Mary Jean Price receives a diploma after applying to university 60 years ago
Mary Jean Price was the first black student that applied to the Southwest Missouri State College from Springfield and was denied admission, in 1950.
This was four years before the Board of Education decided that denying black children from university was unconstitutional. Price remembers that she studied very hard and did her best to get to college, but she was not allowed even to enter the university. She never tried applying after the incident but now, 60 years later, she is going to receive an honorary diploma from the school that ignored her application when she was 18. She is retired now from her janitor job at a local science center and she remembers dreaming of becoming a school teacher before applying to the Missouri University.
Price remembers that at one point she intended on suing the school to contest the decision, but abandoned the plan due to her father’s poor health, and by 1954, when the law of permitting blacks to the university was given, she was already married and had children. She buried the story until this year, when her son, aged 54, wanted to find out if his mother was the first black applicant to a university as his aunt suggested. He found out that his aunt was right and that his mother’s application was denied because of the racial controversies. Earle Doman, the vice president of student affairs and dean of students from the Missouri State University, wants to set things right by granting Price an honorary diploma.
