Raylawni Branch
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Raylawni Branch (born 1941) is a black Mississippi pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement, a professional nursing educator and
US Air Force Reserve The Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC) is a major command (MAJCOM) of the United States Air Force, with its headquarters at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. It is the federal Air Reserve Component (ARC) of the U.S. Air Force, consisting of commis ...
officer. She is best known for her leading role in the integration of the
University of Southern Mississippi The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss or USM) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bac ...
(Hattiesburg) in 1965, which was peaceful as opposed to the violent riot triggered by white racism after the enrollment of
James Meredith James Howard Meredith (born June 25, 1933) is an American civil rights activist, writer, political adviser, and United States Air Force veteran who became, in 1962, the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated Univers ...
at the
University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi (Epithet, byname Ole Miss) is a Public university, public research university in University, near Oxford, Mississippi, United States, with a University of Mississippi Medical Center, medical center in Jackson, Miss ...
(Oxford) in 1962.


Early life

She was raised in Hattiesburg, Prentiss, and
Mount Carmel Mount Carmel (; ), also known in Arabic as Mount Mar Elias (; ), is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. The range is a UNESCO biosphere reserve. A number of towns are situat ...
, Mississippi, and in
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. When her family moved from Hattiesburg to Chicago, they were homeless two or three times, living in a park. She does not have good memories about living in the North. She went to schools that were predominantly 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 Hattiesburg is a city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, located primarily in Forrest County (where it is the county seat and most populous city) and extending west into Lamar County. The city population was 48,730 in 2020, making it the 5th m ...
’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 Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...
's speeches on the radio.


Civil rights activism

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 A migrant worker is a person who Human migration, migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have an intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work. Migrant workers ...
on farms in
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, 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 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
and a member of the Council of Federated Organizations, the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and later, the Student National Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emer ...
and the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African Americans, African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., ...
. She participated in several activities, including the August 28, 1963
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (commonly known as the March on Washington or the Great March on Washington) was held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic righ ...
at which she was one of the 250,000 to hear Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...
gave his "
I Have a Dream "I Have a Dream" is a Public speaking, public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In the speech, Kin ...
" speech. She integrated the
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and
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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 Medgar Wiley Evers (; July 2, 1925June 12, 1963) was an American civil rights activist and soldier who was the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi. Evers, a United States Army veteran who served in World War II, was engaged in efforts ...
. 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 Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Mississippi State, Mississippi, Un ...
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 Howard Meredith (born June 25, 1933) is an American civil rights activist, writer, political adviser, and United States Air Force veteran who became, in 1962, the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated Univers ...
. 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. Geoffrey 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 The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (also called the MSSC or Sov-Com) was a state agency in Mississippi active from 1956 to 1973 and tasked with fighting integration and controlling civil rights activism. It was overseen by the List of G ...
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 The Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which became the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, was a coalition of American antiwar activists formed in November 1966 to organize large demonstrations in o ...
, gathered for a demonstration at the Defense Department, called the "March on
The Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...
". She received her bachelor's degree in Nursing from the
University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private university, private research university in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. , the university enrolled 19,852 students in two colleges and ten schools across over ...
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 Lowry Air Force Base (Lowry Field from 1938–1948) is a former United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) training base during World War II and a United States Air Force (USAF) training base during the Cold War. From 1955-1958, it served as the i ...
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 The American National Red Cross is a Nonprofit organization, nonprofit Humanitarianism, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. Clara Barton founded ...
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 The Mississippi State Senate is the upper house of the Mississippi Legislature, the State legislature (United States), state legislature of the U.S. state of Mississippi. The Senate, along with the Lower house, lower Mississippi House of Represen ...
as a Republican.


References


External Links


Raylawni Branch CollectionSpecial Collections
at The University of Southern Mississippi (Historical Manuscripts) {{DEFAULTSORT:Branch, Raylawni 1941 births African-American female military personnel 20th-century African-American women politicians 20th-century African-American politicians 20th-century American women politicians American nurses American women nurses Education segregation in Mississippi Living people Mississippi Republicans Educators from Chicago People from Hattiesburg, Mississippi People from Jefferson Davis County, Mississippi School desegregation pioneers American civil rights activists American anti-racism activists University of Southern Mississippi alumni 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women African-American nurses African-American United States Air Force personnel