In 1962, the tumultuous sands of time cascaded onto the 2,000-acre Gainesville campus of the University of Florida, a racially segregated state school.
In the shadow of the Confederate flag and the sound of Dixie, Black OR white education systems transitioned to black AND white single-source schools.
By 1962 and 1963, we were well into the second half of the 20th century. Fourteen academically elite Black teenagers bravely breached the virtual fortress that was protecting exclusively white undergraduate education. I was among them.
The students, from all-Black public schools, qualified by passing the formerly whites-only Florida 12th grade placement test.
Like college students throughout the Southeast, Stephan P. Mickle and 13 others answered the clarion call to integrate Florida s undergraduate classes: Johncyna Williams, Alice Marie Davis, Rose Elizabeth Green, Jessie Dean, John Reddick, Carol Hudson, Charles Speights, James Gloster, Susan Lockhart, Oliver Gordon, Jimmy Dukes,