Panhellenic dorm,” to increase the number of African American resident assistants, to institute penalties for racial harassment, to remove the Confederate Monument and rename the Confederate Apartments, and to create a facility for black students.

Swain responded that: “UofL will not tolerate any form of racial harassment. We must assure that UofL is a welcoming, supportive place for people of all races and ethnic backgrounds.”

Swain promised students the following:

• The Panhellenic dorm would be fully integrated.
• The number of resident assistants who were black would mirror the percentage of black students living in the dorms.
• The affected student’s dorm fees would be remitted.
• A multicultural center would be developed.
• The Confederate Apartments would be renamed University Tower Apartments.
• Those found guilty of racial harassment would be severely punished.

Swain noted that the university had no authority to move the monument, which had built on city property long before the university moved to the Belknap Campus site.

Nearly 30 years later, in��UofL and the city of Louisville removed the Confederate statue from Third Street on the western edge of campus.