Dr. Billy Curl, ACU alum and member of the Board of Trustees, will return to ACU to speak in chapel Feb. 20 as part of the university’s Black History Month events. 2012 marks ACU’s 50th year as an integrated campus.

Dr. Curl transferred into Abilene Christian College as a junior in 1962 becoming the first black student to register at the university. At the time, ACC only accepted black grad students and upperclassmen.

Curl currently lives in Los Angeles, Calif. where he is an elder and minister at Crenshaw Church of Christ. He served as a missionary in Ethiopia for six years and has started more than 30 congregations.

“I will be speaking about the journey I faced as the first African-American student, the challenges that I faced and how it affected my life,” Curl said.

A column in a 1945 issue of the Optimist sparked the 15-year debate concerning the integration of black students into the student body. The column signed “D.M.” argued for segregation within the university should black students be allowed to enroll.

“If Negros were put in classes with whites, the Negros could not receive the greatest amount of good, for they would require special classes . . . The Negro surely had rather associate with people of his own understanding,” D.M. said in the column.

Ten years later, a group of freshmen and sophomores wrote a letter to the editor challenging the university:

“Every race on the face of the earth is permitted to attend ACC except the Negro? Why?”

In February 1961, Carl Spain, a lectureship speaker and Bible professor, challenged the college to end the integration policy.

“A Methodist college will admit our own Negro preacher brethren and give them credit for their work. Baptist colleges in Texas will do as much. Our state universities will admit them. There is no law of our State or nation that will censor us. The Bible does not rule against it. Why are we afraid? The integrated schools of San Angelo, Texas, ninety miles from Abilene, are rated at the top in our nation. Are we moral cowards on this issue?” Spain said.

Just over a month after Spain’s lecture, ACC started a committee which recommended that the Board of Trustees begin to accept applicants who met the standards for admission which led Curl to ACC.

Complete integration did not occur until the fall of 1963 when black freshmen and sophomores were also allowed to enroll, according to Dr. John C. Stevens’ book, “No Ordinary University.” This was required in order to receive federal funding to pay for the construction of Foster Science Building.