Following the May 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education – which ruled that racial segregation in education was inherently unequal – many America schools began integrating that fall while others stubbornly resisted for years. Southeast fell into the former category, enrolling Roberta Slayton and Helen Carter, our university’s first African American students.
Slayton enrolled on the first day of the fall term in 1954 as an art major and Carter followed soon after, having already attended college for two years at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. Their attendance, however, was anything but easy as these African American students fended for themselves amid an all-white student population and faculty. With few support systems on campus and limited opportunities to engage with peers, students like Slayton and Carter looked to the “Black community of Cape Girardeau for emotional and social support” and lived together off campus on North Frederick Street, forging a life-long friendship.
In May 1956, Helen Carter – who did her student teaching in Southeast’s lab school – graduated from Southeast Missouri State College with an education degree, earning the distinction as the first person of color to do so. Reflecting on her place in history, she credited the local African American community explaining modestly “I'm Cape Girardeau's graduate.”
After Roberta Slayton graduated from Southeast, both women taught for years in the region, a challenge considering that in many schools, the students might be integrated, but not the teachers.
