Vaughn, Joseph Allen
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Vaughn, Joseph Allen
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Joseph Vaughn was the first African American student to attend Furman University in 1964 and was an avid civil rights advocate who led peaceful protests.
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Joseph Vaughn, whose great-grandfather was born into slavery, was an outstanding member of the Greenville community. Vaughn attended Sterling High School, South Carolina’s oldest public black high school, and a center of the Civil Rights movement with his classmates leading sit-ins that desegregated Greenville’s lunch counters, libraries, and public parks. He was president of the Greenville and Southeast NAACP student chapters and all his involvements allowed him to meet Civil Rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Roy Wilkins. He also led two peaceful protests in downtown Greenville.
He was hand selected by the Furman Board of Trustees to be the first African American student to attend the University. Although the university prefers to remember him for his outstanding leadership and love for everyone, they often paint too pretty of a picture of his time at Furman. In fact, within his first couple months on campus, he returned to his dorm to find a noose hanging from his door handle. However, he did not allow such threats to hault his historic efforts and made it his goal to show Furman students that all he wanted was the best education possible just like them.
He went on to graduate cum laude and became an English teacher, continuing his advocation for civil rights.
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February 26, 1946
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May 31, 1991
Position: 10844 (8 views)
