Jan. 28, 1963: The day Clemson University integrated

For its first seven-and-a-half decades, Clemson University’s student body was exclusively white. It was 1960 when an African-American teenager settled on Clemson as his dream school – and it was 1963 before he first entered the university’s halls as a student.

Harvey Gantt’s enrollment itself was a quiet affair, shepherded by civil rights lawyer Matthew Perry. But the road leading up to that day was hard. Anti-black feeling in South Carolina was so strong that the state paid out-of-state tuition to educate some black students elsewhere, keeping them out of Clemson and the University of South Carolina. Gantt himself enrolled at Iowa State University before making his way back down South.

Clemson rejected Gantt in 1961, claiming his Iowa transcript was incomplete. Gantt sued, and his lawsuit made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied the university’s final appeal. Highway patrolmen and police aircraft escorted him into Clemson on Jan. 28, 1963, where he was met peacefully by 100 students.

Gantt went on to meet his future wife, Lucinda Brawley, at Clemson. She became the first African-American woman to enroll there. Gantt went on to a successful career in politics and architecture, and credited his time at Clemson as an inspiration to himself and his peers.

“A lot of us left Clemson with the belief that we could make a difference,” he said.

About this series: The inaugural edition of The State newspaper was published Feb. 18, 1891. In anticipation of the 125th anniversary, the Palmetto section and this section at thestate.com are recounting each day how The State covered newsmakers and events vital to South Carolina’s history.

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 10:57 AM with the headline "Jan. 28, 1963: The day Clemson University integrated."