North Carolina Central University (NCCU) started a master’s program in history in 1939, partially in consequence to a lawsuit.
In 1938, Lloyd Gaines sued the all-white University of Missouri Law School for refusing him admission. The U.S. Supreme Court held that states which provide a school to white students had to provide in-state education to Black students as well – either through admitting students to the same school or creating a second school for Black students.
“It had a ripple effect across the south,” said Charles D. Johnson, Ph.D., chair of the history department. “That’s when the graduate program opened in North Carolina.”
North Carolina Central University (then called North Carolina College) gained a nursing school, law school and graduate program in history.
Owena Hunter Davis was the first NCCU student to earn a master’s degree in history, completing her two-year degree in 1942. At the time, her thesis committee was composed completely of faculty from UNC at Chapel Hill. Davis went on to become dean of women at John C. Smith University.
Since then, 397 people have earned master’s degrees in history at NCCU.
Among the towering figures who served as faculty in the early years of the NCCU graduate program in history were Helen Edmonds, the first African American woman to earn a doctorate from The Ohio State University; and John Hope Franklin, author of From Slavery to Freedom.
Doctorates
While NCCU does not offer a doctorate in history, the department has been quite successful at preparing its students to complete doctorates elsewhere.
That’s been noticed outside the university. In 2014, the American Historical Association issued its Equity Award to the NCCU history department for achieving excellence in preparing African American and minority students to obtain doctoral degrees.
Approximately 90 NCCU graduates have completed doctorates and another 17 are currently enrolled in doctoral programs.
“Across the country, you find Eagles everywhere,” Johnson said. “We are confident we lead the state.”
The first was Earlie E. Thorpe, an NCCU graduate who earn a doctorate from The Ohio State University in 1953. He later returned to NCCU and served on its faculty for 27 years.
During the era of Jim Crow and segregation, a number of NCCU graduates pursued doctorates at Midwest universities that were open to admitting Black students.
Many NCCU graduates who earned doctorates elsewhere went on to employment at universities around the United States. Some of those include Boston University, University of Missouri, University of Mississippi, University of Tennessee, North Carolina State University, Penn State University, UNC at Chapel Hill, Eastern Carolina University, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, University of South Carolina, University of Houston, Northeastern University and Rice University.
Returning to the Nest
There are also a number of graduates who have returned to NCCU as faculty. Among them is Arwin Smallwood, dean of the college of arts, social sciences and humanities (CASH).
Smallwood earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at NCCU and intended a career in the military, but that didn’t pan out. He was sitting on the step of the Helen Edmonds Classroom Building one day, trying to figure out what came next when the then-chair of the history department, Dr. Percy Murray came back from lunch and asked him what was wrong.
“We went to his office and I said I planned a military career,” Smallwood recalled. “What will I do next?”
“He said, ‘why don’t you come to graduate school for a masters in history’ and slid an application across the desk.”
Once enrolled in the program, both his advisor and other history faculty clearly expressed that graduates will continue into a doctoral program.
Likewise, Jim C. Harper II. Harper earned a bachelors and masters in history at NCCU and his Ph.D. from Howard University before returning to NCCU to teach. Today, he is an associate dean in the NCCU school of graduate studies.
Harper suggests four reasons why so many NCCU graduates have successfully completed doctorates.
First, the master’s program is modeled after a Ph.D. program in history. The volume of reading and writing is similar as is writing a thesis, an oral defense and a comprehensive foreign language exam.
Second, “The mentorship we received here was second to none,” Harper said. That included a faculty advisor, repeating tasks until you could perform them well and help with selecting a doctoral program that is a good fit.
Third, students attended local, state and national conferences where they presented their work and got to meet academics who wrote the books they read.
Fourth is a network of NCCU alumni who offer advice to those earning doctorates and sometimes recommendations for awards and positions.
