University of Michigan to Rename Two Campus Buildings That Honor Racists
Clarence Cook Little who served for a brief time as president of the University of Michigan, was a proponent of sterilization for the "unfit." Professor Alexander Winchell wrote about "the inferiority of the Negro."
University of California, Berkeley Acquires Its First Archival Collection of a Black Photographer
The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley has acquired more than 5,000 negatives and photographic prints from 91-year-old photographer David Johnson. He was the first African American student of legendary photographer Ansel Adams.
Duke University Establishes an Online Archive of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has established the SNCC Digital Gateway to make the story of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee available for students and researchers.
Four Universities Receive National Park Service Grants for Preservation Projects
The National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior has announced a series of grants totaling more than Q$12 million to preserve key sites relating to African American history. Four universities are among the organizations receiving grants.
College of William and Mary Honors Its First Black Graduate
Edward Augustus Travis enrolled at the William and Mary Law School in 1951 and graduated three years later with bachelor of civil law degree. No other Black student graduated from the law school for the next 18 years.
Brown University Cancels the Display of a Home Where Rosa Parks Stayed in Detroit
Brown University had planned to host an exhibit that included the reconstruction of a small home where Rosa Parks had stayed in Detroit after leaving Alabama. But the display of the home has now been cancelled.
University of Oklahoma Names an Academic Department to Honor Clara Luper
The University of Oklahoma has announced that it is recognizing educator and civil rights leader Clara Luper by naming the department of African and African American studies in her honor. Known as the "Mother of the Oklahoma Civil Rights Movement," she taught high school history for 41 years.
The Andrew Brimmer Collection at Harvard Is Now Available for Scholarly Research
Andrew F. Brimmer was a respected economist who was the first African American to serve as a governor of the Federal Reserve System. His massive archival collection of papers is now available for scholarly research at the library of Harvard Business School.
Rhodes College Students Set the Record Straight on Nathan Bedford Forrest
Students in a history class at Rhodes College in Memphis spent the fall semester researching the slave trade that occurred in the city prior to the Civil War. As a result of this research, a new historically marker will be erected where Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest sold slaves.
University of Mississippi Unveils Six New Historical Markers on Campus
Some of the markers pay tribute to enslaved laborers who took part in the construction of several buildings on the campus of the state's flagship university.
New Website Pays Tribute to Black Grandmothers
LaShawnDa Pittman, an assistant professor of American ethnic studies at the University of Washington, has established the website Real Black Grandmothers where she presents oral histories of African American grandmothers who play a vital role in the Black community.
Scholar Develops a Traveling Exhibit on the History of African Americans at Clemson University
Rhonnda Robinson Thomas, an associate professor of English at Clemson University in South Carolina, is creating a museum exhibit that will travel to 10 sites across South Carolina over the next two years.
MIT Debuts a New Website Documenting Its African American History
At present, the website offers more than 500 illustrations, photographs, and other archival material. An additional 2,500 items already collected by the MIT Black History Project will be included in the future.
Towson University Faculty Produce Film on Jim Crow-Era Baltimore
The film, produced and directed by three faculty members in the College of Education at Towson University, presents oral histories of seven Baltimore residents who recount growing up in the city before the civil rights era.
The University of Maryland’s Online Tour of Its African American History
The tour features 17 locations on campus that are significant to the history of African Americans at the university. It includes landmarks that celebrate the contributions of African-Americans to the campus and community.
University of South Carolina Honors Its First Black Faculty Member
In 1873, during the Reconstruction period when Blacks held political power in South Carolina, Richard T. Greener joined the faculty at the University of South Carolina. Four years later, all Black faculty and students were purged from the university.
MIT Is the Latest University to Explore Its Ties to Slavery
Slavery was outlawed in Massachusetts in the late 1780s. However, researchers discovered that MIT's first president - William Barton Rogers - owned slaves while he lived in Virginia.
University of Tennessee Students Creating Digital Archive of Records of Black Civil War Troops
More than 180,000 Black troops served in the Union Army during the Civil War and 1,100 were members of the 1st U.S. Colored Troops (Heavy Artillery) that was formed in Knoxville in 1864. More than three fourths of the Black troops in Knoxville were former slaves.
Harvard University Acquires the Papers of Angela Davis
Professor Davis, who taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz until 2008, has been a political activist for most of her life, advocating for the rights of African Americans, women, and prison inmates.
Princeton University’s Plan to Deal With the Legacy of Woodrow Wilson
At Princeton, Woodrow Wilson had refused to consider the admission of Black students. As President of the United States, he racially segregated the federal government workforce and appointed White supremacists to his cabinet.
University of Virginia to Form a Commission to Examine Its Role in Racial Segregation
In 2013, the University of Virginia formed a commission that investigated the university’s historical relationship with slavery. Now the university has announced the formation of the President's Commission on the University in the Age of Segregation.
New Historical Marker Honors First Black Student to Apply to the University of Southern...
Clyde Kennard applied for admission to what was then Mississippi Southern College in 1955 and was denied. In 1959, he applied again and was rejected. For challenging the rules of Jim Crow, he was framed and sentenced to seven years in state prison.
Study by Ohio State University Economists Shows Black Politicians Matter
A new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by Trevon Logan, a professor of economics at Ohio State University, finds that when Blacks hold political power their economic status rises. But when they lose political power, their economic fortunes dwindle.
John Jay College of Criminal Justice Debuts an Online Archive on Slavery in New...
The new online archive includes more than 35,000 records. The index includes census records, slave trade transactions, cemetery records, birth certifications, manumissions, ship inventories, newspaper accounts, private narratives, legal documents and many other sources.
The University of Pennsylvania to Investigate Its Early Ties to Slavery
University founder, Benjamin Franklin was a slave owner early in his life but then became an abolitionist. About one half of the university's original trustees were slave owners. A working group at the university will now dig deeper into this history and offer recommendations for any next steps.
New Historical Markers at Clemson University Relate the Good and the Bad
Clemson University in South Carolina has installed new signs at 11 historic buildings on campus explaining the historical significance of the buildings and also providing information on the people for who the buildings are named.
University of Georgia Launches New Fundraising Initiative Aimed at Black Alumni
On January 9, 1961, Hamilton E. Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault became the first African-American students to register for classes at the University of Georgia. Now the 1961 Club, commemorating that event, has been established to raise funds from the more than 14,000 Black alumni of the university.
Roanoke College Students Create Digital Archive Documenting the Area’s Civil Rights Era
Last semester students in an introduction to public history class at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, created a digital archive of newspaper and other clippings collected during the civil rights era by the Hill Street Baptist Church in Roanoke.
Michigan State University to Develop New Slave Trade Database
The project - Enslaved: The People of the Historic Slave Trade - was made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The new online hub will link archival collections on the slave trade from several major universities.
A New Documentary Film Tells the History of Delaware State University
The film tells the story of the educational institution that started in 1891 with 12 students meeting in an old plantation to the vibrant global university it is today. The project was proposed three years ago by Marilyn Whittingham, executive director of Delaware Humanities.
Alumnus Anthony Foxx Will Chair Davidson College’s Commission on Race and Slavery
The Davidson College Commission on Race and Slavery is charged with investigating how the college's own history is intertwined with the institution of slavery, the lives and work of enslaved persons, and conceptions of race that emerged from this history.
University of South Carolina Honors Slaves Who Contributed to Its Early History
The University of South Carolina has unveiled two historical plaques honoring enslaved men and women who worked on the campus of what was known then as South Carolina College in the years preceding the Civil War.
University of Chicago Honors a Pioneering African American Alumna
The University of Chicago recently unveiled a bust of Georgiana Rose Simpson that sits on a pedestal in the Reynolds Club, the student center on campus. Dr. Simpson is widely considered as the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D.
Colby College President’s House Named to Honor a Former Slave
Samuel Osbourne, born into slavery in Virginia in 1833, came to Maine after the Civil War and served as a janitor at the college for 37 years. His daughter was the first African American woman to graduate from Colby College.
Oregon State to Rename Buildings So as Not to Honor Those Who Supported Slavery
Edward Ray, president of Oregon State University in Corvallis, has announced that the university will change the names of three buildings on campus because the people for whom the buildings have been named had expressed support for the institution of slavery.
Princeton University Explores its Past Ties to the Institution of Slavery
Following the lead of other peer institutions, Princeton University has debuted a new website documenting research on the university's historical ties to the slavery. The first nine presidents of the university owned slaves at one point in their lives.
