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I in I i mki iu \lt; k iu*a\ s li’utiiiT series: \\ ilson CKiksFirst black student graduated ini 940(Editor’s note: This is the first s lory of a twopart series on Black History Mon th)By Diana YahezThe LumberjackPicture this scene:Late 1930s, a classroom at the Arizona State Tea cher College. A you ng black man walks through the door.,.The young man's name is Wilson C.Riles. He is the first African-American to attend ASTC, the institution which would later become NAU.... He arrives early to pick crut a seal before the white students comein. He does not want his feelings hurl...Riles graduated in 1940 with a bachelor'sdegree in education and a minor in business education andhistory.* ' i.r* • jtj jg)...He does not want to sit next to anyone. He'd rather have them sit next to him.End the scene andjump to 1994:P-iles, who now has a north campusbuilding named after him) recollects theincidentin his science class at NAU more than 50 years ago. Tdid this because I found it would be embarrassing to come in and find a seat nex t to someon e an d have th emget up and leave, he said. “If someone sat next to me, well that was fine.”Riles, now 76, had wanted to attend college since his early childhood in Elizabeth, La.“When 1 finished the seventh grade there was no high school for blacks to attend and they wouldn’t build one for just three or four students,” Riles said.‘The church and the community knew how much I wanted to go to high school so they bought me a suitand I went to New Orleans, he said.He lost his mother when he was 9 yearsold and his father when he was 12. From that point on, he livedwith famiiyfriends until he was takenin by his foster parents, Leon and Narvia Brvant- IP . • mRiles and his family ended up in -See RILES, Page 5Wilson C. Riles
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