The article was published on February 16th online and the printed article came out on the 19th in the Neighbors section.
Because of the PR effort of the hard-working organizers of the First Black Graduates Project, their program has been receiving favorable media attention. Please go to the links below for two articles. The exposure is wonderful for us because they mention our current exhibition “We Were Pioneers.”
We have recently received over 100 never-seen images of the University of Miami from the early 1960s. This wonderful gift was given to us by Mr. Richard Riker, who was a former photographer for Ibis when he studied at the U.
I think these pictures were taken at the 1963 Homecoming.
In late January, Mr. Riker contacted us asking if we wanted to receive images of Richter Library he took during construction of the building in 1962. We were thrilled to accept his offer because we do not have many images of Richter under construction in color. I sent him a thank you note right away, then he sent us additional images of the University.
These candid pictures reveal the mood of the campus in 1960.
I researched our digital resources and found his pictures listed as Ibis photographer. In the Office of the President Records, I found out he was the President of Gamma Theta Upsilon for the academic year 1964-65. Also, I learned he received his B.A. in 1964 in the recently digitized Commencement Program Collection.
I found him listed in the 1963 Ibis under Photographers section.
Mr. Riker, thank you so much for donating us these wonderful images! To find out more about donated images, please go to the link below for the “Richard Riker Photograph Collection.”
Entrance view of the exhibition “We Were Pioneers.”
The University Archives is pleased to announce a new exhibition “We Were Pioneers” for the African American History Month to honor the University of Miami’s African-American Students, Faculty, and Administrators of the 1960s and 1970s.
Front wall of the exhibition space honors 12 student UTrailbrazers.
The exhibition features publications, images, memorabilia, and other artifacts from the University Archives’s collection in 9 exhibition cases and surrounding walls on the first floor of the Otto G. Richter Library. You will be able to find out University of Miami’s desegregation history, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic visit to the University, United Black Students, first African-American athletes, first African-American faculty and administrators, local resources on diversity, and so on in the exhibits. This exhibition also showcases Richter’s Special Collections’ materials on Miami’s desegregation and civil rights movement history.
We will create an online version of this exhibition shortly so that future faculty and students can research the materials and resources we put together for the exhibition. Also, we hope this exhibition will inspire our fellow colleagues as well as former and current Canes to archive with us.
Have you thought U’s centennial celebration is only 8 years away? We hope we will be able to curate a monumental exhibition to celebrate the U’s centennial jubilee with historical materials from all the schools, departments, and student groups of the University.
Rear wall of the exhibition space honors UTrailbrazer faculty and administrators.The rich contents of “Malaika,” published by the United Black Students in the 1970s and 1980s, made possible for us to curate the exhibition.
The collection, donated in 75 large moving boxes in 2013, is now neatly organized by approximately 4.000 topics and housed in acid free archival folders and boxes. Richter provides optimal environment for storage of our archival collections in the library and at the offsite storage facility.
The University Archives is pleased to announce the addition of a new essential historical resource to our collections, the UM University Communications Collection.
The collection contains historical images, videos, publications, and news clippings of the University from the 1980s to the 2000s, which have never been available at the Archives before. We believe it is going to be one of the most frequently researched materials by the University community to research for their anniversaries and other celebrations.
We appreciate very much the University Communications colleagues who trusted us to transfer such important materials to be archived. They came in 75 large moving boxes in 2013, and the Archives staff and student assistants worked throughout 2016 to sort everything in the boxes, compiled a massive 266-page-long inventory list, and stored them in 135 archival boxes.
Please go to the link below to see the collection record. Also, please click the link provided at “Container List (PDF)” to download the inventory list. Please contact us if you have any questions or need assistance.
The Miami News reported on June 19, 1961 that fist integrated session went all serene at the University.
We are extremely excited to discover this never-been-reported information in The Miami News article published on June 19, 1961, because it is about the first Black student enrolled at the University of Miami in the summer of the first integrated session.
The student’s name was Melvin Ladson, who graduated George Washington Carver High School and was a brilliant student with an IQ of 144. He began college work at 15, got his master’s degree at 21, and he was already working as a speech therapist in Atlanta when he enrolled at the U at 24. Please click the above image to read the whole story.
The article also reported that there were approximately 40 Black students enrolled for the first year of the integration. This is also a new discovery for us because we used to think there were 19 students enrolled. Why isn’t there an exact figure? It is interesting to know that enrollment records did not reflect the race of the students.
FYI, it is a well-known historical fact that Mr. Benny O’Berry was the first African American student to graduate with a degree. He completed a Bachelor of Science degree in the School of Education and received his diploma in 1962 at the age of 46.
University of Miami Archives -- Let's Archive It 