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Tech Integrates Peacefully

he major focus of ANAK during the years 1961 to 1963 was getting ready to integrate Tech.

Staying in the background, ANAK worked through the Tech YMCA, the predecessor of the Student Center. During the year prior to the admission of the first black freshmen, 1961, ANAK members held a series of very secret meetings at the now-demolished Downtown YMCA on Luckie Street. They were long, relaxed (suprisingly enough) dinner meetings of student leaders, the black freshmen and their families. The ANAK members were quite nervous about the potential for social disruption if the press found out about the meetings.

Four or five of these meetings were held. ANAK members talked about every conceivable Fall quarter scenario, the appropriate reactions to them, and, most importantly, what everyone could do to keep negative incidents from happening in the first place.

The first African- American students, Fall 1961: Ford Greene, Ralph A. Long, Jr., and Lawrence Michael Williams

Since there were only three freshmen, the members of ANAK arranged to keep a close eye on them pretty much the whole time during the first two weeks. Not even the freshmen knew they were being watched by the Society. (ANAK members suggested they not go through fraternity rush, at least their first year.) And everything went smooth as silk.

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