Interview with George Iggers at Philander Smith College, Little Rock, Arkansas 2005
“My wife and I came to Little Rock in September 1950 to teach at Philander Smith College. At that time, there was complete racial segregation in higher education. Black students couldn’t attend white universities and colleges. They had to attend either Philander Smith College or State College in Pine Bluff. The schools were all segregated, the education in the schools was poor, and we had many students who weren’t properly prepared for higher education. Then there were also some who were very good but couldn’t go anywhere and who later went on to have good careers, like one of our students, Joycelyn Elders, who later became U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. In many ways, we had to provide a kind of tutoring because many of the students simply weren’t properly prepared. As for the teaching staff, until 1948, it was all Black, with one exception, and many of them didn’t have very good education either. That changed after the college was accredited in 1948. Of course, they had to bring in people who had doctorates and so on. That’s when we came, too. We were just working on our dissertations.”