In this oral history interview Laura Marie Leary Elliott discusses her experience being the first full-time African-American student to attend East Carolina University.
Laura Marie Leary was born in Vanceboro in Craven County, North Carolina in 1945. She graduated high school as valedictorian of her class at Pitt County Training School in Calico, NC. She enrolled at East Carolina in the fall of 1962 and attended as the only African-American student her first year. After graduation, she taught in Windsor, North Carolina. She found an auditing position with the U.S. Department of Justice after relocating to Washington, D.C. in 1968. She married her husband, Allen R. Elliott, in February 1971. The couple raised two children, Reginald Allen Elliott and Rachel Marie Elliott. Laura worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 1987 until her retirement in 2006. She died on May 6, 2013.
In this oral history interview Laura Marie Leary Elliott discusses her experience being the first full-time African-American student to attend East Carolina University.
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