First Black Admissions Counselor at the University of Mississippi, is Saluting History with Her Collection of Papers

Dottie “Quaye” Chapman Reed, the first Black admissions counselor at the University of Mississippi, has her collection of papers featured as part of the UM Libraries’ Department of Archives and Special Collections.

According to University of Mississippi News, the papers will display throughout early March as the university celebrates 60 years of integration.

“When I was in school, I kept a lot of clippings while at the university between 1970 and 1977. Whenever there was somebody Black in the Daily Mississippian, I kept the article–for example, if it was about the Black athletes, Blacks running for homecoming queen, or others such as my roommate, Dorothy Balfour, who was one of the women who started the first Black sorority,” Reed said.

Reed’s collection includes copies of a newspaper published by their BSU advisor at the time, Reverend Wayne Johnson, and a copy of The Spectator, a publication produced by Black journalism students. Reed’s collection also includes her trailblazer award, which was presented to her by students when she departed Ole Miss.

“I decided to give my papers and memoirs to the library primarily for the education of the current students, for the generations to come and for my grandchildren,” Reed said. “I have always felt the university needed to more intimately connected with the greater Black communities across the state, especially like the one that I came from only 18 miles away.

Reed served at Ole Miss from 1974 to 1977, and the student award was not the only honor she has received. She was was the first recipient of the Jeanette Jennings Trailblazer Award, a recognition named in honor of the university’s first Black faculty member. She is the author of Outstanding Black Women of Yalobusha County, which highlights North Mississippi’s historic community members.

Reed recently discussed her work at the Two Museums in Jackson and will join panelists at the Mississippi Historical Society‘s annual meeting on March 2.