‘You’re creating Black history’

Shaunta Alvarez felt emotional remembering the moment she met Glenda Phillips Hightower — the first Black student to attend Elon College.

“Just being in the room with her was magical,” said Alvarez, Elon’s digital collections and systems librarian. “I think I cried that day because I looked at her — I remember reading through the transcript of the oral history she did — and I just couldn't, like, it's hard for me to fathom what it must have been like for a young Black woman to step onto a white campus and try a to do her absolute best.”

Despite how surreal the moment felt, Alvarez said she thanked Phillips Hightower, who attended Elon in the fall of 1963, for taking her yearbook photo. Without it, there wouldn’t be any individual photos of her from her time as a student at Elon in the archives. 

“That was the most meaningful thing I could think of to say,” Alvarez said.

While general enrollment at Elon continues to grow higher each year, the population of Black undergraduate students has remained between approximately 5% and 7% since 2000.

According to Elon’s Common Data Sets there were 363 Black undergraduate students enrolled at the university in the 2022-2023 academic year. 

Elon senior Jasper Myers is a classical studies major passionate about preserving history through archival work. She started a research project titled “Homecoming History” after being inspired by reading Richmond’s master's thesis over the summer.  

“I felt very deeply impacted by it,” Myers said. “I felt that my perception of the institution that I am currently enrolled in had been even further informed. And that made me go, ‘Well if I had this reaction, other students should have the opportunity to have access to this information as well.’”

Myers said the goal for this project is to make information from previous research reports — such as the “Black Lumen Project” and the “Elon History and Memory Report” — more accessible to current students. Alongside the project, she created an edited campus tour focusing specifically on Elon's Black history.  

“I was interested particularly in the history that is unseen and unspoken,” Myers said.

One of the ‘unseen and unspoken’ stops on Myers’ Black history tour was at the portrait of Andrew Morgan in the back of Belk Library. Morgan was one of the first Black staff members to work at Elon College. He worked in the maintenance department for over 30 years until he died in 1964, according to university archives.

Myers said a common misconception she hears is current students don’t think they are a part of history. That’s why she started a Homecoming History submission form — for students, alumni and community members to submit personal photos, videos and documents to the university’s archives. 

“I would gently try to push back on the notion that you aren't creating Black history," Myers said. "You're creating Black history wherever you are by living and breathing and being someone who is in a Black body. That is just the nature of what Black history is. You don't have to march on Washington or stage a bus protest to be Black history like you are just by the very nature of your being. That is so important to document and to be proud of.”

Firsts are still happening at Elon. Queen Assata Stephens '23 founded and became the first president of Melanated Melodies — the first predominantly Black a capella group in 2020. 

Senior Kara McKinley is the group’s music director. She said being a part of the group is what she will miss most about Elon. 

“I've created such great, Black community with the group,” McKinley said. “It's about community with the added bonus that we can all sing and create beautiful music together and share it with the world.”

Kenneth Brown, assistant director of first generation student support services, started his journey at the university well before stepping into this role. Before graduating from Elon in 2019, he served as student body president. 

One of his accomplishments in the role was bringing the idea to give Glenda Phillips Hightower an honorary doctorate degree to the university. 

“Black students have nationally, and at Elon, always been at the forefront of change, of pushing for change and navigating change,” Brown said. 

The original idea to give her an honorary degree came from Brown’s mom who asked him if Phillips Hightower ever graduated from Elon. Phillips Hightower left Elon following her first year after getting sick and finished her education at the University of Iowa in 1974. Brown still thought it would be interesting to honor her for contributing to Elon's history. On April 9, 2019, she received the honorary doctorate at spring convocation.  

“To talk to her and to get to be in that space with her and hear about what this meant to her, it's pretty surreal,” Brown said. “We can't change history, but we can understand history to learn how to make things right again.”

Alvarez, the digital collections and systems librarian, said she encourages students to share what they are doing at Elon now with the university archives so future students can understand what student life was like years before.