<\/p>\n
Furman\u2019s 50 Years Commemorating Desegregation<\/a>\u00a0webpage does more than thoughtfully explore the University\u2019s path to integration.<\/p>\n It paints a picture by presenting colorful portraits of those who blazed the sometimes turbulent path. It, too, provides perspective. A popular feature of the webpage is an interactive timeline. It begins on May 18, 1955, when Furman officials confiscated copies of The Echo<\/em>, a student publication, after it published articles supporting desegregation, and runs until Jan. 29, 1965, when Joseph Vaughn officially enrolls as the school\u2019s first African-American undergraduate student. In between are nearly two dozen historical nuggets that put the sequence of events in context.<\/p>\n Another timeline <\/a>delves even deeper, offering information about important post-integration milestones in Furman history. The comprehensive nature of the research is exactly what you\u2019d expect from an advanced graduate student, which is exactly what Brian Neumann \u201913 hopes to be some day.<\/p>\n As things stand at the moment, however, he\u2019s definitely in the conversation for greatest intern of all time.<\/p>\n \u201cI was alerted to some work that he was already doing as an intern in Special Collections at the Duke Library, and when I went to talk to him and he handed over some of the work he\u2019d done I was just amazed at the care and the extent,\u201d Furman history professor Steve O\u2019Neill \u201982, Ph.D., co-chair of a school committee charged with acquiring information in preparation for the anniversary, said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe basically had a 63-page annotated bibliography of almost every episode involving African Americans, the decisions of the administration that had been made about African Americans, or where African Americans had been playing prominent roles.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s fair to say, in fact, that without Neumann\u2019s contribution a great deal of what Furman thought it knew about its integration past would be lost to history. Quite an accomplishment for a self-described 19th<\/sup>-century historian who had little advanced knowledge or interest in Furman desegregation until DebbieLee Landi, at the time the University\u2019s Special Collections librarian and archivist, charged him with getting a few things together in the fall of 2013.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the projects that she assigned me was to start researching the history of desegregation because she knew the anniversary was coming up,\u201d Neumann said. \u201cBeing the person that I am, once I started doing that and reading these documents I got totally immersed in the story and was absolutely fascinated by it. I think DebbieLee was expecting maybe a 20-page source guide, and pretty soon I had 400 pages of notes.\u201d<\/p>\n But what could possibly be so interesting? Furman had done the moral thing and admitted a black student. A half century later, the only thing left to do was exchange back pats at the fond memory. End of story, no?<\/p>\n No. The University\u2019s road to desegregation was rife with potholes. There were boardroom battles and disagreements.<\/p>\n \u201cTypically, the (story) that has been told in the past has been more of a celebration of desegregation commenting on everything that Furman got right. And in fairness, we did get a lot right. But I think it\u2019s also important to look at both sides of the issue and see how we maybe didn\u2019t always live up to our ideals and how going forward we can better meet those ideals,\u201d Neumann said. \u201cWhen I started to look at the documents I realized it wasn\u2019t quite a conscious policy. It was more of this 10-year long struggle and debate, and on Furman\u2019s part a lot of reluctance and resistance to do the right thing even as the federal government and Supreme Court were pushing schools to desegregate.\u201d<\/p>\n Neumann said that while Furman administrators at the time were relatively progressive for the South they were far from leaders on this issue. Neither were students, who favored keeping desegregation by large margin into the 1960s. The true visionaries were the teachers.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I found was it started with the professors,\u201d Neumann said. \u201cThe faculty in the late 1950s and the early 1960s realized, hey, we have to live up to justice and equality. Discrimination is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n