With all the bad things we have to write about these days it’s nice to have something pleasant to comment on.
Sixty years ago Mary Price Walls was a high school student with a dream, she wanted to be a teacher. The dream seemed quite reachable, after all she was the salutatorian of her high school class and she had applied to a college with a good teaching program.
But Southwest Missouri State College not only didn’t admit her, they never even responded to her application.
Was it an oversight ? Was it a case of an application lost in the mail ?
No…. it was a matter of pigmentation. Mary Walls is black and in 1950 many colleges, including SMSC did not admit non white students. So Mary went on to a career as an elevator operator, a janitor and a number of other jobs.
She never really discussed the story with her family, but they had always heard whispers about it. Her son eventually looked in to the situation and found the records showing the injustice. When he contacted college officials they decided to do what they could to fix the problem.
This week 77 year old Mary Price Walls will get the first ever honorary degree from Missouri State University, as the college is now known.
Obviously this can’t make up for a lifetime lost, but at least today she, and we, have something to smile about.