Karen Lynn Parker (b. 1944) was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Raised in Winston-Salem, Parker remembers the moment she learned what segregation was: a Mickey Mouse event in 1949, held only for white children. Parker’s strong sense of justice was evident to her high school teachers, who recommended her as a candidate for higher education desegregation efforts. She attended the Women’s College in Greensboro for two years before transferring to UNC-Chapel Hill, during which time she wrote for the local Winston-Salem newspaper.
Parker experienced difficulties being a Black woman on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus. She was assigned no roommate for her first semester in the dorms. Parker remembers feeling additional pressure to do well academically. Parker, her white roommate Joanne Johnston-Francis, and other activist-students participated in sit-ins, marches, and local efforts of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), all of which culminated in the desegregation of Franklin Street in Parker’s senior year.
In 1965, Parker graduated with a BA in Journalism, as editor of the journalism school’s newspaper The Journalist, with the honor of the Dean’s List and as a member of the Order of the Valkyries. Parker went on to have a long career as a copy editor and contributor to newspapers across the nation, including the Los Angeles Times. She now lives in Greensboro.