North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University has renamed its Academic Classroom Building, one of its most high-profile buildings.
The building, with its angular green and white façade, will be known as Henry E. and Shirley T. Frye Hall, named after two of its most prominent alumni, 1953 graduates Justice Henry Frye and his wife, Shirley Frye.
Frye Hall is one of six buildings on campus designed by the architectural firm of the late Phil Freelon, a nationally recognized figure in the architecture community who led the design team for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
The Fryes — who met as undergraduates at A&T and married Aug. 25, 1956 — have donated their personal archives (professional documents and artifacts) to the F.D. Bluford Library Archives at A&T. The Justice Henry E. and Shirley T. Frye Archival Collection represents more than five decades of materials documenting the couple’s legacy in civil rights, social justice, and civic engagement.
Henry Frye earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from A&T before he joined the Air Force and served with distinction in the Korean War. In 1959, he became the first African American student to complete study and graduate from the University of North Carolina School of Law and, in 1963, the first African American assistant U.S. district attorney. He was also the first African American appointed to the N.C. Supreme Court, in 1983, and chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, in 1999, before retiring in 2001.
He established Greensboro National Bank to combat lending discrimination against Black business owners in the city. Triad Business Journal awarded him its inaugural Leader in Diversity Legacy Award in 2023.
Shirley Frye received the 2022 Triad Business Journal’s Outstanding Women in Business Special Achievement Award, the (Greensboro, North Carolina) News & Record Woman of the Year Award for 2017, and the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, one of North Carolina’s highest civilian honors.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in education and English as well as a master’s in special education and psychology in A&T. She returned to A&T as assistant vice chancellor for development and university relations and as special assistant to the chancellor before her career led her to serve as special assistant to the president and director of planned giving at neighboring Bennett College. She also worked for the state Department of Public Instruction and retired as vice president of community relations at WFMY News 2, where she won an Emmy.
A statue immortalizing the Fryes stands in Center City Park in downtown Greensboro.