Levin College of Law



Race History Timeline

1905 Buckman Act (Henry Holland Buckman, after which Buckman Drive and Hall, on the UF campus, are named) establishes Florida Agricultural College. Act specifies that UF “shall admit no person other than white male students.”

1909 University of Florida Law School founded as the Department of Law under the School of Language and Literature.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.

1920 S.D. McGill, an African American attorney from Jacksonville writes the UF College of Law expressing interest in an extension course. McGill is referred instead to Florida A&M University.

In response to attempts by African Americans to vote in Ocoee, Florida (near Orlando), whites burn down African American homes and churches, 30 African Americans are killed.

19th Amendment to the Constitution: women guaranteed the right to vote.

1923 KKK parade and rally of over 100 hooded Klansmen held in Gainesville, Florida. Participants carry a burning cross and a banner that reads, “First and Always Protect Womanhood."

Rosewood, Florida Massacre: Community of mainly African American families burned down (8 killed – 2 white and 6 African Americans) during a riot by 200 or so white people after a white woman claims to have been raped by an African American man. It was later found that the woman was beaten by a white man known to her. Many African Americans fled to Gainesville to escape the murderous mob of whites. No one was ever charged with the murders. In 1994 the state of Florida passed the Rosewood Bill and awarded $150,000 to nine African American survivors of the Massacre.

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Abraham Lincoln High School built to serve African American students in Gainesville.

1925 Florida legislature passes a law permitting women to attend UF College of Law.

1938 Zora Neale Hurston, writer and anthropologist, begins working for the Florida division of the Work Projects Administration (WPA). By this time Hurston has already published Jonah's Gourd Vine and Mules and Men.

1940 Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.

1945 World War II ends; returning GI’s fuel Florida’s modern boom period.

1946 Two African-Americans, Ulysses Kenisy and Eliott Robbins, apply to UF Law School, are denied and are told they could not be admitted as per Florida law forbidding African American admissions.

1946 - 1958 85 African American students apply to the University of Florida and all are denied admission.

1948 Florida State College for Women goes co-ed as Florida State University.

1949 Virgil Hawkins and William T. Lewis are denied admission to UF Law School. They appeal the Law School’s decision to the Florida Supreme Court and are again rejected (State ex rel. Hawkins, 47 So. 2d 608, 609 (Fla. 1950)). A nine year battle to gain admission begins.

1954 Brown v. Board of Education decided by the U.S. Supreme Court ordering public schools desegregated "with all deliberate speed" by 1956. School segregation is ruled unconstitutional. In a companion decision to Brown the University of Florida is ordered to admit Virgil Hawkins. Florida resists the ruling. Virgil Hawkins brings his case before the Florida Supreme Court three times and the United States Supreme Court twice. Segregation in Florida continues well into the early seventies.

1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, Montgomery, Alabama sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks: protest racial segregation of public transit system. Lasts for over a year and culminate in U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring racial segregation in buses in Alabama, unconstitutional.

1957 Florida Supreme Court upholds Virgil Hawkins denial of admission to the Law School. Justice Stephen O’Connell, who later served as the University’s president, concurs in the decision.

Eisenhower sends federal troops to escort African American students (referred to as the Little Rock Nine) into Little Rock Central High School to uphold desegregation order in Brown v Board of Education.

Civil Rights Act of 1957 establishes the Civil Rights Commission. Also includes provisions for African American voter rights.

1958 Hawkins withdraws his application to UF Law School in exchange for the desegregation of UF graduate and professional schools.

George Starke is the first African American to be admitted to the UF Law School. Starke receives protection from the police during his first few weeks at the law school. Starke withdraws from the law school after three semesters.

1959 The College of Law celebrates its 50th anniversary.

1962 W. George Allen first African American to receive a degree from the UF Law School (passes the bar in 1963).

First African American undergraduates (7 students, including Stephan Mickle) register at UF.

1963 March on Washington – Martin Luther King, Jr. makes his “I Have a Dream,” speech.

President John F. Kennedy is assassinated on November 22.

Klan members plant dynamite in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church killing four girls–Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair–and injuring 22 others.

1964 St Augustine Beach Race Riot: A group of whites attack 75 African Americans as they attempt to integrate the beach. Twelve people are injured.

Alachua County schools are desegregated. Joel Buchanan, Sandra Williams and Lavon Wright enter the then all-white Gainesville High School.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

1965 Center for African Studies established at UF.

Malcolm X is assassinated on February 21.

1966 Gainesville High School student-athlete Eddie McAshan becomes first African American high school quarterback to play for a white school in Florida. The Ku Klux Klan burns crosses on the coach’s lawn.

1967 Stephen C. O’Connell becomes the sixth President of the University of Florida.

Evelyn Moore (Mickle) first African American graduate of UF Nursing.

Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American to serve on the United States Supreme Court. Serves until 1991, dies two years later at age 84.

1968 Johnnie Brown is the first African American at UF to compete in an intercollegiate sport.

Black Student Union established at UF.

The assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4.

The assassination of presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy on June 6.

1969 Spencer Boyer, an African American, is hired as a visiting professor and first African American to teach at UF law school. After receiving threats, he and his family leave Gainesville abruptly.

Leonard George and Willie Jackson become the first African American football players signed at UF.

Lincoln High School is closed and its all-African American student body is transferred to other area high schools in order to integrate public schools in Gainesville.

African American Studies Program at UF begins

1970 Stephan Mickle second African American to graduate from UF Law School.

UF Black Student Union, established in 1968, is formally recognized as a student organization with Sam Taylor as the president.

Black Law Student Association (BLSA) established at UF.

Hazel Land becomes the first African American woman to enroll at the UF College of Law; first African American female graduate in 1973.

Dr. Henry Earl Cotman and Dr. Reuben Earl Brigetry become the first African-American graduates of the UF College of Medicine.

First African-American faculty and staff to be hired at UF: Thomas A. Wright (lecturer), Ronald C. Foreman (English), Alroy Chow (Medicine), Betty Ingram (English), Carleton G. Davis (Food Resource Economics), Elwyn Adams (Music), Byllye Avery (Nursing), and Roy Mitchell (Administrator).

African American Studies program established in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Dr. Ronald Foreman served as its first director.

1971 African-American students stage a sit-in at President O’Connell’s office to protest the administration’s policies in regards to minorities (e.g. the establishment of a Department of Minority Affairs and more recruitment of African-American students and faculty). Sixty-six students are suspended and arrested on O’Connell’s orders.

In protest of the arrests, the Black Student Union demands O’Connell grant amnesty to the suspended students and, when this does not take place, a massive withdrawal of students and faculty is urged. Over one hundred students began the process of withdrawal, and approximately one-third of African American students and several faculty members left the university. Among those students was Betty Stewart-Dowdell, who later re-enrolled and went on to earn a Ph.D. Today, she serves as director of the Student Enrichment Services Program. Mitchell Dasher, II – law student – withdrew from UF one month prior to June graduation. Roy Mitchell, UF’s first black administrator, joined them.

The Florida Congress investigated charges of racism at UF; AAUP censors and suspends membership of the University for violations of academic freedom. Non-returning students find it almost impossible to transfer with UF under suspension.

Neil Butler, an African American, elected mayor of Gainesville. First African American mayor since Josiah Walls served a short term during the Reconstruction period (summer of 1873).

1972 Stephan P. Mickle, UF graduate, becomes the first African-American to establish a law practice in Gainesville, Florida. He also joins the faculty of the College of Law as an Assistant Professor.

Institute of Black Culture (IBC) established and dedicated.

Kappa Alpha Psi establishes the first historically African American Greek-letter undergraduate fraternity chapter on UF campus.

1973 Hazel Land becomes the first African American female to graduate from UF College of Law.

Cynthia Mays is elected UF’s first African American Miss Homecoming.

An increase in the number of minorities at UF is made possible through the federally-funded Council on Legal Education Opportunity.

President O’Connell announces his retirement from the University of Florida.

1976 Clifford Alexander Jr. is confirmed as the first African-American Secretary of the U.S. Army.

1977 Virgil Hawkins admitted to Florida Bar and begins his law practice, 27 years after he first applied for admission to UF Law School. Upon graduation he stated his goal was to offer legal assistance to "people, just barely making a living who don't qualify for legal aid, but still can't afford to hire an attorney."

1980 The Black Honor Society, Beta Eta Sigma, founded on UF campus.

1981 Michael Donald lynched by Klansmen in Alabama. Donald was picked at random when a jury failed to convict an African American accused of killing a white policeman. His murderers were arrested and convicted and Donald’s family also sued the responsible Klan group in civil court, bankrupting it. With the support of Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin at the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), Beulah Mae Donald decided that she would use this case to try and destroy the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. Her civil suit against the United Klans of America took place in February 1987. The all-white jury found the Klan responsible for the lynching of Michael Donald and ordered it to pay 7 million dollars. This resulted in the Klan having to hand over all its assets including its national headquarters in Tuscaloosa.

1984 The Office of Graduate Minority Programs at UF is established by the Graduate School, designed to increase the number of underrepresented ethnic and racial minority students at UF.

Guion Bluford and Sally Ride, NASA astronauts, first African American and woman in space respectively.

1985 Virgil Hawkins is brought before the Florida Bar on ethics charges. Unable to afford a lawyer, he resigned from the Florida Bar.

1986 Pamela Bingham becomes the first African American female elected UF Student Government President.

1988 Virgil Hawkins dies at the age of 81. He is posthumously reinstated to the Florida Bar.

1989 The Virgil Hawkins Clinic at Levin College of Law named in memory of Virgil Darnell Hawkins, a crusader for civil rights.

1990 Law student Jerry Hamilton becomes the first African American president of the UF College of Law John Marshall Bar Association.

Leander Shaw becomes the first African American to serve as Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court.

Clarence Thomas is appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Second African American man to serve on the high court.

1991 BAM! (Black Awareness Movement) protest at UF: students staged a peaceful protest and takeover of Student Government over the allocation of Black History Month funds. Protest involves hundreds of African-American students at UF.

1992 Corrine Brown, Alcee Hastings, and Carrie Meek become the first African Americans since Josiah Walls (1870s) to represent Florida in U.S. Congress.

1994 The first “Umoja Graduation Celebration” is held, an event created by the UF BSU to honor UF’s graduating African American students.

Florida legislature awards compensation to the victims of the Rosewood, FL Massacre

Former Ku Klux Klansman Byron De La Beckwith convicted of the murder of Medgar Evers, civil rights activist, in 1963.

1995 A jury returns a verdict of “not guilty” in the O.J. Simpson trial for the murders of his ex-wife and her friend. More than half of the U.S. population tuned in to watch the verdict being returned, and reaction to the verdict—indeed the case—was sharply divided along racial lines.

1997 Henry Hayes is executed for the lynching of Michael Donald in 1981. It was the first time a white man had been executed for a crime against an African American since 1913.

1998 The Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations under the direction of Assistant Dean Rahim Reed is created at the College of Law of the University Florida.

James Byrd, an African American man, is chained to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas by three white men in a racially motivated crime.

1999 Professor Kenneth Nunn is appointed Associate Dean for Law Center Affairs at UF College of Law.

2000 Associate Dean Kenneth Nunn resigns deanship in protest over issues of the Law School’s commitment to faculty diversity. Interim Dean Jon Mills appoints Commission to investigate racism in the College of Law.

Largest graduating class of African-American law students in the history of University of Florida -- 57 out of 70 minority students are African-American.

U.S. presidential election crisis centers on the state of Florida. Reports of voting rights violations emerge, including attempts to curtail African American participation in several Florida counties. This led the NAACP to sue the state (NAACP v. Harris). Case is settled out of court. The settlement requires state agencies to take concrete steps to improve the voting process.

2001 UF faculty award first posthumous degree in 150 years to Virgil Hawkins with unanimous consent of Faculty, Senate, and Board of Regents.

Student leaders present UF President Charles Young with a list of recommendations to make UF more accepting of diversity. Among them was the hiring of more minority faculty and increasing minority enrollment.

UF “Rally Against Hate” takes place, in which over 300 students, faculty and staff participate.

2002 A jury in Birmingham, Alabama convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of 4 girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

2003 Katheryn Russell-Brown appointed Professor and Director, Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations.

African Americans at the University of Florida, by Betty Stewart-Dowdell and Kevin McCarthy is published.

In Virginia v. Black, the United States Supreme Court rules that burning a cross at a Klan rally is protected by the First Amendment, but also held that cross-burning can be a criminal offense if the intent is to intimidate, and not that of promoting “shared ideology.”

In Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, U.S. Supreme Court rules against race a determining factor in admissions to the University of Michigan.

2007 Parents v. Seattle US Supreme Court decision prohibits the use of race as the sole factor in integrating public schools and declines to recognize racial balancing as a compelling state interest.

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