Celebrating Black Excellence

Honoring Boilermakers who have shaped our community 

Our university is committed to honoring the Black students, alumni, faculty and staff who have had pivotal roles in our history. We look up to the individuals who made memorable contributions and thank those who continue to do so today.  

Explore some of the outstanding achievements of Black Boilermakers and the giant leaps they have taken around the world. 

What can you imagine at Purdue?

The only barriers to what you can achieve should be the limits of your imagination.

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Purdue University professor in Indianapolis Katrenia Reed Hughes

A ‘forever professor’ for Purdue students in Indianapolis

Katrenia Reed Hughes feels a responsibility to help the students she teaches achieve long-term success.

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Stephen McKinley Henderson on his journey to the top

The Purdue alumnus says theater “makes us look ourselves squarely in the face.”

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Graduating from Purdue Polytechnic High School and Purdue University

For Kayla Owens, being a Boilermaker began before her freshman year of college.

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Purdue University
 Black Cultural Center 

A vibrant element of university life, the Purdue Black Cultural Center offers a wealth of programs and services for the entire campus community. The BCC brings together the diversity of the Purdue family by nurturing and presenting the rich heritage of the African American experience through art, history and cultural understanding.

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article | Education

Pearl at Purdue: Marion Blalock offered mentorship, motivation that helped minority engineering students succeed

In three decades leading Purdue’s Minority Engineering Program, Marion Blalock created recruitment, retention and graduation initiatives for underrepresented minority students that were so successful that the MEP became a model for universities across the nation.

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Harry ‘Snowy’ Clark and the 1902-03 Purdue track team

article | Education

After missing football team’s disastrous train ride, Harry ‘Snowy’ Clark became an athletic training pioneer at Purdue

Hired as Boilermakers’ first Black athletic trainer in 1900, Clark brought creativity, stability to emerging athletics programs Purdue’s Felix Haas Hall, originally known as Memorial Gymnasium, has 17 steps — one for each person who died in the 1903 train…
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Sharita Ware, Indiana’s 2022 choice for Teacher of the Year, poses in her classroom at East Tipp Middle School. (Purdue University photo/Rebecca McElhoe)

article | Education

Carrying the torch: Q&A with Sharita Ware, 2022 Indiana Teacher of the Year

Purdue graduate, engineer and teacher inspires students to show up and be heard  Sharita Ware’s seventh graders at East Tipp Middle School near Lafayette spend their class time designing prosthetic legs for Barbie dolls. Her eighth graders are building and…
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Business Opportunity Program

The day following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, a group of Krannert faculty members approached then-dean John S. Day to establish the Business Opportunity Program (BOP) to increase diversity and provide underrepresented students…
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article | Experience

The Divine Nine

The fraternities and sororities of the National Pan-Hellenic Council A’manii Brown, Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. (Epsilon Gamma Chapter) In discussions at Purdue, when we talk about diversity and inclusion and making sure marginalized communities own a sense of belonging…
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article | Experience

Building a Dream Team

Purdue Polytechnic High School football program centers around collaboration, camaraderie Only eight students showed up at the first callout for the Purdue Polytechnic High School  (PPHS) football team. The innovative school was still in its infancy, but head coach Dante…
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article | Education

An American legacy with Boilermaker roots

Seeds planted by civil rights trailblazers Winifred and Frieda Parker still growing today, tomorrow During the early stages of the American civil rights movement and well before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, sisters Winifred and Frieda Parker were…
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Courageous Parker sisters were ‘Boilermakers in every sense’

By naming residence halls after Frieda and Winifred Parker, Purdue celebrates their successful campaign to integrate student housing Every morning, just before 6, the telephone would ring in Walter and Winifred Parker White’s home.  In many cases, a call at…
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Professor embraces role guiding students’ holistic growth

2021 Murphy Award: Natasha Duncan Natasha Duncan values the role she plays in the holistic growth of students who enroll in the Honors College at Purdue University. “A student is not just a student, but a complex person on a…
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Shatoya Ward

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Purdue Polytechnic High Schools leader helps students write their story, innovate for the future

Shatoya Ward serves as Purdue Polytechnic High Schools’ chief of school operations, overseeing the schools’ outreach activities in Indianapolis and South Bend.

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article | Experience

Business success and a national voice

Herman Cain, successful business leader and national voice, was a testament to the Purdue spirit. Cain, who earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Morehouse College in 1967, earned his master’s degree in computer science from Purdue University in 1971…
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Keeanna Warren

article | Education

Building hope from the ground up

Keeanna Warren will always think of the building at 1405 Broad Ripple Ave. in Indianapolis as a tech startup.

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