Under ordinary conditions he would have entered the State University at Chapel Hill; it had been a great headquarters in ante-bellum days for the prosperous families of the South.

But by the time that Page was ready to go to college the University had fallen upon evil days.

The forces which then ruled the state, acting in accordance with the new principles of racial equality, had opened the doors of this, one of the most aristocratic of Southern institutions, to Negroes.

The consequences may be easily imagined.

The newly enfranchised blacks showed no inclination for the groves of Academe, and not a single representative of the race applied for matriculation.