Some 700 high-school graduates, most of them drawn from the hard-core poverty areas of mid-Brooklyn, gathered at the imposing Brooklyn Masonic Temple (…) It was the opening day of classes for the City University’s new Medgar Evers College. (…) Young, aggressive, excited about the Evers mission and program, the international teaching staff was selected from among 7,000 applicants from all over the world. (…) What captured the imagination of the international academic community was the college’s advertised enthusiasm for innovation and determination to break the cycle of poverty and despair in the inner city.

Robert McG. Thomas, Jr. “Medgar Evers College Opens.” The New York Times, September 19, 1971