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Civil RIghts Floyd B McKissick

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Olivia Powers
History 121: The Sixties
Professor David Sowell
November 30, 2013 Floyd B. McKissick Sr. was a veteran of World War II and a pioneer in the integration of higher education in North Carolina. In the summer of 1951, he was admitted to the University of North Carolina, becoming one of the first African American students to attend UNC Law School. While being a key participant in the integration of UNC law school, McKissick also took on leadership positions in Civil Rights activists groups including CORE and NAACP.1 With a strong religious foundation, he established a new type of community called Soul City. Soul City’s intended plan was to open up opportunity for minorities and the poor.2 He wanted to create a better life …show more content…

However, due to his race, the City Council denied him. This had not been the only problem of discrimination he had faced. McKissick remembers, “There were many problems of segregation in the city which we were regularly fighting every day, as it related to blacks in a southern city where segregation was prevalent.”9 McKissick continued to participate in protests such as the the Journey of Reconciliation, an early freedom ride challenging segregation in interstate transportation, and later in the desegregation of UNC Law School.10
In 1939, McKissick sought a degree at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.11 After a year in Atlanta, McKissick went to work on a tobacco farm in Connecticut. “I worked around, during the period of time… I was in and out of school depending upon the amount of money that it took to go school” McKissick stated. 12 In 1945, he joined the U.S. Army and during World War II he served in the European Theater as a sergeant.13 He came back from the war determined to end segregation in North Carolina. “They [the soldiers] had seen the whole world, and they were not going to live in a pattern of segregation as they had in the past” he stated.14
After coming out of the army, McKissick wrote a letter of application to the University of North Carolina. Unfortunately he never received a reply. He knew he had been

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