Karen Parker
1 media/image62_thumb.jpg 2021-09-02T07:54:20-07:00 Grant Glass 107afcf8873f422898a9c2e07c49ae3f625fc644 37354 1 Bieltz, Brandon. “A Role Model for Change” in “University News.” The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Feb. 19, 2015, https://www.unc.edu/posts/2015/02/19/role-model-change/. plain 2021-09-02T07:54:20-07:00 Grant Glass 107afcf8873f422898a9c2e07c49ae3f625fc644This page is referenced by:
-
1
media/image80.jpg
2021-08-26T12:14:21-07:00
1965 - Karen Lynn Parker (1943- ) Graduates
6
Karen Lynn Parker is the first Black woman to graduate from UNC. A junior transfer student from Women’s College, she majored in journalism and worked for several newspapers, including the Winston-Salem Journal. She kept a diary of her experiences as a student, with entries dating from November 5, 1963 to August 11, 1966.
plain
2021-09-02T07:54:38-07:00
11/05/1965
Karen Lynn Parker is the first Black woman to graduate from UNC. A junior transfer student from Women’s College, she majored in journalism and worked for several newspapers, including the Winston-Salem Journal. She kept a diary of her experiences as a student, with entries dating from November 5, 1963 to August 11, 1966. In 2012 she was inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame.
Though Parker was active in efforts to overturn Chapel Hill’s segregated accommodations law and was arrested twice for demonstrating in favor of integrated hotels and restaurants, her dormitory was not always a comfortable environment for her:
"As I was watching the Academy Awards on TV tonight, I noticed a group of girls jeering at Sammy Davis Jr. who was singing. It made me feel very low. The determination to fight and prove my worth to “show ‘em” really flowed up in me. I’m the only un[der]grad Negro girl on the campus. I’m not very well liked by white girls.
Later on Sidney Poitier won the best actor award. Many girls applauded. I got the greatest feeling to see a Negro come out on top for once. I was proud to say the least. The girls were quiet.
It’s hard trying to fight bitterness almost every day. It hurts hearing people make derogatory comments about you. It hurts to sense that many people assume you’re stupid and can’t do anything. It’s hard keeping your head up when you know the girls on your Hall would like it better if you didn't live there, and that they won’t take your phone calls or won’t take messages. "(April 13, 1964)
SOURCES
“Karen L. Parker Diary, Letter, and Clippings, 1963-1966” [finding aid]. Collection no. 05275-z, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/05275/.
Oral history interview with Karen Lynn Parker by Sarah McNulty Turner, Dec. 9, 2012. Interview OH002.044. UNCG Institutional Memory/African American Institutional Memory Project, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ui/id/59876.
