Fiftieth Anniversary

East Carolina’s “golden” fiftieth anniversary celebration officially began on March 8, 1957, Founder’s Day, with “an impressive convocation … attended by more than a hundred delegates from educational institutions, learned societies, and professional associations.” The celebration climaxed the following year with a historical pageant, “East Carolina’s Spade: To Serve,” written by Emma L. Hooper, a faculty in the English Department. The pageant’s title alluded to the shovel that Governor Thomas Jarvis had used in the July 2, 1908 groundbreaking ceremony. Somehow, Hooper imagined the shovel to have been the spade that was often used in groundbreakings, and long misrepresented as the one that Jarvis had used. Not a historian, Hooper accepted the legendary spade as Jarvis’ shovel and thus advanced the legend to new celebratory heights. Newspaper accounts of the golden anniversary further broadcast the mistaken identity, even calling the spade “a treasured possession of the college.” Treasured perhaps, but only as an impostor artifact, historic in its repeated misuse.

Nevertheless, the pageant – more about the school’s ethic of service than a shovel or a spade – was a grand event, including a cast of approximately 600 and drawing on the efforts of faculty, staff, students, alumni, Board of Trustee members, and the community in celebrating the mid-century milestone in East Carolina’s history. Two performances were scheduled, on May 3 and 4, in Wright Auditorium. The pageant included four episodes: the groundbreaking for the school; its growth under President Robert Wright; its history during the Meadows’ era, 1934-1947; and, finally, its extraordinary growth under President John D. Messick. Musical accompaniment was provided by the college band, the orchestra, the college choir, the women’s chorus, and the chapel choir. Kenneth N. Cuthbert, a music faculty member, directed the golden anniversary program. The Daily Reflector added to the celebration with a special forty-eight page pictorial section honoring the college’s history of progress and service.

While there was much to celebrate, neither the pageant nor the accompanying events, including a two-day meeting of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, in Joyner Library, mentioned recent historical events that signaled major changes in the school for decades to come. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision overturning the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision sanctioning “separate but equal” facilities in public education signified that the Jim Crow charter of the fifty-year old school, segregated throughout its history, was now in violation of the constitution and so was in need of revision forthwith. The state legislature made this revision, at the state level, in 1956.

A February 5, 1958 concert by the Dave Brubeck Band in Wright Auditorium brought, to the surprise of many, an African-American entertainer to campus for the first time, seemingly in violation of the college’s charter, still unchanged by its Board of Trustees. The audience, mostly students, greatly enjoyed the performance and shortly after, some students asked if other African-American performers would be allowed. At its February 25 meeting the Board of Trustees decided to allow, with approval of the college’s president, African-American entertainers to come to campus. The beginnings of desegregation, then, had occurred in the Golden Anniversary year, despite the silence about it and the school’s Jim Crow past in the celebratory events. Arguably, one of the most significant dimensions of the school’s history, its racial past, present, and future, had been sidestepped by the golden celebration.

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Sources

• Bratton, Mary Jo. East Carolina University: The Formative Years, 1907-1982. Greenville, N.C.: East Carolina University Alumni Association, 1986.
• “ECC To Celebrate Fiftieth Anniversary With Pageant.” Rocky Mount Telegram. February 2, 1958. P. 3.
• Ferrell, Henry C., Jr. No Time for Ivy: East Carolina University, 1907-2007. Greenville, N.C.: East Carolina University, 2006.
• “Golden Anniversary Celebration at East Carolina Features Pageant on School History This Weekend.” Rocky Mount Telegram. April 27, 1958. P. 9.
• “Minutes of the Board of Trustees, February 25, 1958.” University Archives # 01-01-25February1958. P. 221. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/10269.
• The Daily Reflector. May 14, 1958.
• “Trustee Officials OK Negro Entertainment.” East Carolinian. March 6, 1958. Vol. 33, no. 17. P. 1. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/3853.

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