As the Michigan Wolverines take on the Michigan State Spartans this Saturday for the 117th time since their first game in 1898, a familiar voice will ring through the largest college football stadium in the country: that of James Earl Jones. While the famed actor and U-M alumnus passed away on Sept. 9, his legacy lives in iconic movies such as Star Wars and The Lion King, and at each home Wolverine game in the Big House. Professional, commanding, and precise, Jones’s narration of the opening video brings his pride in his alma mater to life. But looking back at his undergraduate experiences is a reminder of often-contradictory moments of exclusion and inclusion at universities like Michigan over the past 80 years.
Jones grew up in the small, rural community of Dublin in the western part of Michigan, about a two-hour drive north of Grand Rapids. He attended a one-room schoolhouse and, having struggled to overcome a stutter, graduated with 14 others in the 1949 class of Dickson Rural Agricultural High School. At the behest of his English teacher, the shy and quiet Jones tested for and earned a U-M Regents Alumni Scholarship. Jones had driven several hours north to Traverse City to sit for the examination where he was the only student of color in the room. Even as a teenager, Jones observed that despite living in a state with a large Indigenous population, Michigan lacked diversity among those invited to compete for its scholarships.
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Having gained admission, Jones arrived at the University of Michigan in the Fall of 1949 with plans to become a medical doctor, a dream his grandparents had for him. His limited high school training, however, had not prepared him academically for required pre-med classes. He struggled with his coursework, especially with one chemistry class and a mistaken enrollment in a senior-level composition class during his freshman year. Professors frequently belittled his work, with one using a spelling mistake to remark derisively, “Why are you trying to be something you’re not? You’re just a dumb son of a bitch, and you don’t belong at this university.”
Only a few years before the 1954 Brown v. Board Supreme Court case and a full 10 years before the Greensboro sit-ins, racist experiences in the late 1940s and early 1950s were not unique in the U.S. North or at the University of Michigan. But unlike southern universities with extreme racial segregation policies that did not allow Black and white students to attend school together, the University of Michigan was one of the first public universities to admit Black, Latino, Jewish, Catholic, and women students based on academic merit.
Before 1950, the number of Black students at U-M and other northern universities was small. Mostly hastened by the GI Bill, the percentage of Black students accepted at historically white colleges and universities only grew from less than 1% to 3% from 1943 to 1953. Michigan was no different: extraordinarily low numbers in comparison to total enrollment created an environment where Black students were discriminated against and faced social isolation. While not always in the form of overt violence, racist ideology and actions cloaked in the language of high academic standards were weapons that cut deep, especially for first-generation Black students like Jones.
Like the talented—but few—Black musicians and actors during the postwar era who were allowed opportunities in the film and music industries, Jones found belonging—and his voice—in the Theater Department. For the 1953 spring semester production, Jones played the lead character Bret Charles in Deep Are the Roots. Forty years later, his professor, Claribel Baird Halstead, reminisced about her decision to keep him in the limelight: “In those days audiences didn’t accept white people in Black roles and Black people in white roles…I deserve no credit except to have given him an opportunity to do it, to give him the confidence that he could do it.” This simple act of grace by Halstead, however, was one small step in overcoming the other racialized encounters Jones faced in his career. For Jones, it meant working with a cadre of professors who believed in him and from whom he could learn how to succeed in an academic environment.
Like many first-generation students today, Jones had little or no knowledge from family members about college experiences. He often felt alone: “I was a frog in a big pond. It was traumatic.” Determined to succeed no matter what, he created lifelong bonds with advisors and professors whose mentorship shaped his academic success and future career, despite the racism he endured on campus.
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Years later, Jones told Michigan students that he was fully aware of the “stunted opportunities that plague Black artists, but he never [was] willing to let them overwhelm him.” When asked about racism obstructing acting opportunities even in the 1990s, he responded: “Notice it, notice that it will affect somewhat your chances of getting work. And once you notice it, ignore it. Just plow on right ahead.”
Plowing ahead also meant giving back to the university with his time, while also opening discussions about race when asked. He continually visited Ann Arbor, supporting Professor Halstead and the Theater Department’s activities. And in 2015, at Coach Jim Harbaugh’s request, Jones stepped into a New York City studio to record the powerful copy for the football video—his last documented public narration. Onscreen, as Jones slowly dons a headset and begins to speak, the pride he exhibits for the University of Michigan is an amalgam of experiences: an extraordinary education; caring faculty mentors; a resolve to overcome bigotry and racism; a belief in the significance of the university—and, yes, championship football.
Lorena Chambers is a University of Michigan Postdoctoral Fellow working on the Inclusive History Project, an initiative focused on better understanding the full history of the university, including its record of inclusion and exclusion. For more information, please visit inclusivehistory.umich.edu.
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.
