The Mercyhurst group at Peggy Fox’s wedding in 1975: (from left) Beverly Miller, Sharon Ford Watkins, Carol White Mohamed, Val McLaughlin, Karen Gallo Maragolio, Rochelle George Wooding, Sandy Sanchez, Kathy Duda Newman, Peggy Fox Lape and Wendy Hackinson Fitzmartin. TRAILBLAZERS: FIRST BLACK WOMEN AT HURST BONDED TO COPE WITH ISOLATION By Sue Corbran
A quick scan of Mercyhurst yearbooks of the 1950s and ‘60s quickly makes it clear: the student body was just about exclusively white. That began to change in the late ‘60s as more black women not only enrolled, but soon made their presence felt on campus. The frst cluster of black women arrived in 1966, and included Alicia King Redfern ’70, the late Beverly D. Miller ’70 and Rita Hazel Johnson ’71. They were soon followed by Carol Blue ‘71, Sharon Ford Watkins ’71, Rochelle George Wooding ‘71 and Carol White Mohamed ’73. Though they weren’t the only, or even the frst, black women at Mercyhurst, many of these women gravitated together, forging friendships that have endured to the present. Being black in a predominantly white environment was nothing new for several of these women. Carol (Mohamed), Alicia and Sharon had all attended mostly white high schools and weren’t fazed by being trailblazers at Mercyhurst. Rochelle’s high school, John F. Kennedy High School in Cleveland, was virtually all black, but she said she was actually excited by the prospect of studying with white students. “I thought I was pretty smart, and I wanted to see if I was as smart as white people,” she added with a laugh.
It was Dr. Barbara Chambers, her high school chemistry teacher and a 1960 Mercyhurst graduate, who encouraged Rochelle to check out Mercyhurst and arranged for her to visit the campus. The two remain close friends today. Peggy Fox Lape, on the other hand, was white and had virtually no experience with black classmates before she arrived at Mercyhurst and was assigned to room with Sharon. The two hit it of and roomed together for four years. Peggy became an integral part of the black women’s circle. “They were really my center,” she said. “I had white friends, but I developed so I had more black friends during the four years. “When we walked into the room we were sharing, I was a little excited. But my father walked in, put down my suitcases, turned around and walked out. Mom said he just wasn’t expecting … well, at that point we called them Negroes.” But by the time her dad returned for Father-Daughter Weekend the following spring, things had changed. “He ended up being dad for all of us. I told him, ‘See Dad, they’re just like me.’ He got to love them all, and all of them came to my wedding,” she said.
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