Arthur Dark

Location: MUSE Winston‑Salem

Interview by Michael S. Williams
Videos by Jonathan Harmon

Carver Consolidated School, Class of 1964

Arthur Dark was serious about his education. As the salutatorian of the Carver Consolidated School class of 1964, Dark understood that education "was a way out ... to get a better life." The educators he and his fellow students had at Carver were a testament to that. "All of them had masters' degrees, at least" he said. "Most of them even had master's degrees from the top universities."

Dark, who attended N.C. State University his freshman year, was accustomed to the teaching style and rigorous studies from his K-12 experience and left Raleigh after one year for N.C. A&T State University. "I had never been in a classroom with a white teacher or anything like that," he said. "The [Black] teachers back then instilled in us that you wanted to do better than they did. Whereas, when I sat in a classroom with white folks, they didn't talk about ... that." As described in Leslie T. Fenwick’s Jim Crow’s Pink Slip, the "annihilation" of Black educators after Brown v. Board "left Black students without teachers who could or would teach self-esteem tied to an appropriate pride in racial history and cultural accomplishments; likewise, Black students now had few teachers who modeled the importance of educational attainment and its tie to broader Black uplift and empowerment."

Reflecting on his career as a systems engineer, Dark said the educators at Carver "made certain" students knew the importance of education and instilled in them the requirement to do their "very best."

[Image credits: The Yellow Jacket, Carver Consolidated School yearbook, 1962; North Carolina Room, Forsyth County Public Library]