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THE BLACK PRESENCE AT HARVARD: AN OVERVIEW CALDWELL TITCOMB The earliest reference to a black at Harvard was the admission by the wife of the College's first head that a slave had lain on a student's bed in 1639. A s the seventeenth an d eighteenth centuries rolled on, the list of the leading slaveholding families in Massachusetts contained the names o f numerou s Harvar d men , includin g President s Increas e Mather (1685-1701) and Benjamin Wadsworth (1725-37). In the eighteenth centur y an d later , black s i n an d aroun d Bosto n wer e encouraged t o attend Harvard' s Commencement , which became fo r them the most festive day of the year; in 1773 they could have heard two seniors debating the legal pros and cons of enslaving Africans. For most of the nineteenth century, the well-to-do undergraduates each ha d a blac k servan t calle d a "scout " ( a ter m borrowe d fro m Oxford). Black s later serve d a s janitors, laboratory custodians , and waiters in Memorial Hall, where students ate from 187 4 to 1924. If th e lo w opinio n o f th e blac k rac e hel d b y Harvard' s mos t famous nineteenth-centur y scientist , Loui s Agassiz , was echoe d b y science deans Henry Eustis '38 ("little abov e beasts") and Nathanie l Shaler '62 ("unfit fo r a n independent plac e in a civilized state"), the faculty did have its outspoken Abolitionists, such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell '38. Divinit y School professo r Henry War e Jr . '1 2 was th e foundin g presiden t o f th e Cambridg e Anti-Slavery Society in 1834, and the first anti-slavery novel, The Slave (1836)—reprinted man y times under such titles as Archy Moore, The White Slave or, Memoirs of aFugitive—waswritten by Richard Hildreth '26. Lati n Professor Charle s Beck (1798-1861) put in a trap door on the second floor of his Cambridge residence (now Warren House, the 2 Black Presence at Harvard home of the Harvard English Department) to shelter fugitive slave s moving north on the Underground Railroad. Th e 1650 Charter under which Harvard still operates spoke of "the education of the English & Indian Yout h o f thi s Country, " an d a fe w Indian s wer e enrolle d between 1653 and 1715, though only one completed his degree (Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck in 1665). Bu t the Charter said nothing about the education of blacks, and none appeared on Harvard's rolls until the middle of the nineteenth century. The earliest baccalaureate degrees that American colleges awarded to black s wen t t o Alexande r Twiligh t (Middlebury , 1823) , Edwar d Jones (Amherst, 1826), John Russwurm (Bowdoin, 1826), and Edward Mitchell (Dartmouth, 1828). The first black student to enter Harvard College would have been Beverly G . Williams , in 1847 . H e was an outstandin g schola r i n a preparatory-school class that included President Edward Everett's own son. Everet t himself proclaimed the lad to be the best Latinist in his class, and Williams's virtues were even debated in the U.S. Congress. When grumbling s wer e voice d abou t acceptin g a blac k student , Everett stated that, "as he will be very well fitted, I know of no reason why he should not be admitted." Unfortunately , a few weeks before the academic year began, Williams died of tuberculosis, two months short of the age of 18. Consequently, the first blacks to begin studies at Harvard were not in th e Colleg e bu t th e Medica l School . I n 1850 , th e celebrate d Martin R. Delany and two other blacks were briefly enrolled. Ye t it was not until the 186 9 Commencement that Harvard would have its first blac k degree recipients : Edwi n C.J.T . Howard a t th e Medica l School, George L. Ruffin a t the Law School, and Robert T. Freeman at the Dental School (its first graduating class). Ruffi n an d Freeman were the first blacks in the country to receive their respective degrees. Ruffin becam e the first black judge in Massachusetts; and Freeman, though he died young, had a dental society named for him. The first blac k student i n the...

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