Raylawni Branch was born on 1941 and is a black Mississippi pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement, a professional nursing educator and US Air Force Reserve officer.
23 Facts About Raylawni Branch
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Raylawni Branch is best known for her leading role in the integration of the University of Southern Mississippi in 1965, which was peaceful as opposed to the violent riot triggered by white racism after the enrollment of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi in 1962.
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Raylawni Branch was raised in Hattiesburg, Prentiss, and Mount Carmel, Mississippi, and in Chicago, Illinois.
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Raylawni Branch went to schools that were predominantly white where the teacher never spoke to her.
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Raylawni Branch was again homeless in Chicago after the family lost its home over her father's legal problems.
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Back in Mississippi, Branch attended Hattiesburg's Royal Street High School and graduated in 1959.
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Raylawni Branch was encouraged by listening to Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
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Raylawni Branch found Kennard the kind of person who actually believed in the goodness of man.
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Raylawni Branch even had a good opinion of Dr McCain, who was a well known racist and segregationist.
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Raylawni Branch thought that he did not need any protection.
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Raylawni Branch participated in several activities, including the August 28,1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at which she was one of the 250,000 to hear Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
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Raylawni Branch integrated the Greyhound Lines and Trailways Transportation System bus stations in Hattiesburg, and was the first African American ever hired at the local Big Yank clothing factory.
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Raylawni Branch became the first African American ever offered a position as a switchboard operator at the local telephone company.
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In 1965, at age twenty-four, Raylawni 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.
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Raylawni Branch majored in Pre-Medicine and had a work-study job on campus in the biology department.
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Raylawni Branch was very kind, listened to them, was like father figure to them.
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Today, Raylawni 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.
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Raylawni Branch did earn $80 weekly from the student job and received minimal help from the Delta Ministry, from Vernon Dahmer, and similar sources.
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Raylawni Branch was well acquainted with civil rights martyr Vernon Dahmer, working with him in the NAACP and voter registration.
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Raylawni Branch received her bachelor's degree in Nursing from the University of Miami in 1969.
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Raylawni Branch returned to Hattiesburg in 1987, and is very glad that she did.
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Raylawni Branch received her master's degree in Community Health Nursing, with a minor in Education, in 1993.
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Raylawni Branch was Instructor of associate degree Nursing at Pearl River Community College and Nurse Coordinator, American Red Cross of South Central Mississippi.