African Americans At Tech

Just as women were discriminated and oppressed during the early years of the Georgia Institute of Technology, many races were discriminated against as well. For example as long as it took Georgia Tech to allow women to enroll it wasn’t until 9 years later in 1961 that African Americans were allowed to attend. This was even after of 25 years of campaigning by the NAACP to desegregate colleges in Georgia.  However despite allowing African Americans admittance into Tech so late, the society at the time can be seen as a major factor to this delay. At that time the civil rights movement was just beginning and segregation in the southern states was not an uncommon occurrence. In this way racial discrimination at tech was heavily influenced by the outlook of society. At the time southern society still had lingering racial biases against African Americans and regarded them as slightly  inferior.

In spite of this socially accepted discrimination, the first African Americans were able to make great strides at tech. African Americans experienced an amount of freedom at tech that they did not find many other places at this time. In fact the Georgia Institute of Technology was the first university in Georgia to voluntary implement desegregation. They even went a step farther and banned the press from campus and had extra police officers on hand to ensure a peaceful integration. Fortunately none of the extra police officers were needed and the student body greeted the new students with open arms.

Discrimination against African Americans has been at a minimum ever since their successful desegregation at Tech. One of the main reasons for this has been Georgia Tech’s strict guidelines on discrimination and the punishments that come from violating this anti-discrimination policy. As a result of this there have been only sporadic individual cases of racial discrimination over the years and many of them have occurred between students.

Just as stated in the other blog post, I believe that Tech’s treatment of African Americans has been consistent with societies views over the years. Georgia Tech did not allow African Americans to enroll until the beginning of the civil rights movement, which was also the time in American society where desegregation and racial equality began to become prevalent.  As American society shifted more and more towards for equality, Georgia Tech has proven to be one of the leading advocates of this equality.