Carolina's First Black Ph.D. Graduate

Photo courtesy of William Darity

Alumnus William Darity remembers a different campus in days past.

Dr. William Darity was the first African American to earn his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an honor no one else can claim. But Darity does not harp on his accomplishment. Rather, he remembers a time when the University did not revel in the diversity that exists on campus today.

Darity graduated with a Ph.D. in public health in 1964, a time still wrought with racial discrimination. “The University stood for over 175 years before it granted a black a Ph.D.,” and it was clearly past time to provide education to all races, he said.

Indeed, Carolina was a different place in the ‘60s, with very few black and female students. Discrimination was a problem not only in Chapel Hill, but all over the country. “You couldn’t eat in the restaurants,” he explained. “It was not a very pleasant situation until later, after some things changed while we were there. My wife was involved in opening up theaters, for instance.”

Darity said he was lucky in those days — he was well equipped to join a university world where there were only a few black students. “The whole social situation was not as difficult as people might think it was, because I had worked for The World Health Organization, overseas. Coming back into the situation where there were few blacks — well, I’d worked in various countries in the world where there were no black Americans.”

The most difficult thing for Darity, he said, was worrying about his children. “They had to face so many problems,” he said. “My son was one of the first blacks to go to a predominantly white school, and my daughter went also, when she was old enough.” Darity’s son, William (Sandy) Darity, Jr., apparently flourished, despite the challenges of the time: He is now a professor of economics at UNC-Chapel Hill.

In contrast to Carolina’s diverse campus today, Darity said there were no organized black student groups while he was in graduate school. Darity relied upon his friends for support — four of whom were his undergraduate associates at Shaw University. “That was one of the helpful things that happened just incidentally,” he said. “We helped one another and visited one another.”

Darity said he never felt animosity due to his race from the other students and most of the professors. “I was treated just like any other graduate student,” he said. “I sat in class and studied like everyone else. There was no exception to the rule.”

Darity flew through his program in public health — normally a three-year curriculum — in only two years. “I was married with kids — I didn’t have time to play,” he said. “My wife was very supportive. I stayed right there on that campus in the laboratories and in the library. I didn’t have any family backup financially, so I had to get through.”

Now a retired professor emeritus of public health at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Darity is an active decision-maker with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a member of the Graduate Education Advancement Board of the Graduate School, a member of the Board of Visitors, and a former member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees.

Darity also is a donor to the Graduate School. “I became a donor because I felt that UNC contributed to my success. I’m also setting up a small scholarship in my mother and father’s name,” he said.

On his frequent visits to campus, Darity said he looks forward to seeing progressive changes that have taken place. “When I was there, there might have been 20 black undergraduate students, if there were that many. They didn’t take women in the freshmen or sophomore classes then, and there were not many minorities then at all.

Along with numerous other advancements, he concluded, “That’s changed.”

-Nadia R. Watts

© 2002, The Graduate School, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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