MyBlack^® Career

Sixty years after rejection, college grants degree

High-achieving black student was denied admission to Mo. school in 1950

Source: MSNBC

Sixty years ago, Mary Jean Price had her heart set on Southwestern Missouri State College.

It was 1950 and Price was a high-achieving 18-year-old who was salutatorian of her class at Lincoln High School in Springfield, Mo. She should have been a shoo-in at what is now Missouri State University, according to current administrators who have reviewed her file.

But Price is black. And in the early 1950s in Springfield, African-American students who wanted to go to college had to travel three hours to Lincoln University, a historically black college in the state capital, Jefferson City. With her father’s health on the decline, Price figured Lincoln was simply too far away.

So she waited to hear back from Missouri State. But as the days turned into weeks and months and still she hadn''t heard from the school, Price decided to forgo college altogether — and with it the ambition she had since she was three of becoming a teacher.

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