Celebrating the Past, Charting the Future: Commemorating 50 Years of Black Students at Duke University

As Duke University celebrates 50 years of black students on campus, the Carolina Theatre is also marking its 50th year of integration with plans for “Confronting Change,” a permanent civil rights exhibit featuring video.

James Braxton Peterson ‘93 moderated an April 16 panel discussion at New York’s Time Warner Center.

Photos from Atlanta Celebrates 50 Years of Black Students at Duke. Thursday, April 18th at The Loft at Castleberry Hill.

African-Americans comprise a growing percentage of Duke’€™s faculty since 1999, with a net increase of 5 to 6 more African-American faculty expected in the next academic year, Provost Peter Lange told the Academic Council on Thursday. But the situation varies according to different schools and units, and areas of weakness remain, said Lange, who presented the biennial Faculty Diversity Report.

I am an ordained minister, a student in the doctorate of divinity program at the Divinity School, and I hold two part-time positions: interim director for the Black Church Studies Initiative and program manager for the 50th anniversary celebration of the first black undergraduates at Duke. I’m wearing a lot of hats, but they center on building bridges between Duke and Durham and celebrating the black community in both places. It has been especially interesting to help plan the nine-month long commemoration of desegregation at Duke, “Celebrating the Past, Charting the Future: Commemorating 50 Years of Black Students at Duke University.”

I am a minister to the university. That is the title they used for this position before calling it dean of the Chapel. It is a multilayered job. It includes the pastoral dimension of counseling, guidance and ongoing public preaching. There is the scholarly dimension of being a faculty in the Divinity School. There is an administrative dimension of running a Chapel with over twenty staff. And I am the public face of Duke Chapel. Since I’m new, and it is historic to be the first black dean of the Chapel, I’ve been doing a lot with the media.

In 1963, the first five black undergraduates enrolled at Duke. At that time, the university had no black faculty, administrators, or trustees. Across campus at Duke University School of Medicine, another barrier was being broken. Delano Meriwether, MD’67, became the first black medical student at Duke.

Two years ago, Mike Bennett ’77 struck up a conversation with a passenger on a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Washington. The stranger turned out to be a fellow Duke alumnus who graduated the year after Bennett. He remembered that Bennett and other African-American students often ate meals together in the Cambridge Inn.

On a sunny, spring Saturday afternoon, hundreds of alumni, students and Duke community members gathered in Page Auditorium to celebrate the achievement, courage and contributions African-American students have made at the university over the last 50 years.

In early April, the MLWC, Black Student Alliance (BSA) and Black Graduate and Professional Student Association (BGPSA) co-sponsor the annual Julian Abele Awards, the premier Black community awards dinner.  This annual event honors the significant achievements of Black community members and their supporters. They are named in honor of Julian Abele, an African-American who designed the architecture for Duke’s West Campus.