Black History Month

February 23, 1960: eleven Black students from Winston-Salem State Teachers College are joined by ten white students from Wake Forest University to protest segregation at lunch counters in North Carolina.

Police arrest them that day and take them to jail.

This is part of the beginning of the sit-in movement that would sweep the South and lead to change.

The understanding and appreciation of Black history is urgent.

As scholar Ralph Crowder writes, this education should be a testimony to those African Americans who came before to open up the way, “who struggled to affirm the humanity of African people,” and a calling to account to the present generation to defend and preserve Black humanity.

Our community of scholars and students know the learning of Black history is central for human wholeness. It is a fundamental and positive necessity for changing the world, just as those courageous students did more than sixty years ago.

Sincerely,

Wake Forest University Office of Undergraduate Admissions