Dr. Katie Dorsett was the first Black woman to serve on the Greensboro City Council.
She became the first Black woman to serve on the North Carolina governor’s cabinet.
When she died earlier this week, just shy of her 88th birthday, she left a legacy of milestones and impact on Guilford County and this state. Governor Roy Cooper has ordered flags at state facilities to be flown at half-staff through Friday, to honor her legacy.
A UNC Greensboro alumna, Dorsett received her doctorate in 1975.
She was a faculty member at N.C. A&T from 1955 to 1987. She served two terms on the Greensboro City Council and then was elected to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. She served on numerous boards, such as the National Association of Counties Health’s Steering Committee.
As the News & Record reported in a front page article this week, Governor Jim Hunt personally chose her for the cabinet position.”Governor-elect Hunt said very early on to the transition staff that he wanted Dorsett on his Cabinet,” transition team spokeswoman Rachel Perry said in December 1992. “He knew she was a leader in Greensboro. He knew she was a strong and dedicated person who made things happen.”
She served in the Hunt administration as secretary of the Department of Administration.
Later, she served the state’s 28th Senate district from 2003 to 2010 in the North Carolina General Assembly. In her final term, she was the majority whip.
Her oral history interview is preserved in UNCG’s Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives. In the 1990 interview in UNCG’s Greensboro Voices/Greensboro Civil Rights Oral History Collection, she discussed her experiences in Greensboro since the 1950s and provided her observations on paternalism and civil rights in the community and work spaces.
Visit the Greensboro Civil Rights online archive to access the interview.
Story by Mike Harris, UNCG Magazine
