Harold A. Black entered the University of Georgia in 1962 and earned an economics degree in 1966. Terry College of Business identifies him as its first African American student and first African American graduate. He arrived a year after Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes became the university's first Black students in January 1961, the beginning of a desegregation that met riots and court orders. When Black enrolled, he was the only Black male student living in a residence hall. In a Terry College retrospective, Black recalled an undergraduate experience shaped by racist harassment and attacks on his dormitory room, as well as friendships with students who stood by him.
Black earned a doctorate at Ohio State University; his curriculum vitae dates that work from 1966 to 1971. He taught at institutions including Howard University, the University of Florida and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the University of Tennessee, he served as professor and head of the Department of Finance from 1987 to 1995 and took emeritus status in 2011.
His work also extended into public financial oversight. President Jimmy Carter appointed him to the first National Credit Union Administration Board, the body that regulates federal credit unions and insures their deposits. He chaired the Nashville branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. His university biography also records visiting scholarship at the Federal Reserve and the Congressional Budget Office, roles that connected his academic career with the institutions responsible for financial regulation and public economic analysis.
Decades after his undergraduate years, the university he had integrated by force of circumstance returned the recognition. In January 2023, the University of Georgia announced it would name a new residence hall for Harold A. Black, the student who had once been the only Black man in a residence hall on campus. The university's announcement describes him as its first African American male freshman.
