(AP)--Indiana University has honored its first black female student with a scholarship and a portrait in a permanent art exhibit in the Indiana Memorial Union.
The ceremony honoring Carrie Parker Taylor was Monday in Bloomington. The (Bloomington) Herald-Times reports (http://bit.ly/2ndCH5q) Taylor’s portrait now hangs in the “Women of Indiana University” exhibit along with other female trailblazers.
IU archives director Dina Kellams discovered Taylor’s story in 2015 when she found an 1898 newspaper that read “First negro girl in Indiana University.” Kellams contacted Taylor’s family members who say she was born in North Carolina in 1878. Her family moved to Indiana when she was an infant.
Taylor worked cooking and cleaning to pay for school. Exhausted she took a break from school after a year. She never returned, instead marrying and starting a family.
