Morehouse grad Mary Spivey took pride in breaking gender barriers

In Depression, she was among women let into all-male black college.

Mary Cecelia Robinson Spivey knew she belonged early on.

Only 15 years old when she arrived on her college campus for the first time in 1929, she found herself surrounded in class by a group of boys who didn’t have any answers for the professor. Finally, she raised her hand. “I said, ‘Oh, I got this,’” she recalled. “(The professor said,) ‘Men, you should be ashamed of yourselves. You let this lady come in here and just run rings around you.’ They couldn’t do anything but look at me and shake their heads.”

Hail Mary Cecelia Robinson Spivey — the last Morehouse Woman.

Without question, Morehouse College is the premier and only all-male black college in America, with a long and storied history of educating black men like Martin Luther King Jr. and Spike Lee.

But deep in that history is the oft-forgotten story of 33 women

who graduated from the Atlanta school.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Great Depression, while ravaging the country, was taking a particular toll on black institutions. In fact, several HBCUs didn’t make it out of the Depression.

Even prominent colleges like the private Morehouse took hits, particularly in enrollment as men had to choose between an education and feeding their families.

To counter that, in 1929 Morehouse began admitting women.

Women had always taken classes at Morehouse, and even today students from Clark Atlanta University and Spelman take classes at Morehouse that are not offered on their campuses.

But this was different. According to Morehouse historical documents, the college “allowed public school teachers to take extension classes in the evenings, with many going on to earn their degrees from Morehouse.”

While the program was mainly in the evenings, there were some students, like Spivey, who attended classes during the day.

“Everybody was so nice,” Spivey told Morehouse historians. “I had no problems.”

Only 15 when she arrived at Morehouse, Mary Cecelia Robinson graduated in 1933. Until she died in 2014 at the age of 99, she was Morehouse’s last living female graduate.

After graduating from Morehouse, Spivey got a master’s degree in education from Atlanta University and went on to work as an educator in elementary and special education classrooms.

“She was proud that she could say she graduated from Morehouse,” her daughter, Yvette Spivey Cooper, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2014. “That was one thing she would talk about, but she didn’t talk much about herself.”

In 2011, some 78 years after graduating, Spivey found herself on the commencement stage one last time. At some point, someone had stolen her diploma. Morehouse surprised her with a replacement at the school’s 2011 graduation ceremony.

The program quietly stopped admitting women in 1933, and at least one woman — Lois M. Burge — graduated in 1937.

Mary Cecelia Robinson Spivey was the last survivor of 33 female Morehouse College grads.

FAMILY PHOTO / CONTRIBUTED Mary Cecelia Robinson Spivey graduated from Morehouse College at 19 with the class of 1933. School records say Spivey, who died in 2014, was the last living member of a group of 33 women who enrolled in and graduated from Morehouse between 1929 and 1933.