Leah Thorpe, Dean of the Preparatory, submitted a plan for integrating the Preparatory Department over the course of four years. This plan paralleled a similar model used by the Friends School, a private school nearby, but was not adopted at Peabody.
Reginald Stewart received this inquiry from Katherine J. Lane regarding the Preparatory’s policies on accepting African-American students. He then wrote to William Marbury saying, “This is obviously a test letter. I should like to have your opinion…
After a five and a half year long conversation and nine months after Brown v. Board of education, the Peabody Institute Board of Trustees made the decision to drop all discriminatory policies in all branches of the Institute.
Audrey Cyrus McCallum was the first African-American student to enroll at the Peabody Preparatory, and this is a program from what was likely her first recital at Peabody.
This page from the 1940-1941 Peabody Preparatory Daybook lists recipients of Carnegie Scholarships. Students from Douglass High School, a black high school before integration, are listed separately from the students enrolled at other Preparatory…
After several years of listing Douglass High School students separately from students enrolled at other Preparatory campuses, the title was changed to “Negro Schools.” This makes it clear that these students were separated in this categorization…
These letters between Maurice Diggs, an African-American music teacher, and Peabody Preparatory representative Mary Evans address the decision to offer the 1925-26 music class for African-American music teachers for no fee.
Although the Conservatory had accepted Paul Brent as the first African-American student to officially enroll at Peabody in 1949, the Preparatory still did not accept black students. In 1951, when they were considering neighborhoods for new branches,…