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Simkins College

SimkinsBorder

simkins_george_1980Named for George Simkins Jr., DDS

•A dentist in Greensboro as well as a civil rights activist who was president of the local NAACP chapter from 1959 to 1984

•He and several other black men were arrested in 1955 for trespassing after playing nine holes at the Gillespie Park Golf Course

•He and the other men appealed their convictions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against them by a 5 to 4 vote.

•Their sentences were eventually commuted by Governor Luther Hodges.

•Simkins also sued to desegregate Wesley Long Community and Moses Cone hospitals, the public libraries, and the municipal tennis and golf facilities.

He embodied spirit of diversity and the pursuit to achieve equality of access for all people which we hope to nurture in our students.