Black Students at Kenyon in the 1970s

It's not an easy sell. A costly rural college with limited scholarship money and an overwhelmingly white student body and faculty…has the odds against it.

P.F. Kluge in
Alma Mater
During the early 1960s, Kenyon began to experience both high attrition and low enrollment in terms of its black students. Throughout the entire decade, only 4 black students would graduate. While the majority of earlier black students from the 1950s had found Kenyon on their own initiative, toward the late 1960s, the College began to seriously recruit blacks. According to Ruben Pope (K70), the school began to invest more time and money in its football team. Kenyon wanted to revamp the team, and this entailed scouting for prospective players, several of whom were black.
For the first time, Kenyon was admitting black students from the inner city, many of whom had limited prior experience with whites.In 1969, the same year that would see women admitted to the College, a class of 6 blacks enterred as well. Among this group were not only the first black women to attend Kenyon, but the founders of the Kenyon College Black Student Union.
Kenyon's Black Graduates During the 1970's  

Eugene Peterson

Kenyon Class of 1970

Ruben E. Pope

Kenyon Class of 1970

Gary L. Hayes

Kenyon Class of 1970

Roland D. Parson Jr.

Kenyon Class of 1971

Keith A. O'Donnell

Kenyon Class of 1972

Ulysses B. Hammond

Kenyon Class of 1973

Barbara J. Johnson

Kenyon Class of 1973

Johnnie L. Johnson

Kenyon Class of 1973

Doretha S. Leftwood

Kenyon Class of 1973

Leantin Bracks

Kenyon Class of 1974

Geraldine Coleman-Tucker

Kenyon Class of 1974

Patreca Murrell-Cooper

Kenyon Class of 1974

Victor F. Dickens

Kenyon Class of 1974

Jennie C. Flowers

Kenyon Class of 1975

(Please note that other black students attended Kenyon during this period, but did not graduate)
Click on the name for each individual student's story.

America in the 1970s

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Kenyon in the 1970s