Mildred and Charles Nilon

Charles H. Nilon was the first Black faculty member hired in the English Department in the fall of 1956. In 1962, the university hired Mildred Nilon, who was CU’s first Black librarian. In the late 1960s, Charles Nilon launched and became chair of the university’s Black Studies Program, when, at the time, he estimated there were about 100 Black students on campus. (Much later, the Black Studies Program became part of the university’s Department of Ethnic Studies.) The Nilons were active on and off campus in the United Black Action Committee, the United Black Women of Boulder Valley, Housing for Everyone through Local Programs, the Town and Country YWCA Board, the Mental Health Board and Historic Boulder. And they helped to desegregate Boulder housing.

Source: College of Arts and Sciences Magazine