He joined the United States Army and was stationed at Camp Gordon during World War I,[3] and he earned a PhD from Columbia University in 1924.

Then as Branscomb was searched, Carmichael casually picked up the paper as the two were cleared and left the guard house.

Branscomb viewed segregation as not only unjust but as a roadblock in Vanderbilt's – indeed the South's – path to national recognition and influence.

As a Southerner, he was aware of the resistance to change of the all-white Vanderbilt Board of Trustees, the alumni, and the white Nashville community.

With no such legal orders directed at private universities the Board did not act broadly, but in 1952 it accepted Branscomb's proposal that students of color at nearby Scarritt College be allowed to enroll in Vanderbilt classes in light of a prior student exchange agreement.

[9] The Board's agreement led to the admission of Vanderbilt's first African American student, an applicant to the Divinity School in 1953.

This commitment resulted in the admission of Blacks to the Vanderbilt Law School in 1954, which led to public uproar and calls for Branscomb's resignation.

[9] In 1960, James Lawson, a Congress of Racial Equality leader who was a Vanderbilt Divinity student, organized sit-ins in defiance of longstanding local segregation norms.

[12] Meanwhile, the editor of the local newspaper, James Geddes Stahlman, was publishing inflammatory anti-integration articles in the Nashville paper, including the questionable assertion that Lawson was advising university students to break the law.

Stahlman was an influential member of the Vanderbilt Board of Trust and on its executive committee, which voted to expel Lawson.

[8] Branscomb later re-examined his decision, regretting he did not consider the option of referring the matter to a committee to delay action for three months until Lawson's graduation.

[16][17] Buttressed by the resulting articles and a Faculty Senate resolution in favor that he had promoted, Branscomb's recommendation to integrate the remainder of the university programs was adopted at the Trustees' Meeting in May,1962, chaired by Board President H.S.

[16][17] At the time of Branscomb's retirement in 1963, all of Vanderbilt's schools, colleges, eating facilities, and dormitories were integrated.

Lawson expressed appreciation to the late Chancellor for taking the bold step of integrating Vanderbilt when almost all Southern universities were still segregated.

[1] Branscomb served on the board of directors of the Association of Rhodes Scholars, and he was the editor of the American Oxonian in the 1940s.

[2] His funeral was held in Benton Chapel on the Vanderbilt campus, where his remains are interred in a vault along with his wife's.