Public School Forum

A think-and-do tank committed to North Carolina public schools

by Emma Miller

On March 27th, 1951, the McKissick v. Carmichael decision ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, four Black students seeking admission to UNC’s Law School, effectively desegregating the Law School. This ruling gave the precedent for other forms of higher education across the state to desegregate.

Plaintiff Floyd McKissick, the first Black student at UNC Law on why he chose UNC to help desegregate:

 

Audio Transcript
“One, we had attempted to…after I got out of the Army, I knew I was going into law. And during the time that I was in Atlanta, we had written the University of North Carolina and had gotten to reply to asking them–it was generally felt…there was a feeling in the air that people were going to be fair and teach you right, and that you were a returning veteran, and some schools were letting Blacks in that never had before. There were high quotas and veterans were getting quotas, so there was a feeling that North Carolina would do some of these things without being forced to do it. That feeling was later determined to be a false feeling, a false emotion that we had.”