Shortly after the historic U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education, et. al. decision, Murray State College welcomed Mary Ford Holland of Kuttawa, Ky., as a student in the summer of 1955, making her Murray's first African American student. Her enrollment occurred without incident. In the fall of 1955, four more African American students enrolled: Geneva Arnold, Bobby Brandon, Arlene Keyes, and Willie Earl Perry, graduates of Murray's segregated Frederick Douglass High School.