There are two occasions when Mississippi University for Women evoked tears from Laverne Greene-Leech.
About a week ago, the tears came when she was informed a state historical marker would be unveiled Thursday on the MUW campus honoring her and the five other Black students who integrated what was then known at Mississippi State College for Women in 1966.
“Tears of joy,” she said, when asked about her initial reaction to the news. “I was happy that we did play a little part in the story. I cried because I look at the institution and see what it has become.”
There are other types of tears, of course — tears of rejection and isolation, of the emotional trauma of being tolerated but not embraced.
For years, those were the kind of tears Greene-Leech associated with her time at MUW.
“It took a long time for me to feel like I was really a part of the university,” she said.
In the spring of 1966, Greene-Leech, along with her best friend, Diane Hardy, and Barbara Turner Bankhead had just graduated from Hunt High School, where Black students attended in Columbus’ segregated school system.
Greene-Leech’s plan was to attend Mississippi Valley State, one of the state’s three Historically Black College and Universities. Hardy had a different idea. She planned to apply to MSCW, “just to see their reaction,” Hardy told her. Greene-Leech and Turner decided to apply at MSCW, too, mainly as a show of support for their friend.
Greene-Leech waited until the end of July to inform her parents of her decision, anticipating it would not sit well with them.
“They didn’t think it was a good idea,” she said. “They were afraid for me. But they said, ‘If this is what you want to do, we’ll stand behind you.’”
Her parents’ fears were reasonable.
Just four years earlier, James Meredith became the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi, resulting in riots on campus that claimed two lives and was subdued only when the National Guard was called in to restore order. In 1964, Freedom Summer arrived, bringing with it a series of church burnings, along with the murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in Neshoba County. Later that year, Fannie Lou Hamer delivered a powerful address before the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The three 17-year-olds arrived on the MSCW campus, along with three graduate students — Mary Flowers, Jacqueline Edwards and Eula Houser — as the school’s first Black students. Greene-Leech said they rarely saw the grad students around campus, though.
“It was just the three of us and we weren’t always in the same classes,” Greene-Leech said.
It didn’t take long for the girls to understand where they fit into campus life, which was nowhere really.
“Students then were required to live on campus, but they told us there was no place for us to stay, so we went back and forth from home,” Greene-Leech said. “They had a cafeteria, but we weren’t allowed to eat there. We had to move off the sidewalks to let the white student pass.”
The social clubs that almost every student was a part of were obviously off-limits to them, as well.
Greene-Leech said there were a few white students who were accepting, but it was a handful of teachers who made The W tolerable, at least for a while.
“We had a teacher, Billy Ponds, who was very accepting and did everything he could for us,” Greene-Leech said. “There was a biology teacher, Dr. Sherman, who was really great and worked with me on my projects.”
There was also Mrs. Hornsby, her physical education instructor.
Since none of the white students in her class would agree to be her partner, Mrs. Hornsby stepped into the role.
“She was my partner in square dancing, bowling, tennis, really anything you did with a partner,” she said. “No one else would do it.”
The mental stress and emotional toil of being a pariah on campus took its toll. Greene-Leech left The W after the first semester of her sophomore year.
“It was just too much,” she said.
She returned to The W in 1973, but left again without finishing her degree.
Greene-Leech went to work after that year, eventually arriving at the Lowndes County School District where she worked for 32 years, first as a library assistant, but for most of her career as the district’s media director.
Becoming proud of The W
Greene-Leech said she didn’t give The W much thought for years.
Slowly, though, she began to notice things changing.
Gertrude Lewis and Marjorie Carter became The W’s first Black faculty members in 1970 and Black enrollment built steadily over the years. Male students joined the study body in the ‘80s. “When I saw Black students and Black faculty members and later, the boys, I knew it was finally a school for all people,” she said. “That was when I was proud of The W and the part we played in it becoming what it is today.”
The marker will be unveiled at 3 p.m. Thursday. It will be placed in Pioneers Plaza, beside Carrier Chapel.
The marker is the result of a collaboration between the History Department at MUW and Chuck Yarborough’s history class at Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science.
Greene-Leech said she and her friends never set out to make history.
“We just wanted an education,” she said.
Her only regret is that her lifelong friend, Diane Hardy, will not be present for the ceremony. Hardy passed away in 2013.
That sad note aside, Greene-Leech is eager to attend the ceremony. She is especially excited to meet and talk to the MSMS students, many of which are the same age as she was in the fall of ‘66.
“I know they have absolutely no idea of what it was like almost 60 years ago,” she said. “It really touches me, what they did with this. It brought me to tears.”
Tears of joy.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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