MUW unveils historical marker honoring The Fabulous Six

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – In 1966, six young ladies took a chance. They applied to enroll at the then-all-white Mississippi State College for Women: Barbara Turner Bankhead, Jacqueline Edwards, Mary Flowers, Diane Hardy, Laverne Green Leech, and Eula Houser Thompson.

“Every tear, every harsh word, everything was worth it,” Green Leech said. “Diane said I’m going to write to the W, and you know we laughed at her because we were going to Valley, Jackson State, Tennessee, and wherever else, and she said I am going to apply to the W well, Barbara and I said, if you do, we’ll do, and so we did.”

Laverne Green-Leech shared that her first day on campus was an overwhelming experience.

“The first time I came on this campus was in August of 1966,” Green Leech said. “I came through the gate over there and went into that Whitfield auditorium. It was the biggest auditorium I had ever seen, coming from a little school where your auditorium was in the school gym. Coming to this place was mind-boggling.”

Through the gates of the campus, Green-Leech and her fellow students faced many difficult times. She said she never imagined that the place where she experienced so much resistance would one day honor her and her peers for their bravery.

“It all started with three little girls wanting to get an education,” Green-Leech said. “We had no idea that 57 years later, they would be putting up a marker in our honor.”

The marker is placed in Pioneers Plaza, beside Carrier Chapel, and was the result of a collaborative effort between the W and the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science.

“It’s lovely to have such a large portion of the community show up and celebrate these women and recognize that their role in the community impacts us in positive ways today,” said MSMS history teacher Chuck Yarbrough.

In Their Footsteps exhibition is now being displayed in the Cochran Hall at MUW and tells the story of the first black students that attended the University.

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