Justice Henry E. Frye (cont.)
Frye subsequently joined the U.S. Air Force, rising to the rank of captain and serving his country in Korea and Japan.
Despite his academic achievements and bravery in military service, Frye was denied the right to vote when he returned to North Carolina through a so-called "literacy test," one of many outrageous ways white authorities prevented African Americans from participating in government. Unbowed, he decided to become a lawyer and work to undo the systemic racism still rampant across North Carolina.
In 1959, he graduated from the University of North Carolina Law School, the first African American student to do so. A standout attorney from his first day of practice, Frye was named an assistant U.S. District Attorney in 1963, once again, the first African American to hold that position. Five years later, he charted yet another first, becoming the first African American in the 20th Center to be elected to the N.C. General Assembly, in which he served six terms. He followed that with a single term in the state Senate. But Henry Frye was still far from done.
In 1983, Gov. James B. Hunt appointed him to the North Carolina Supreme Court, making Frye the high court's first ever African American justice. He served with distinction for 16 years, elected to his first full term in 1984, and then re-elected in 1992, finally earning the distinction of being named chief justice by Gov. Hunt in 1999. He retired from the court in 2001.
Still active as an alumni and a fixture at major university events with his equally prominent wife, Shirley Frye, Justice Frye serves as a living example of an Aggie who endured some of the worst injustice of the segregated south and then worked to undo it as a public servant, blazing a trail for other African American attorneys, elected officials and judges.
U.S. Rep. Alma Adams
Alma Adams has served for more than 36 years as an elected official at the federal, state and local levels, including the past six years in the U.S. House of Representatives.
She is a champion of historically black colleges and universities, the founder of the HBCU Bi-Partisan Congressional Caucus, which has grown to nearly 100 members under her leadership and is an official House caucus.