Sesquicenteniall Stories: The Promise of UK #105

Doris Wilkinson was one of the first African Americans to integrate as a freshman at the University of Kentucky after the Supreme Court declared public school segregation illegal.  She received her B.A. in 1958 from the University of Kentucky. Her graduate degrees are from Case Western Reserve University, M.A., 1960, Ph.D., 1968.

Doris Wilkinson became the first full-time female African American faculty member at UK. 
As a UK professor in the department of sociology, Wilkinson also designed the African American Studies and Research Program, the Carter G. Woodson Lecture Series, and the Black Women’s Conference.  

In 1988, she received a grant from the Kentucky Humanities Council to study and plan a community wide exhibit on early African-American physicians from 1890-1950. That same year she was awarded the American Sociological Association's national DuBois-Johnson-Frazier award for her exemplary contributions to minority research and the field of race relations.

Doris Wilkinson has a long and significant record of professional and scholarly research and achievements.  In addition to many other achievements, Wilkinson won UK’s Great Teacher Award and was a visiting Ford Foundation Fellow at Harvard University in 1989-1990. She has published numerous articles and books.

Doris Wilkinson was named to the UK Hall of Distinguished Alumni on October 13, 1989 making her the first African-American elected to the Hall.