Awards

• Alvin Blount Jr. received the Human Rights Medal from North Carolina A&T State University. Blount, a graduate of the university, went on to the Howard University School of Medicine. In 1962 he successfully sued Moses H. Cone Hospital in Greensboro because it did not permit black physicians to perform operations in the facility.

Blount, now 85 years old, no longer performs surgery. However, he still practices medicine at a healthcare center in Guilford.

• Frank S. Franklin, assistant to the provost at Queens College, a division of the City University of New York, was the recipient of the Greater New York Inter-Alumni Council’s Distinguished Alumni Award from the United Negro College Fund. Franklin received the award for his work as director of the college’s Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) program.

Franklin is a graduate of Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina. He holds a master’s degree in education from CUNY’s Baruch College.

• Bernard J. LaFayette Jr., distinguished scholar in residence and director of the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island, was the recipient of the Thurgood Marshall Award from Quinnipiac University School of Law. LaFayette was a leader in the 1960s sit-in movement in Nashville when he was a student at American Baptist Theological Seminary. He later participated in the Freedom Rides. He holds master’s and doctoral degrees in education from Harvard University.

Copyright © 2007. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.