Blacks at Harvard: A Documentary History of African-American Experience At Harvard and Radcliffe

W. MONROE TROTTER

W. MONROE TROTTE R William Monroe Trotter was born on 7 April 187 2 in Ohio, but grew up in a Boston suburb. A t Harvard no t only was he the first blac k student ever elected t o Phi Beta Kappa , but h e also receive d thi s honor a s one of th e First Eight chosen in the spring of his junior year. Afte r bein g graduated magna cum laude in 1895 he took more courses and earned an A.M. degree in 1896. After a few years of negotiating real-estate mortgages, Monroe Trotter found hi s tru e callin g b y establishin g a weekl y blac k newspaper , th e Guardian, which made its debut o n 9 November 1901 , bearing the motto, "For every right, with all thy might." Trotte r took pride in the fact that his paper issue d fro m th e sam e floo r o f th e sam e buildin g whenc e Willia m Lloyd Garrison had published his celebrated abolitionist paper, the Liberator (1831-65). Trotter vehemently attacked Booker T. Washington, but also eventually broke with his one-time ally W.E.B. Du Bois. A n inveterate agitator an d activist, he spent a month in jail for disrupting a speech by Washington; got into a shouting match with President Woodrow Wilson in the White House; and was arrested, tried, and acquitted of leading a demonstration against the Boston screening of D. W. Griffith's movi e Birth of a Nation (1915). He continue d t o publis h th e Guardian until hi s deat h o n hi s 62n d birthday, an apparent suicide. Hi s sister Maude and brother-in-law Charles G. Steward (A.B . 1896) kept the paper going until 1957. 92 W. Monroe Trotter W. Monroe Trotter at Harvard STEPHEN R. FOX Given his father's expectations and his own talent, young Monroe was perforce a good student, leadin g both his grammar an d high school classes. Hi s twenty-on e whit e hig h schoo l classmate s electe d hi m president o f the senior class. H e gave some thought to becoming a minister, an d wa s urge d towar d suc h a cours e b y th e pasto r an d deacons of th e white First Baptis t Churc h of Hyd e Park, where he spent most of every Sunday. "Hi s father disliked so strong a religious tendency," one of his sisters later recalled, "fearing he might not like to go out in the world and fight th e world's problems." Further , the father argued , a black ministe r would en d u p servin g a segregate d congregation. S o th e so n lef t th e ministr y notio n behind . Afte r graduating from high school he worked as a shipping clerk in Boston for a year and then entered Harvard College in the fall of 1891 . . . . Monroe Trotte r ha d n o troubl e makin g th e transitio n fro m shipping cler k t o Harvar d undergraduate . Hi s lowes t mar k a s a freshman was a B in English. Tha t year had an interlude of sorrow, however, as his father died in February, at the age of fifty. A severe case o f pneumoni a durin g hi s recordershi p i n Washingto n ha d destroyed James Trotter's health, leading to tuberculosis and a slow decline. Hi s son was now the head of the family for his mother and two younger sisters . Mone y was no particula r problem—th e famil y owned considerable property in Boston, thanks mostly to the income from the recordership. Ove r the next three years Trotter won a total of $80 0 in Harvar d scholarships . H e supplemente d tha t wit h jobs during his vacations. I n th e summer of 1892 , for example , he sold desks from door to door in towns near his home (and remarked of this W. Monroe Trotter 93 experience, wit h a touc h o f condescension , tha t " I sell mor e amon g the laboring peopl e tha n amon g the better class . .. N o house is too poor for...