Only One Graduated

Despite the 120 or better IQ of each of the 14 black students that entered Franklin in the Fall of 1963, only one of those students would ultimately graduate from Franklin. She is pictured here, along with her fellow French Club members. This lack of success reflects the challenges that remained. Black students were regarded as outsiders not readily welcomed (but required by federal law to be admitted). In the public sphere, desegregation was a very new reality, and most of the South was still adjusting to it, both in and out of the schools.