Contact: Sasha Steinberg
Photo by: Beth Wynn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Sunday, July 19, marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most important milestones in Mississippi State history when Dr. Richard E. Holmes became the first African American student to enroll at the university.
"I did not come here for fanfare or publicity," Holmes said in a letter to administrators and read to members of the press on July 19, 1965. "As a lifelong Mississippian, I am here to study and learn at a high-rated Mississippi university, which happens to be in my hometown.
"I seek no special favors and I hope that there will be no impediments from any source during my stay here at State," he said.
Sunday [July 19], his alma mater marks the anniversary with an open house in his honor. Free to all, the 2-4 p.m. gathering takes place in the Colvard Student Union's second-floor Old Main Lounge. Light refreshments will be served.
Tours of the adjacent Richard E. Holmes Cultural Diversity Center also will be given.
"We are very excited about this opportunity to again recognize Dr. Holmes and thank him for his contributions and unwavering support of Mississippi State University," said Cedric Gathings.
MSU's new interim assistant vice president for multicultural affairs, Gathings also serves as assistant dean of students and Holmes Center director. He said a larger program also is being planned for the fall.
After earning a liberal arts degree in 1969, Holmes, who was reared in Starkville, remained at MSU to complete a master's degree in microbiology. He later left the Magnolia State to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a physician, which he did in 1977 with graduation from medical school at Michigan State University.
In 1991, Mississippi State renamed its the longtime Office of Minority Affairs in his honor. That same year, he and wife Judie endowed a scholarship for MSU minority students
MSU again recognized Holmes in 2006 as its national alumnus of the year and, in 2011, bestowed on him an honorary doctor of science.
Following a medical career in Alabama, he had moved back to Mississippi and Judie's hometown of Columbus. Beginning in 2003, he served for a time as a staff physician at MSU's Longest Student Health Center.
Ten years ago at the 40th anniversary of his admission, Holmes recalled how the MSU family had treated him respectfully, both on the first day of summer classes and throughout his studies at the land-grant institution.
As the 2003 spring semester commencement speaker, he told a Humphrey Coliseum audience how he "always was moved by the fact that no student would close a door in my face as I entered a classroom or building. If students preceded me into a building or classroom, they would simply hold the door until I entered."
"Only a university dedicated to fairness and excellence could have carried out such an orderly transition and such a quiet burial of past practices," he emphasized.
Learn more about the Richard E. Holmes Cultural Diversity Center at hcdc.msstate.edu.
MSU, the Magnolia State's flagship research institution, is online at msstate.edu, meridian.msstate.edu, facebook.com/msstate, instagram.com/msstate and twitter.com/msstate, using hashtag #WeRingTrue.