Gwendolyn Smith overcame odds to be first black woman to attend UNC

In the summer of 1951, UNC taught its first black female student, Gwendolyn Smith. Despite remarkable credentials, she had to overcome numerous obstacles to earn a spot in a UNC classroom.

Smith’s academic career began in Kinston, North Carolina where she attended Adkin High School, said her daughter, Carla Smith Brown.

Smith, who died on Feb. 28, graduated as the valedictorian.

Smith went on to attend Palmer Memorial Institute, a boarding school near Greensboro. Her father considered her too young to go to college after her high school graduation, but after a year at Palmer, Smith went off to Atlanta to attend Spelman College. She graduated at the top of her class.

After earning her bachelor’s degree at 18 years old, Smith decided to stay in Atlanta to teach high school.

Brown said her mother didn’t enjoy it very much and found teaching to be an uncomfortable experience.

“I think it was a problem because the students looked at her as one of them because they were probably about the same age,” Brown said.

So Smith decided to move across the country to California, where she earned a master’s degree in history with a minor in Spanish from the University of California at Berkeley.

After moving back to North Carolina, she began teaching Spanish at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte.

Despite accomplishing so much, Smith wasn’t done yet. In 1951, she decided to start pursuing her doctorate.

Smith was accepted to UNC, but once she arrived on campus, the University revoked her acceptance because of her race.

“She was told she couldn’t attend the school because she was a Negro,” Brown said.

With the help of the NAACP, Smith filed a lawsuit against the university. Before the court case was resolved, UNC reversed its decision and allowed her to take classes.

University archivist Nicholas Graham said one of the reasons that Smith is sometimes overlooked is that she was not the first black female graduate of UNC — she just attended summer sessions.

Brown said that, while at UNC, Smith struggled with segregationist policies.

“Mama didn’t really talk about it a lot,” she said.

In 1953, during her time as a professor at Johnson C. Smith, she married John Charles Smith.

“They were married 45 years,” Brown said.

Smith was a woman of faith, heavily involved in her church, and her children say she was always optimistic and bright.

“She had a very witty, dry, corny sense of humor,” Dwight Smith, Smith’s son, said.

A life-long student, Smith kept her mind sharp following the end of her formal education.

“She would do word searches every day, she would read every day, even though the last couple of years she lived in a nursing home,” Brown said.

Smith was 91 when she died. Her intellect and tenacity helped pave the way for African-Americans seeking a college education at UNC.


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