Ammie McRae Jenkins, the first Black student to attend High Point University and an activist who dedicated much of her life to preserving land owned by Black families in the North Carolina Sandhills, died on October 25. She was 84.
“She was a genius,” Larry Dobbins, a member of the Sandhills Family Heritage Association, said of Jenkins, who founded the organization in 2001. Dobbins’ hand rested on a cane as he spoke about Jenkins, who was a few grades ahead of him at Anne Chesnutt High School, which served Black students during segregation.
After high school, Jenkins in 1962 became the first Black student admitted to High Point, a private university in Guilford County. In a 2023 short documentary, Jenkins recalled how people pelted her with spitballs and called her racial slurs as she walked through campus. But she kept going. “You’re not going to bother me by just calling me a name,” Jenkins said. “So I wasn’t afraid.”…