Episode 4: Enduring Legacies
Segregation Scholarship recipients, Rosenwald School teachers and alumni were to become a powerful influence in dismantling the Jim Crow system, bringing America closer to its stated ideals of liberty and justice for all. Black Southerners returning from Northern universities with advanced degrees would be instrumental in desegregating higher education in Georgia, one of the last states to abandon Jim Crow education policies.
On August 16, 1962, Segregation Scholarship recipient Mary Frances Early became the first African American to graduate from the University of Georgia (UGA). Like many Black trailblazers before her, Early put her education to use in service to her community. She was a teacher and music director in the Atlanta public schools for more than 30 years, later serving as music department chair at Clark Atlanta University. In 2013, UGA awarded Early an honorary doctorate of law, and in 2020 the school’s College of Education was renamed in her honor.
In 1950, a future Segregation Scholarship recipient graduated from Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington High School. Louis W. Sullivan then enrolled at Morehouse College and graduated magna cum laude in 1954, earning his medical degree cum laude from Boston University School of Medicine in 1958. Dr. Sullivan is an author, physician, educator, and health advocate. Founding dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine, Dr. Sullivan also served as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the George H. W. Bush administration.
The five-part series “Segregation Scholarships” is a production of B Squared Communications in association with The WNET Group’s Chasing the Dream initiative.
Major funding for Chasing the Dream is provided by The JPB Foundation with additional funding from Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III.
