More than five decades ago Alva Earley was a 17-year-old living in Galesburg, Illinois smack dab in the middle of the civil rights movement. He was a high school senior, just days from graduation who attended a NAACP-sponsored picnic in a part of town off-limits to people of color and an event he says his school counselor’s warned him against.
“You will not graduate. You will not go to college,” says Earley, recalling the words of his school officials.
And those words would be ones they would stick to upon hearing about Earley’s attendance at the picnic. Earley was told that, although he had all of the necessary credits to do so, he would not be graduating. In fact, Galesburg High School held his diploma and banned him from his commencement ceremony.
But now, 55 years later, Earley, now age 73 received his diploma.
“It’s far beyond anything I’ve experienced to date,” says the now-retired attorney.
He says his high school’s decision to withhold his diploma has greatly affected him. Colleges and universities, including Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, who had once sent acceptance letters to Earley’s address withdrew such letters. Eventually, Knox College allowed Earley to enroll.
Not allowing the lack of a high school diploma to hold him too far down, Earley allowed ambition to drive him, graduating from the University of Illinois and later earning a law degree from Chicago Kent College of Law and doctor of divinity from Northwestern University. Talk about full circle!
Galesburg school superintendent Bart Arthur told NPR after a search of Earley’s transcript it was confirmed that he had enough credits to graduate and actually had great grades to boot, “He had A’s and B’s on his report card,” Arthur says. “I guess he did have a couple of C’s. One of them was in typewriting, and I can sure understand that.”
Earley says that far more than he appreciates receiving his diploma, he appreciates the hard work of present-day Galesburg school officials, “The important thing was not that I got the diploma. It was that they tried to get the diploma. They succeeded. They cared about me.”
Photo:NPR
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