Next Month the University of Georgia Will Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Its Racial Integration

This January the University of Georgia is planning a weeklong series of events to commemorate the racial integration of the university. In January 1961, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault were the first African Americans to enroll at the university. Two days later, on the first day of classes for the spring semester, a riot occurred outside Hunter-Gault’s dormitory. Both Holmes and Hunter-Gault weathered the storm and graduated in the spring of 1963.

Hamilton Holmes died in 1995. But in mid-January Hunter-Gault is returning to the Athens campus for several events including receptions, a lecture, a screening of a documentary, and several panel discussions.