Professors from the Duke Center for Documentary Studies are working on a film about Claudius (C.B.) Claiborne, the first Black student athlete at the school.
“When we are having a conversation, he is just blowing my mind with the things that he went through and the things that he did,” said documentary producer and co-director Javier Wallace. “This guy did all this and we don’t even know who he is at the university.”
The story of Claiborne at Duke is a story of activism, academics, and athleticism. Claiborne studied engineering at Duke and helped fight for the rights of Black students with the Afro-American Society. Claiborne recalled the “Allen Building Takeover”
“In 1969 we had been lobbying and petitioning for all kinds of things,” Claiborne said. “It came to a head in 1969 when we took over the Allen building, which is the administration building and occupied it for a day.
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When the Blue Devils men’s basketball team traveled west to battle the UCLA Bruins, he was inspired by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and other Bruins who wore afros. When he started growing his hair out, the head coach of Duke men’s basketball benched him.
“Interviewing [Claiborne] was great because he’s a great storyteller and the way that he articulates his past is easy to follow,” said documentary producer and co-director Funmi Ogunro. “[Claiborne] grew up in Danville Virginia on Holbrook street where most of the residents were black, educated people.”
Students who are working on the documentary got a chance to conduct deep research and to visit the Duke archives. Publications at that time referred to Claiborne as a “Negro of Danville.” It was important to do rigorous research on his hometown. They even filmed parts of the documentary at his childhood home.
“We were able to access yearbooks from his high school days,” Ogunro said. “I also went to some newspaper archives, like newspapers.com.”
Despite going to Duke, HBCUs played a major role in the development of Clairborne and the documentary. Wallace is an alum of Florida A&M University and Claiborne had coaches and mentors who graduated from HBCUs. His high school basketball coach introduced him to several HBCU basketball teams.
“He said “you’re going to have a chance to do something really important, something that no one else has ever done,”” Claiborne said. “I was so sure I was going to go to one of the HBCUs and on a basketball scholarship.”
