{"id":40877,"date":"2026-01-30T17:15:57","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T22:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=40877"},"modified":"2026-01-30T17:15:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T22:15:57","slug":"furman-university-honors-61-years-since-joseph-vaughn-broke-barriers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furman-university-honors-61-years-since-joseph-vaughn-broke-barriers\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman University honors 61 years since Joseph Vaughn broke barriers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Below-freezing temperatures brought this year\u2019s Joseph Vaughn Day<\/a> commemoration indoors, but Furman University\u2019s community took that opportunity Friday to bundle closer together in the Daniel Chapel.<\/p>\n

Joseph Vaughn Day honors the legacy of Joseph Allen Vaughn \u201968, Furman\u2019s first Black undergraduate student who enrolled on Jan. 29, 1965. His first days on campus are immortalized in the statue at Joseph Vaughn Plaza, showing him climbing the Duke Library steps with textbooks under his arm and a sweater warming him from the late-January chill.<\/p>\n

Though his courage to come to Furman 61 years ago is admirable and inspiring, President Elizabeth Davis said his persistence is what kept him here every moment after those pioneering steps.<\/p>\n

\"A

Stanley Williams, commemorative speaker during the Joseph Vaughn Day ceremony, shakes hands with President Elizabeth Davis after speaking at Daniel Chapel on Jan. 30.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe can do great work if we embody the courage that Joseph Vaughn modeled for us,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n

Marcus Tate \u201912, a cousin of Vaughn, lit a candle in honor of his relative, followed by a moment of silence to reflect on his legacy.<\/p>\n

Vaughn met the moment<\/h3>\n

His time at Furman coincided with political upheaval and contentious public discourse, and college campuses were the staging grounds for mass protest movements. He headed the student \u201cTalk-a-Topic\u201d committee, said Cynthia King, associate dean of academic community, and was enthusiastically engaged with the issues of his time. He seized every opportunity to take ownership of his education.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe Vaughn was the model that pushed and drove us to be whatever we would become,\u201d said Stan Williams, who graduated alongside Vaughn in 1964 from the all-Black Sterling High School in Greenville, South Carolina. \u201cHe was an exemplar.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remarks from Roger Abim-Karmon \u201926<\/h3>\n

Public health major Roger Abim-Karmon<\/a> \u201926 told attendees that it\u2019s essential to also remember a woman who knocked at Furman\u2019s doors before Vaughn stepped in: LaBarbara Powell Sampson. She was the first Black student to apply to Furman in 1964, and Abim-Karmon urged the audience to seek out and celebrate the stories of others who pushed boundaries and paved the way for those who came after.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaBarbara knocked on a door that never opened for her, but we need to celebrate that, too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Idella Goodson Glenn Outstanding Black Alumni Award<\/h3>\n
\"A

Marcus Tate, a relative of Joseph Vaughn, lights a candle in honor of Vaughn during the Joseph Vaughn Day ceremony.<\/p><\/div>\n

This year\u2019s Idella Goodson Glenn Outstanding Black Alumni Award went to the Rev. Regenald Garrett<\/a> \u201998, senior pastor at the historic Jubilee Baptist Church and president of Furman\u2019s Black Alumni Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The award honors exceptional individuals who demonstrate high achievement and exemplary leadership. Glenn, a 1984 graduate of Furman, worked for 18 years as the university\u2019s director of multicultural affairs and assistant vice president for student development. But Garrett called her \u201cbig sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have my name connected to Idella, that\u2019s just incredible,\u201d Garrett said. When he enrolled, he was walking into a history of people like Vaughn and Glenn who broke ground and smoothed the path some.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I came to Furman I didn\u2019t just bring my excitement, I brought a legacy,\u201d he said. His involvement and leadership in organizing and outreach to Black alumni is part of his efforts to honor that legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause somewhere someone is out there thinking \u2018I don\u2019t have what it takes to go to Furman University,\u201d he said. He hopes history and the examples of others can prove them wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Furman\u2019s first Black undergraduate student, Vaughn paved the way for many more ambitious, achieving students to call themselves Paladins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":401,"featured_media":40892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,3404,70,3230],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-bicentennial","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-jvd"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/401"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40877"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40907,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40877\/revisions\/40907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}