African American Golf Exhibit Opens on North Carolina A&T’s Campus
GREENSBORO, N.C.
African American golfers can find a wealth of historical information on display at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. The multimedia traveling exhibit Epochs of Courage: African Americans in Golf features historical photography and memorabilia dating from the 1800s into the new millennium. The exhibit is located in the university’s H.C. Taylor Art Gallery. It is the first time the exhibit has been on a historically Black campus.
“The astounding images tell a moving story describing the frustrations and achievements of African Americans in golf,” says guest curator and executive producer Ramona Merriwether.
Highlights of the exhibit include displays of the Greensboro Six, a group of men who were arrested in 1955 for trespassing while fighting for Blacks to have the right to play at golf courses; Paris Brown, the first woman to hold an executive office in the United Golfers Association (UGA) and the first woman to become a UGA tournament director, in 1954; Joseph Bartholomew, a Black man who built golf courses in the New Orleans area but was not allowed to play on the courses he built; and Lee Elder, the first Black to play on the U.S. Ryder Cup Team and the first Black to play in a Masters tournament.
The exhibit opened last month with a private reception and book signing by Dr. Calvin Sinnette, author of Forbidden Fairways: African Americans and the Game of Golf. The exhibit has drawn a number of celebrity visitors including Charles Sifford, the first African American member of the PGA Tour; senior PGA Tour member Jim Dent; and Robert “Hardrock” Robinson, a retired 87-year-old nationally renowned caddy from Pinehurst, N.C. The exhibit ends in June and is a project of the Young Players Golf Society.
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