students had been killed in it.
=== Becoming civilian and coeducational and desegregated ===
By 1948, many black applicants had attempted to gain admittance to Clemson and desegregate the university, but segregated admissions policies had blocked them all. Admissions forms asked applicants to mark their race, and some black applicants responded with "Negro," while others wrote "American" or did not answer the question. In 1947, one black student had successfully gained admittance, even though he answered the question with "Negro,": the school blamed this on a clerical error and the registrar reported that "for various reasons...[he] did not pursue his admission." The next year, the university's board met to discuss how they would handle increasing pressure to desegregate, which was coming from NAACP lawsuits against other schools, increasing numbers of Clemson applications from black students and rising moral indignation from religious groups. The board decided to keep Clemson segregated, directing black applicants …
