Simply Put, Dorothy Yancy Has a History of Leading the Way

Higher education pioneer Dr. Dorothy Yancy says she’s “always been embarrassed [about] being the first.”By promoting civil integration and exhibiting keen leadership, Dr. Dorothy Yancy has modeled a life of distinction by shaping the way African-Americans excel in higher academia.

Yancy enrolled as an undergraduate at Johnson C. Smith University during a time when Black students were organizing marches and sit-ins for racial equality.

“The students were already excited about making change,” recalls Yancy, who noticed educational disparities between Blacks and Whites at an early age.

“I had grown up in the South and I knew about differences in the schools,” says the Cherokee County, Ala., native. “I grew up with these White kids and I knew that their books were new and mine were generations old. I visited inside their schools and their facilities were not great, but ours were horrible.”

Yancy says she believed that integration was the answer to many of the issues that she and her classmates faced. As a member of the student government association, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, she joined the Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina and rallied to change the world around her.

Inside the classroom, Yancy majored in social science and history, eventually entering the doctoral program in political science at Atlanta University, where she became an accomplished scholar.

Her professional career became one of inaugural feats.