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Exhibit March 2002
Celebrating the African-American Presence at SDSU
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Celebrating
the African-American Presence
at SDSU
From the 1930s to the 1990s
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1930s and 1940s
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Jonathan T. Buchanan
In 1936, Jonathan T. Buchanan became the first male African-American
student to graduate from SDSU. His degree was in zoology.
Photograph from Del Sudoeste, San Diego State University
Yearbook, 1936.
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Left to right, row 1: Olivia Jones, Bessie
Cobb. Row 2: Ruth Allen, Ethel La Blanc, Inez Harris, Leona McGlory, Charles
Bell. Row 3: Bernard Stuberville, Henry Manley, Sam Kimbrough, Samuel
Bishop, Thelma Gorham.
Left to right: Bessie Cobb, Nelson Palleman,
Charles Cheaves, Melvin White, Juanita Henson; standing, left to right:
Sylvester Williams, Ruby Vorce, Bertha Williams, Emmett Young, Gweneth
Lowe, Carl Wiggins, Jessie Stewart, Roberta North, Kelly Portlock, Dorothy
Daniel, Doris Cobb.
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The Woodsonians
Two years after Buchanan graduated in 1936, there were enough African-American
students on campus to hold regular meetings. Both Thelma Gorham and Horace
Mays established the Woodsonians, an 18-member SDSU student organization
for African Americans who wanted to socialize and discuss the status of
their race. The group named itself in honor of historian
Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), who is generally recognized
as "The Father of Negro History." Largely as a result of Woodson's
efforts, in 1915 the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History
was established. In 1916, the Association authorized Woodson to begin
publishing the quarterly Journal of Negro History, which became
the single most influential outlet for pioneering work in African-American
and African Studies. Woodson also encouraged the creation of a national
celebration of the heritage of peoples of African descent. This effort
bore fruit in 1926 with the inauguration of Negro History Week, now expanded
into Black
History Month.
Photographs from Del Sudoeste, San Diego State University
Yearbook,
1938 and 1939.
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Ira Lipscomb as handbook editor
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Ira and Wendell R. Lipscomb
Ira Lipscomb's studies at SDSU were cut short by military service in
World War II. His brother, Wendell R. Lipscomb,
was one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen. Wendell attended SDSU in the early
1940's before his studies were also interrupted by World War II. He was
sent to Tuskegee as a military pilot instructor and also to prove that
African-Americans were capable of being excellent pilots. After the war,
Wendell returned to SDSU where he received his degree in 1947. He earned
his M.D. degree at UC-Berkeley and with the help of the Black newspaper
publisher Carlton Goodlet, became the first Black intern at a Kaiser Permanente
hospital in San Francisco. In 1959, he founded the Alcohol Research Group,
which is still active today.
Photograph from 1942.
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Willie Steele
In 1948, during the Olympic Games in London, Willie Steele won the Olympic
Gold in long jump. This immediately gave Steele extensive news coverage
and made him one of the most honored students and publicized athletes
at SDSU in the 1940s. He was one of two SDSU students who won Olympic
Gold and was selected twice for Who's Who in American Colleges and
Universities.
Photograph from Del Sudoeste, 1948.
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