I grew up in a small segregated town in North Carolina where people were considered either black or white. It was not until I reached sixth grade that the school I attended included both black and white students. It was the backdrop of this personal history through which I experienced Duke when I arrived in the fall of 1977 as a freshman.
Although my Duke experiences include a few unpleasant memories that I attribute to racism and racial and cultural insensitivity, I also had many very powerful and positive experiences. At times, I felt as though I was navigating two sides of the train tracks as existed in my hometown – one where the blacks lived and the other side where whites lived.
I frequently sat and ate at tables in the on-campus dining halls that were made up almost exclusively of black students and I became a member of the Duke chapter of one of our nation’s historically black sororities. But, I also lived in the same women’s dormitory on East Campus for all of my four years—and loved it. For most of those years, I remember being one of fewer than four blacks living in that same dorm and I attended classes in which I was either the only black or one of fewer than five in the class.
Nonetheless, throughout my undergraduate time at Duke, I always felt as though Duke was where I belonged. Oddly enough, the one person who stands out in my memory as making me feel as though I belonged at Duke was a person whom I never got the chance to meet face-to-face: Terry Sanford.
When I think of Duke, I think of President Sanford and the fact that, despite Duke’s mixed history on racial matters and the work still to be done, it has become the great university that it is today in large part because of his example of leadership and commitment to quality education for all people, irrespective of race and color. President Sanford’s example has helped to challenge and guide me in my career today as a lawyer and administrator in higher education.
For his example, the example of those first black undergraduate pioneers, and for my Duke education, I am grateful.
Alvita Eason Barrow, T ‘81