In 1945, Frederick Scott used a nickel to make a phone call to the administration at Johns Hopkins University.
“I called and said, ‘Do you let Negroes into your school?” Scott recalled in a 2004 interview. “And they said, ‘I don’t know, we haven’t had anyone apply.'”
Scott did apply, and he got in. In February of 1945, he became the first African-American undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins.