CHAPEL HILL, N.C.— Three distinguished University of North Carolina alumni were looking forward to doing something Saturday that they never could when they were students: watching the Tar Heels play football in the company of people of all races.
When John Brandon and the brothers Ralph and LeRoy Frasier became the first three Black undergraduates at Chapel Hill, football games were still segregated by race, as were most public places in North Carolina.
Now, 55 years after a federal court allowed them to register for classes by overturning the university’s racist admissions policy, the three are returning to be celebrated as pioneers by a UNC where the most famous alumnus is Michael Jordan and which has more Black students enrolled than any other major research institution.
“Those days were probably the most stressful of my life,” said Ralph Frasier, 72, during a visit Friday to campus. “I can’t say that I have many happy memories.”
For some of those joining the celebration, the anniversary isn’t only a chance to commemorate the bravery of three Durham teenagers who stood up to Jim Crow laws just a year after the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregation.
The Rev. William Barber, president of the state’s NAACP chapter, was the speaker at a dinner praising the three as heroes Friday night. Barber sees their situation as a lesson in a time when issues of racial diversity in public schools have turned into a fiery public debate in Wake County.
“We need to remember history, but not to become angry or bitter,” Barber told The Associated Press. “But by plumbing the depths of history, we can recognize the obstructions that try to stop the flow of justice.”
