Vince Gray, Class of ’64.

During his campaign, presumptive Mayor-elect Vince Gray would often introduce himself as a native Washingtonian, mentioning that he attended Dunbar High School and George Washington University.

Flipping through the 1964 G.W. yearbook earlier today, we found his senior portrait. Vincent Condol Gray, said the listing, was a psychology major, vice-president of his fraternity pledge class, a member of the Newman Club (a Roman Catholic organization), and a participant in intramural sports.

While at the university, as he would recall, Gray was amongst the first African-American members of any fraternity. In this case, it was Tau Epsilon Phi, a Jewish fraternity chartered in 1932. He was joined by one other black member, Bob Wright. Most every other fraternity remained segregated until 1968, when the university prohibited discrimination by campus organizations. Of the 12 national fraternities on campus at the time, four closed their doors instead of integrating. Tau Epsilon Phi’s G.W. chapter closed in 1986.

On the campaign trail, Gray said that being at G.W. during a period of national social turmoil helped shape him, regularly citing his entry into the fraternity as one of the foundations of his consensus-seeking personality. That turmoil, though, wasn’t very well reflected in the yearbook — the majority of the students, almost all white, seemed rather unperturbed by the events taking place only blocks from the university. One picture of the May Day Minstrel, an annual talent show, featured two men in blackface.