Raylawni Branch
Encyclopedia
Mrs. Raylawni Branchis a black Mississippi pioneer of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968),
professional nursing educator and US Air Force Reserve officer. She is best known for her leading role in the integration of the University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg) in 1965, which was peaceful as opposed to the violent riot occasioned by the enrollment of James Meredith
at the University of Mississippi
(Oxford) in 1962.
She was raised in Hattiesburg, Prentiss, and Mount Carmel, Mississippi, and in Chicago, Illinois. When her family moved from Hattiesburg to Chicago, they were homeless two or three times, living in a park. She doesn’t have good memories about living in the North. She went to schools that were predominately white where the teacher never spoke to her.
She was again homeless in Chicago after the family lost its home over her father’s legal problems. After her father died in the Cook County Jail in 1955, the family returned to Mississippi.
By the time she was graduated from the eighth grade, she had moved eleven times and been in eight schools. Back in Mississippi, Branch attended Hattiesburg’s Royal Street (then Rowan) High School and graduated in 1959. There she learned political activism, pride, and how to work the system from Marjorie Chambers, her history teacher. She was also encouraged by listening to Dr. Martin Luther King's speeches on the radio.
As a teenager, she worked in a restaurant named Fat's Kitchen in Hattiesburg’s Mobile Street black business district. There she met a regular customer, Clyde Kennard
, whose tragic attempt to integrate the University of Southern Mississippi had begun in 1956 and was to play out before Branch’s young eyes. In 1959 she saw Kennard on the morning of his appointment with arch-segregationist Dr. William David McCain
, president of (then) Mississippi Southern College, to discuss his enrollment application. She found Kennard the kind of person who actually believed in the goodness of man. He even had a good opinion of Dr. McCain, who was a well known racist and segregationist. He thought that he did not need any protection. Branch and others asked him to "Let someone go with you." But Kennard saw no need.
The meeting with McCain resulted in his arrest on false criminal charges and the beginning of a notorious miscarriage of justice which led to Kennard’s early death at 36 because of bungled cancer treatment in the Mississippi prison system. After a second false arrest, Branch attended the trial and was among those who tried to get Johnny Lee Roberts, the prosecution's suborned witness, to tell the truth or flee the state. Roberts refused, fearing that the KKK
would harm his family left in Mississippi.
After high school graduation she tried the North again as a migrant worker
on farms in Michigan
, living in little shacks with no utilities, then again returned to Mississippi.
From 1959 to 1965 she was a homemaker, married and had three children. When northern civil rights activists became active in Mississippi in the early 1960s with the Delta Ministry
and similar groups, she became very active, serving as secretary of the Forrest County NAACP and a member of the Council of Federated Organizations
, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
. She participated in several activities, including the August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
at which she was one of the 250,000 to hear Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have a Dream
speech. She integrated the Greyhound Lines
and Trailways Transportation System
bus stations in Hattiesburg,
and was the first African American ever hired at the local Big Yank clothing factory. She also became the first African American ever offered a position as a switchboard operator at the local telephone company.
In the NAACP she knew well people such as Aaron Henry
, Charles Evers
, and Medgar Evers
. The night Medgar Evers was assassinated, June 12, 1963, she went to Jackson and sat with the widow Myrlie Evers-Williams
.
In 1965, at age twenty-four, Branch was Secretary of the Forrest County, Mississippi NAACP when it recruited her to integrate the last major holdout of the Mississippi university system, the University of Southern Mississippi. The NAACP offered to pay her tuition but not living expenses – a factor which led to her decision to withdraw after the first year. On September 6, 1965, she (then Raylawni Young) and eighteen-year-old Hattiesburg native Elaine Armstrong became the first African American students at Mississippi Southern.
By the fall of 1965 both Ole Miss and Mississippi State University
had been integrated – the former violently, the latter peacefully. University of Southern Mississippi leaders, such as President William David McCain, had come to realize that the battle to maintain segregation was lost. Therefore, they made extensive confidential plans for the admission and attendance of Branch and Armstrong. A faculty guardian and tutor was secretly appointed for each. The same campus police department which had attempted to railroad Kennard to prison when he attempted to enroll, now had very strict orders to prevent or quickly stop any incident involving the two black students. Student athletic, fraternity, and political leaders were recruited to keep the calm and protect the university from such bad publicity Ole Miss had suffered from its reaction to James Meredith
.
As a result, Branch had only one minor negative experience in her year at the university.
She majored in Pre-Medicine and had a work-study job on campus in the biology department. The two women attended classes accompanied by six bodyguards, one of them a local policeman who had once violently attacked her in a civil rights confrontation. The university administration appointed Dr. Godfrey Fish, an oceanographer who taught biology as her guardian and tutor. Fish took a genuine interest in both women, gave them advice and jobs in work-study. He was very kind, listened to them, was like father figure to them.
Today, Branch says that she was treated just like everybody else, and that the poor grades she earned were because of her financial and family situation and that, because of the poor, substandard segregated high school education she had received, she spoke a substandard English.
Attending the university was very, very hard on her. At this time (September, 1965) she had three young children, aged three, five, and six, to care for. Her first husband had mental illness and wouldn't allow her to study at night. The NAACP paid my tuition, but no money to live on. She did earn $80 weekly from the student job and received minimal help from the Delta Ministry
, from Vernon Dahmer
, and similar sources.
She was well acquainted with civil rights martyr Vernon Dahmer
, working with him in the NAACP and voter registration.
From the early 1960s she often attended meetings at Dahmer's house where his wife Ellie would watch the road for danger from the KKK while they met. Dahmer had been active in defense of Kennard during his struggle with William David McCain
and the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission
over Kennard’s attempt to enter the University of Southern Mississippi and he was equally supportive of Branch’s effort. In January, 1966, on the evening before Dahmer’s home was firebombed by the KKK, he had sent to her boxes of groceries to help feed her family.
).
After separating from her husband in 1966, Branch left Mississippi for New York, where she had a scholarship to study nursing at St. John's Episcopal School of Nursing. While in the North for school she was very active in the Anti-Vietnam War movement. October 21, 1967, she was among the 35,000 anti-war protesters organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
, gathered for a demonstration at the Defense Department, called the "March on The Pentagon
".
She received her bachelor's degree in Nursing from the University of Miami
in 1969.
Having joined the Air Force reserves in 1975, she rose to lieutenant colonel
assigned to Keesler Air Force Base
, and stationed at Lowry Air Force Base
in Denver, Colorado. In the Air Force she has been on flying status, been a chief nurse, been the director of an operating room, and assistant director.
Branch returned to Hattiesburg in 1987, and is very glad that she did. The next year she enrolled in a Master's program at University of Southern Mississippi. She received her Master's Degree in Community Health Nursing, with a minor in Education, in 1993.
Branch was Instructor of Associate Degree Nursing at Pearl River Community College
and Nurse Coordinator, American Red Cross
of South Central Mississippi. In March, 2004 she retired from Instructor of Nursing at the University of Southern Mississippi.
In 2003 she ran for the Mississippi State Senate as a Republican.
James Meredith
James H. Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. In 1962, he was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Motivated by President...
at the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
(Oxford) in 1962.
She was again homeless in Chicago after the family lost its home over her father’s legal problems. After her father died in the Cook County Jail in 1955, the family returned to Mississippi.
By the time she was graduated from the eighth grade, she had moved eleven times and been in eight schools. Back in Mississippi, Branch attended Hattiesburg’s Royal Street (then Rowan) High School and graduated in 1959. There she learned political activism, pride, and how to work the system from Marjorie Chambers, her history teacher. She was also encouraged by listening to Dr. Martin Luther King's speeches on the radio.
As a teenager, she worked in a restaurant named Fat's Kitchen in Hattiesburg’s Mobile Street black business district. There she met a regular customer, Clyde Kennard
Clyde Kennard
Clyde Kennard was a Civil Rights pioneer and martyr, born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In the 1950s, he attempted several times to enroll at Mississippi Southern College to complete his undergraduate degree started at University of Chicago...
, whose tragic attempt to integrate the University of Southern Mississippi had begun in 1956 and was to play out before Branch’s young eyes. In 1959 she saw Kennard on the morning of his appointment with arch-segregationist Dr. William David McCain
William David McCain
William David McCain was a recognized leader of the Mississippi political establishment and a leader in its struggle in the 1950s and 1960s to maintain the segregated "southern way of life" against the forces of integration...
, president of (then) Mississippi Southern College, to discuss his enrollment application. She found Kennard the kind of person who actually believed in the goodness of man. He even had a good opinion of Dr. McCain, who was a well known racist and segregationist. He thought that he did not need any protection. Branch and others asked him to "Let someone go with you." But Kennard saw no need.
The meeting with McCain resulted in his arrest on false criminal charges and the beginning of a notorious miscarriage of justice which led to Kennard’s early death at 36 because of bungled cancer treatment in the Mississippi prison system. After a second false arrest, Branch attended the trial and was among those who tried to get Johnny Lee Roberts, the prosecution's suborned witness, to tell the truth or flee the state. Roberts refused, fearing that the KKK
After high school graduation she tried the North again as a migrant worker
Migrant worker
The term migrant worker has different official meanings and connotations in different parts of the world. The United Nations' definition is broad, including any people working outside of their home country...
on farms in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, living in little shacks with no utilities, then again returned to Mississippi.
From 1959 to 1965 she was a homemaker, married and had three children. When northern civil rights activists became active in Mississippi in the early 1960s with the Delta Ministry
Delta Ministry
The Delta Ministry played a crucial role in the African-American Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. It was begun in September, 1964, by the National Council of Churches as a civil rights project operating in Mississippi to support the southern black freedom struggle...
and similar groups, she became very active, serving as secretary of the Forrest County NAACP and a member of the Council of Federated Organizations
Council of Federated Organizations
The Council of Federated Organizations was formed in Mississippi in 1962.A coalition of the major Civil Rights Movement organizations operating in Mississippi, COFO was formed to coordinate and unite voter registration and other civil rights activities in the state and oversee the distribution of...
, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...
. She participated in several activities, including the August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was the largest political rally for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. It took place in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr...
I Have a Dream
"I Have a Dream" is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination...
speech. She integrated the Greyhound Lines
Greyhound Lines
Greyhound Lines, Inc., based in Dallas, Texas, is an intercity common carrier of passengers by bus serving over 3,700 destinations in the United States, Canada and Mexico, operating under the well-known logo of a leaping greyhound. It was founded in Hibbing, Minnesota, USA, in 1914 and...
and Trailways Transportation System
Trailways Transportation System
The Trailways Transportation System is an American group of 80 independent bus companies that have entered into a franchising agreement. The company is headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia.- History :...
bus stations in Hattiesburg,
In the NAACP she knew well people such as Aaron Henry
Aaron Henry
Aaron Henry was an American civil rights leader, politician, and head of the Mississippi branch of the NAACP. He was one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party which tried to seat their delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.-Early life:Henry was born in Dublin,...
, Charles Evers
Charles Evers
James Charles Evers is a prominent American civil rights advocate. The older brother of slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, Charles Evers is a leading civil rights spokesman within the Republican Party in his native Mississippi. In 1969 he became the first African American since the...
, and Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...
. The night Medgar Evers was assassinated, June 12, 1963, she went to Jackson and sat with the widow Myrlie Evers-Williams
Myrlie Evers-Williams
SynopsisEarly LifeLife with MedgarMedgar Evers MurderLife After Medgar'NAACP/ HonorsAccomplishmentsWhoopi Goldberg played her in Ghosts of Mississippi...
.
In 1965, at age twenty-four, Branch was Secretary of the Forrest County, Mississippi NAACP when it recruited her to integrate the last major holdout of the Mississippi university system, the University of Southern Mississippi. The NAACP offered to pay her tuition but not living expenses – a factor which led to her decision to withdraw after the first year. On September 6, 1965, she (then Raylawni Young) and eighteen-year-old Hattiesburg native Elaine Armstrong became the first African American students at Mississippi Southern.
By the fall of 1965 both Ole Miss and Mississippi State University
Mississippi State University
The Mississippi State University of Agriculture and Applied Science commonly known as Mississippi State University is a land-grant university located in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, United States, partially in the town of Starkville and partially in an unincorporated area...
had been integrated – the former violently, the latter peacefully. University of Southern Mississippi leaders, such as President William David McCain, had come to realize that the battle to maintain segregation was lost. Therefore, they made extensive confidential plans for the admission and attendance of Branch and Armstrong. A faculty guardian and tutor was secretly appointed for each. The same campus police department which had attempted to railroad Kennard to prison when he attempted to enroll, now had very strict orders to prevent or quickly stop any incident involving the two black students. Student athletic, fraternity, and political leaders were recruited to keep the calm and protect the university from such bad publicity Ole Miss had suffered from its reaction to James Meredith
James Meredith
James H. Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. In 1962, he was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Motivated by President...
.
As a result, Branch had only one minor negative experience in her year at the university.
She majored in Pre-Medicine and had a work-study job on campus in the biology department. The two women attended classes accompanied by six bodyguards, one of them a local policeman who had once violently attacked her in a civil rights confrontation. The university administration appointed Dr. Godfrey Fish, an oceanographer who taught biology as her guardian and tutor. Fish took a genuine interest in both women, gave them advice and jobs in work-study. He was very kind, listened to them, was like father figure to them.
Today, Branch says that she was treated just like everybody else, and that the poor grades she earned were because of her financial and family situation and that, because of the poor, substandard segregated high school education she had received, she spoke a substandard English.
Attending the university was very, very hard on her. At this time (September, 1965) she had three young children, aged three, five, and six, to care for. Her first husband had mental illness and wouldn't allow her to study at night. The NAACP paid my tuition, but no money to live on. She did earn $80 weekly from the student job and received minimal help from the Delta Ministry
Delta Ministry
The Delta Ministry played a crucial role in the African-American Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. It was begun in September, 1964, by the National Council of Churches as a civil rights project operating in Mississippi to support the southern black freedom struggle...
, from Vernon Dahmer
Vernon Dahmer
Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer, Sr. was an American civil rights leader and president of the Forrest County chapter of the NAACP in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.-Early life:...
, and similar sources.
She was well acquainted with civil rights martyr Vernon Dahmer
Vernon Dahmer
Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer, Sr. was an American civil rights leader and president of the Forrest County chapter of the NAACP in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.-Early life:...
, working with him in the NAACP and voter registration.
From the early 1960s she often attended meetings at Dahmer's house where his wife Ellie would watch the road for danger from the KKK while they met. Dahmer had been active in defense of Kennard during his struggle with William David McCain
William David McCain
William David McCain was a recognized leader of the Mississippi political establishment and a leader in its struggle in the 1950s and 1960s to maintain the segregated "southern way of life" against the forces of integration...
and the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission
Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission
The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was a state agency directed by the governor of Mississippi that existed from 1956 to 1977, also known as the Sov-Com...
over Kennard’s attempt to enter the University of Southern Mississippi and he was equally supportive of Branch’s effort. In January, 1966, on the evening before Dahmer’s home was firebombed by the KKK, he had sent to her boxes of groceries to help feed her family.
After separating from her husband in 1966, Branch left Mississippi for New York, where she had a scholarship to study nursing at St. John's Episcopal School of Nursing. While in the North for school she was very active in the Anti-Vietnam War movement. October 21, 1967, she was among the 35,000 anti-war protesters organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam was a relatively short-lived coalition of antiwar activists formed in 1967 to organize large demonstrations in opposition to the Vietnam War. The organization was informally known as "the Mobe"....
, gathered for a demonstration at the Defense Department, called the "March on The Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
".
University of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...
in 1969.
Having joined the Air Force reserves in 1975, she rose to lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
assigned to Keesler Air Force Base
Keesler Air Force Base
Keesler Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located in Biloxi, a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States. The base is named in honor of aviator 2d Lt Samuel Reeves Keesler, Jr., a Mississippi native killed in France in First World War.-Units:The base is home of...
, and stationed at Lowry Air Force Base
Lowry Air Force Base
Lowry Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base located in the cities of Aurora and Denver, Colorado. Its primary mission throughout its existence was Air Force technical training and was heavily involved with the training of United States Army Air Forces bomber crews during World...
in Denver, Colorado. In the Air Force she has been on flying status, been a chief nurse, been the director of an operating room, and assistant director.
Branch returned to Hattiesburg in 1987, and is very glad that she did. The next year she enrolled in a Master's program at University of Southern Mississippi. She received her Master's Degree in Community Health Nursing, with a minor in Education, in 1993.
Branch was Instructor of Associate Degree Nursing at Pearl River Community College
Pearl River Community College
Pearl River Community College is a public community college in Poplarville, Mississippi, USA. It was founded as Pearl River County Agricultural High School in 1909, then became the first junior college in Mississippi in 1921.-History:...
and Nurse Coordinator, American Red Cross
American Red Cross
The American Red Cross , also known as the American National Red Cross, is a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States. It is the designated U.S...
of South Central Mississippi. In March, 2004 she retired from Instructor of Nursing at the University of Southern Mississippi.
In 2003 she ran for the Mississippi State Senate as a Republican.