Word: gregson
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Education section, you described Gregson Davis as "the first Negro so honored," as chosen commencement orator at Harvard...
...looking young Negro strode briskly to the platform at Harvard's commencement, welcomed his audience with sweeping gestures and rolling Latin phrases. Turning to the ladies, he intoned: "O puellae Radcliffienses." Among the Radcliffe girls present, one smiled more happily than the rest at the words of Noel Gregson Davis, 19. She was his sister Cecile, 21. Together they had made a remarkable record. Greg had not only been chosen one of Harvard's two student commencement orators, the first Negro so honored, but was also graduating magna cum laude, while Cecile (cum laude) was elected Radcliffe class...
...youngsters barely made it to Cambridge. Children of a prosperous businessman in Antigua in The West Indies, they expected a British education. "All my ambition was to go to England," Gregson admits. It took persuasion by an uncle who had gone to Harvard to convince Gregson's father that Harvard was every bit as good as Oxford, and to get Gregson to apply for a scholarship. Cecile wanted to go to Jamaica's University College of The West Indies, but agreed to go to the first school that offered her a scholarship. Impressed by an essay...
Neither regrets the decision. Gregson, who plans to become a classics teacher, says of Harvard: "Here I think my mind was stretched quite a bit.'' He played on the Harvard cricket team, each year collected a prize for Latin. Cecile, who hopes to join The West Indies' diplomatic corps, did well in her government major, worked with the Girl Scouts...
...four years neither brother nor sister experienced any racial trouble. Says Gregson: "At Harvard there is no difference between people...