Black Experience at Northwestern Collection

Founded in 1851 by the Methodist Church, Northwestern University was started to educate residents of the newly emerging northwest territory on the American frontier. The thought of educating and housing African American students at Northwestern was contested and often these students faced exclusion from on-campus and recreational activities sponsored by the university.

Black students have graduated from professional schools that would later become affiliated with Northwestern since the late nineteenth-century. However, in 1903, Lawyer Taylor became the first Black undergraduate to earn a degree (B.S. in Mathematics) from Northwestern University. In 1905, Naomi Wille (Pollard) Dobson became the first Black undergraduate alumna. A few years earlier, in 1902, Isabella Ellis, an African American student was denied housing by Chapin Hall; a dormitory run by the Women’s Educational Aid Association. Thus, Ellis was unable to secure housing nearby and was forced to discontinue her studies. In 1926, the Quibbler’s Club, an interracial student group, was established. Throughout the group’s early years, they hosted social gatherings and sponsored Negro History Week programs.

During the early to mid-1900s African Americans, whether as students or patrons of the university, continued to be excluded from housing, most student activities, and several parts of the Evanston community. Thus, African Americans at Northwestern built coalitions with other college students, local and national civic organizations to protest forms of discrimination and exclusion on-campus. In 1937, William Y. Bell, a student at Northwestern, was prohibited from using facilities owned and operated by the university, and with the help of the NAACP successfully sued Northwestern for $5,000 in damages. In the years following the second world war, post-war racial liberalism began to challenge the existing racial climate on campus. Students at Northwestern began protesting the rigid housing segregation rules resulting in dozens of Black students living off-campus. After years of protest the university finally created the International House in 1947, for college women this dormitory was the first university-sanctioned property that allowed African American occupation. In 1949, Asbury Hall was established for the same purpose for African American men on-campus.

Despite the advancements made with interracial housing and Black participation in certain student activities, Black students at Northwestern continued to be bombarded with instances of racial discrimination. Protests throughout the country, on various college campuses, prompted students at Northwestern to act. In late April of 1968, African American students presented a list of demands to the university’s administration. On May 3, 1968, more than 100 African American students occupied the Bursar’s office. This occupation resulted in the establishment of the Department of African American Studies and the creation of a Black Student Union-- today known as The Black House.