Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Believed to be the school’s first Black male graduate, the late George Blair ’54 endured the challenges of segregation to become a minister, educator, and administrator. After hitchhiking from Pittsburgh to Indiana at 16, he paid his tuition by working in the library and performing with a band. He was commissioned as an Army officer at graduation and later earned a master’s degree and a doctorate. The son of a sharecropper, he started riding horses at three. Before retiring as deputy chancellor of the State University of New York, he founded both the Black World Championship Rodeo, which recognized the vast history of Black riders, and the New York City Riding Academy, which developed equestrian and life skills in inner-city youth.
Believed to be the school’s first Black male graduate, the late George Blair ’54 endured the challenges of segregation to become a minister, educator, and administrator. After hitchhiking from Pittsburgh to Indiana at 16, he paid his tuition by working in the library and performing with a band. He was commissioned as an Army officer at graduation and later earned a master’s degree and a doctorate. The son of a sharecropper, he started riding horses at three. Before retiring as deputy chancellor of the State University of New York, he founded both the Black World Championship Rodeo, which recognized the vast history of Black riders, and the New York City Riding Academy, which developed equestrian and life skills in inner-city youth.
