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One of Duke's First Black Students Remembers Integration

Duke University is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first five black students to attend the school.  Organizations are planning several events over the next nine months leading up to the anniversary this fall.  Nat White, Jr. is one of the three surviving members of the group of five.   He said on WUNC's "The State of Things" that he didn't know quite what to make of the experience as it happened.

"I think it was an unknown quantity except for the fact that there were people who worked there..and certainly was a segregated environment.  I don't think people knew exactly what to expect.  The entire four years I was at Duke, there was not a single other black student in any of my classes."

White and his four history-making classmates will be honored at an event this Friday at the Nasher Museum of Art.  The event is sold out.

Gurnal Scott joined North Carolina Public Radio in March 2012 after several stops in radio and television. After graduating from the College of Charleston in his South Carolina hometown, he began his career in radio there. He started as a sports reporter at News/Talk Radio WTMA and won five Sportscaster of the Year awards. In 1997, Gurnal moved on to television as general assignment reporter and weekend anchor for WCSC-TV in Charleston. He anchored the market's top-rated weekend newscasts until leaving Charleston for Memphis, TN in 2002. Gurnal worked at WPTY-TV for two years before returning to his roots in radio. He joined the staff of Memphis' NewsRadio 600 WREC in 2004 eventually rising to News Director. In 2006, Raleigh news radio station WPTF came calling and he became the station's chief correspondent. Gurnal’s reporting has been honored by the South Carolina Broadcasters Association, the North Carolina Associated Press, and the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas.
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