The first Black admissions counselor at the University of Mississippi, Dottie “Quaye” Chapman Reed, has a collection of documents on display in the Department of Archives and Special Collections of the UM Libraries.
The papers will be on exhibit throughout early March as the campus commemorates 60 years of integration, according to University of Mississippi News.
“When I was in school, I kept a lot of clippings while at the university between 1970 and 1977. Whenever there was somebody Black in the Daily Mississippian, I kept the article–for example, if it was about the Black athletes, Blacks running for homecoming queen, or others such as my roommate, Dorothy Balfour, who was one of the women who started the first Black sorority,” Reed said.
Both a copy of The Spectator, a publication created by Black journalism students, and a copy of a newspaper published by their BSU advisor at the time, Reverend Wayne Johnson, are included in Reed’s collection. Her pioneer award, which she received from students as she left Ole Miss, is also part of Reed’s collection.
“I decided to give my papers and memoirs to the library primarily for the education of the current students, for the generations to come and for my grandchildren,” Reed said. “I have always felt the university needed to more intimately connected with the greater Black communities across the state, especially like the one that I came from only 18 miles away.
Between 1974 until 1977, Reed worked at Ole Miss, and the student prize wasn’t her only distinction. The Jeanette Jennings Trailblazer Award, which was established in her honor as the university’s first Black faculty member, was given to her for the first time. She is the author of Exceptional Black Women of Yalobusha County, which features historical figures from North Mississippi.
Reed recently spoke about her work at the Two Museums in Jackson, and on March 2, she will participate in a panel discussion with other speakers.