Nichols, M. Celeste
(born: 1951 - died: 1996)M. Celeste Nichols, born in Tulsa, OK, was an English professor at Bellarmine College [now Bellarmine University] in Louisville, KY. She was the Louisville coordinator for the National African American Read-In Chain. She also chaired the First National Toni Morrison Conference that was held at Bellarmine in 1995.
Nichols was the first African American to earn a doctorate in English from the University of Louisville, where she wrote her dissertation, The Rhetorical Structure of the Traditional Black Church. Nichols taught at Kentucky State University before leaving to teach at Bellarmine from 1993 until her death. The Dr. M. Celeste Nichols African American Collection, works by and about African American female writers, was established in the W. L. Lyons Brown Library at Bellarmine.
For more see High Upon a Hill, by W. H. Hall; and "Belknap; Bellarmine honors dynamic professor," Courier-Journal, 4/06/2001, News Neighborhoods Daily News Report section, p. 2B.