What’s been happening:

Before the summer session classes would begin in 1954 my friend, Sarah Hazel (Carter) and I went to see Dean Pearl Weston. We went to ask if we could be roommates for the six week summer session. Now understand that Sarah is black and I am white. The answer we received was no. However, we were persistent and visited Dean Weston quite a few more times. Finally, yes, we could room together. We were assigned a lower level room near the outside entrance/exit door in Thompson Hall. We soon learned that if the door nearest our room was opened outside of the assigned hours we were quickly visited and asked if we had allowed anyone entrance to the dorm. (Remember those were the days of very restricted hours for women.) To my knowledge and to Sarah's knowledge this was the first time black and white roommates could room together. We had a marvelous time. To this day we reminisce about it. When President Obama was elected my friend, Sarah, called me to say, "We did it." What do you mean, we did it? "Kay, we did it in 1954! We broke the barrier way back then.