Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong, along with a veteran of which branch of the armed services, attempted to integrate universities in the South?
Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong was a black Mississippi pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement. In September, 1965, she and Raylawni Branch, both local natives, integrated the University of Southern Mississippi at Hattiesburg. They thus completed the process of breaking the segregation barriers at Mississippi’s universities which had been begun by Clyde Kennard at (then) Mississippi Southern College (1956–61) and carried forward by James Meredith at the University of Mississippi (September, 1962) and Richard Holmes at Mississippi State University (July, 1965).
Frederick D. Patterson Frederick Douglass Patterson (October 10, 1901 – April 26, 1988), born in Washington D.C. and orphaned at the age of two. Patterson would later become president of what is now Tuskegee University (1935–1953) and founder of the United Negro College Fund (1944, "UNCF"). In 1987, President Ronald Reagan awarded Dr. Patterson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. In 1988, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.