Remembering prominent Black Americans during Black History Month
By Tiffany Peden
As we celebrate Black History Month, it’s important to remember the contributions and achievements of Black Americans. At several of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) at which Sodexo operates, many of the buildings that house dining facilities are named for prominent and revolutionary figures who deserve to be remembered year-round.
Morgan State University
Morgan State recently cut the ribbon on its Thurgood Marshall Dining Hall , located in the brand-new Thurgood Marshall Hall , which features murals, photos and information about the former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
Marshall was born in 1908 in Baltimore, Md., graduated from Lincoln University, and graduated first in his class at Howard University Law School. After opening a law office, he worked as the chief legal counsel for the NAACP, and founded the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Marshall challenged Plessy v. Ferguson, and argued before the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education to overturn “separate but equal.”
He was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit by President John F. Kennedy, appointed Solicitor General by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who also nominated him to the Supreme Court, a position Marshall held for nearly 24 years.
Delaware State University
Home to a few dining locations on campus, Tubman Laws Hall received its name from two important figures: Harriet Tubman and Lydia Laws.
Delaware native Lydia Laws received renown for being the first female instructor at State College for Colored Students (now known as Delaware State University) in 1897.
Laws received her education at Atlanta’s Clark University, and her teaching experience at the college included pedagogy, U.S. history, English literature, composition, and physiology.
As the college’s female population began to grow, a female dorm was built, and Laws took on the role of matron of the facility. She also took charge of directing the activities of the college’s Domestic Sciences Department.
领英推荐
Harriet Tubman, born around 1820 in Maryland, is known to many as the conductor of the Underground Railroad.
Born into slavery, Tubman’s pursuit of justice started at a young age, stepping between an enslaved person and an overseer who was about to throw a heavy weight at him, and receiving the blow herself.
Tubman and her brothers escaped to the north, and Tubman continued to use the Underground Railroad to help numerous other people escape from the South, causing slaveowners to post a hefty reward for her capture or death.
However, Tubman was never caught, and she never lost a passenger. She went on to help with other antislavery efforts, assisted as a Union spy during the Civil War, and joined others in the fight for women’s suffrage.
Howard University
At Howard University, Bethune Annex Café is located in Mary M. Bethune Annex , named after Mary Jane McLeod Bethune. Bethune, born in 1875 in South Carolina, attended Scotia Seminary boarding school and Dwight Moody’s Institute for Home and Foreign Missions. She worked as an educator, and opened a boarding school, the Daytona Beach Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls, which later merged with Cookman Institute to become Bethune-Cookman College.
Bethune was a champion of racial and gender equality. She was elected president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in 1924, founding president of the National Council of Negro Women in 1935, named director of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration in 1936 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons in 1940 and was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to attend the founding conference of the United Nations in 1945.
Bethune was a frequent visitor at Howard University, as well as correspondent with many of the University’s faculty.
Kentucky State University
Kentucky State’s Underwood Dining Hall is located in the Hill Student Center, named for Carl McClellan Hill. Hill, born in 1907 in Norfolk, Va., was the president of Kentucky State College from 1962 to 1975. During his presidency, Kentucky State College became Kentucky State University, and also added four undergraduate departments, a graduate school, and a Black Collection to the library.
Additionally, Dr. Hill, who earned his bachelor’s degree in organic chemistry from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) and his master’s and doctorate in organic chemistry from Cornell University, was a chemist, authoring 52 research papers and textbooks. He also taught chemistry at several colleges. At the time he was named president of Kentucky State, he was considered to be one of the top six chemistry professors in the nation.
Information from the Notable Kentucky African Americans Database