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Edward Mitchell of Martinique graduated from Dartmouth in 1828 to become the first Black alumnus in the Ivy League. He had come north to pursue a mariner's life. After a near-death experience, he embraced religious conversion, abandoned the sea, and settled in Philadelphia. By fortuitous circumstances, Mitchell accompanied Dartmouth President Francis Brown to Hanover and prepared for college. Initially refused admission, Dartmouth Trustees yielded to unified student protest in his favor. After graduation, Mitchell followed a northern-bound missionary path to Lower Canada, settling in Georgeville, QC, and leading a Baptist congregation until his death in 1872. Contemporaries judged Mitchell to be "the most profound theologian ever settled in Lower Canada."

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Samuel Ford McGill was the first person of African descent to graduate from a U.S. medical school. Born in 1815 in Baltimore, the son of formerly enslaved parents, he emigrated to Liberia in 1826. With assistance from the Maryland Colonization Society, the young McGill returned to the U.S. in 1836 to begin studies at Washington Medical College in Baltimore. However, student and faculty opposition forced his withdrawal, necessitating arrangements for private instruction in Vermont and medical lectures at Dartmouth Medical School. He graduated in 1839 and returned to Liberia to begin a noteworthy career as a physician, businessman, and politician. He served as Acting Governor when Liberia gained independence in 1847. The McGill family is identified with the Americo-Liberians, Black American colonists who dominated Liberian politics into the 20th century.

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In 1835, Thomas Paul Jr. and fellow students were ejected by a citizen mob from an abolitionist's academy in New Canaan, NH. He returned to New Hampshire two years later as Dartmouth's second Black student and found fellowship with like-minded students. Before graduating in 1841, he delivered an antislavery speech in Boston's State House. From the podium, he pronounced, "The great characteristic of American slavery is its hatred of the free colored man. His flesh is not bared to receive the lash, and his limbs are unfettered, yet he feels his immortal mind dragged to the dust by a weight far more torturing than fetters." Paul began his teaching career in Boston as headmaster of the African Free School.

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In 1843 while on winter break from Dartmouth, Augustus Washington learned to use the daguerreotype camera. A few years later, he captured John Brown's steely eyes and grim stare, a signature memento now preserved at the National Portrait Gallery. In these same years, a Hartford, CT newspaper published Washington's persuasive argument in favor of African colonization by free Blacks. "He who would not rather live anywhere on earth in freedom than in this country in social and political degradation has not attained half the dignity of his manhood." Seeking a better version of freedom, Washington and his family sailed for Liberia in 1853. He prospered as a farmer, politician, and photographer. His daguerreotypes of 19th-century Liberian citizens are preserved at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

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Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs of Philadelphia concluded a brilliant academic career as Dartmouth's 1852 commencement speaker. Gibbs studied at Princeton Theological Seminary before assuming his first pastorate at the Liberty Street Presbyterian Church in Troy, NY, a center of abolitionist thought and action. After the Civil War, he went South to serve in the uplift of the formerly enslaved. A leader in Republican political affairs, he was appointed as Florida's Secretary of State and Superintendent of Public Education. A life of achievement ended prematurely at age 52 under suspicious circumstances. A news editor wrote that Gibbs was "the best-informed colored man of the state. Negroes have lost one of their noblest representatives and our public school system one of its most intelligent advocates."

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The son of educated free parents of Baltimore, Edward Garrison Draper was educated in private abolitionist-leaning academies before entering Dartmouth with the Class of 1855. The sixth Black student admitted to the College, Draper maintained "a very respectable standing, socially, and in his class." He returned home to pursue legal training. Joseph J. Gilman (DC 1838) supervised his private lessons. At the bar examination, he was judged "qualified in all respects to be admitted to the Bar in Maryland if he was a free white citizen." Knowing beforehand the certainty of the outcome, Draper left as planned for Liberia to become its first college-educated Black lawyer. Unfortunately, he succumbed to illness after a year.

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George Rice of Newport, R.I., graduated from Dartmouth in 1869 as "one of the earliest pioneers opening New England colleges, highly respected for his genial manners and scholarship." Anticipating opportunities for educated Blacks in postbellum America, Rice applied to Columbia's medical school but found an unyielding racial bar. Opportunity beckoned in Scotland, and Rice began his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh. He trained with Joseph Lister, renowned as the "founder of modern surgery." Lister appointed him to head the house surgeon staff. Rice settled in England, married, and enjoyed a successful 50-year medical practice outside London. After death, a Black workman found and delivered Rice's papers to nearby Sutton Archives, thus preserving evidence of a rare Black professional in England's Victorian Age.

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Born enslaved in Mississippi in 1853, W. Scott Montgomery escaped with Union troops. Brought north and placed with a Vermont family, he prepared at Leland and Gray Seminary and completed studies at Dartmouth, graduating with honors in 1878. His retirement in 1924 was an occasion for a thrilling testimonial. "Dr. Montgomery in the last half-century in Washington D.C. directed the education of his Race. Befriended by Colonel Dutton of the 8th Vermont troops, brought North for a glimpse of opportunity to live with the Cathan family of Townshend, VT, graduated from Dartmouth with Phi Beta Kappa rank, for forty-two years, principal and supervising principal of colored schools, devoting himself entirely to securing equality of opportunity for colored children, and finally retired with honors. Did not the man span centuries of human progress."

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Raised in Petersburg, Virginia, by free parents, James. M. Colson entered Dartmouth with the Class of 1883. Excelling academically and invited into the Alpha Delta fraternity, he graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors. Returning to Petersburg, Colson joined the faculty of Virginia Normal and College Institute (now Virginia Union) and assumed a leadership position a year later. After earning an M.A. degree from Dartmouth, W.E.B. Dubois recommended him to the American Negro Academy, an assembly of Black intellectuals. At Colson's death in 1909, an editor wrote, "Perhaps no man of his race was more widely or favorably known in his vicinity. No man had a higher conception of duty, and no man was more earnest or energetic in prosecuting the work his hands found to do."

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At age 12, Champion Waring of Charleston, SC, the son of enslaved parents, was brought north after the Civil War with a Union Army Colonel to live with the Niles family in Post-Mills, Vermont. He prepared at Hampton and Oberlin before entering Dartmouth in 1879. He was a member of the track team and Theta Delta Chi fraternity. After college, Waring taught in Galveston, TX, then moved to Chicago and graduated from Chicago-Kent Law School. Admitted to the Chicago Bar, Waring became a leader among Chicago's Black lawyers, serving a term as president of the Cook County Bar Association and active in local and national Republican politics. He died in 1932, well-remembered as the Dean of Chicago's law community.

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Julius P. Haynes was born in 1866 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and raised in Galveston, Texas. He prepared at Wilberforce University's Preparatory Department in Ohio before entering Dartmouth Medical School and graduating in 1888. He mastered the three-year course and was named the anatomy demonstrator. After training at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, NY, Haynes moved to Toledo, Ohio, to begin a 50-year medical practice, fully engaged in the city's political and social life. While studying at Dartmouth, a photographer captured shots of Haynes with the Medical School's baseball team. These images identified Haynes as one of the earliest Black members of a collegiate athletic team. Haynes died in 1941.

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Born in Bermuda, Robinson emigrated to Franconia, NH, finding work in resort hotels and then gaining admission to Dow Academy before entering Dartmouth. His classmates described him as "always self-respecting; asking no favors and accepting rebuffs with pained patience." Robinson was a varsity track athlete and member of the Dramatic Club. After college, he joined the faculty of Tuskegee Institute and, in later years, headed Black academies in Alabama and Georgia. A rising voice in Republican politics, his promising career ended prematurely with tuberculosis at age 39. His wife, Lillie Mae Hill, moved to Detroit with their son, Remus G. Robinson, Jr., who would graduate from the University of Michigan and become a leader among physicians and educators in Detroit, MI.

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Robert Brown was born in Richmond, Virginia, and prepared at Washington D.C. preparatory schools before entering Dartmouth and graduating with the Class of 1898. Afterward, he completed studies at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, MA, and was admitted to the priesthood. He led pastorships in Ohio and New Jersey before settling in Pittsburgh, where he made his most impactful contributions. Beyond his many pastoral duties, Brown led the Pittsburgh Urban League for a decade. At his death, a member wrote, 'The League lost one of its most valued friends and the whole community one of its best-loved citizens. But Pittsburgh is a better city because he passed this way."

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Matt Bullock’s name is synonymous with Dartmouth's gridiron success in the early 1900s. The son of formerly enslaved parents, he attended Boston public schools before entering Dartmouth and establishing an excellent academic record. He was the second Black Ivy League football player and an honorable mention All-American. Matt sang with the Glee Club and was once acclaimed as the "famous colored Baritone of Dartmouth." Later, he earned a Harvard J.D. A founder of Boston's National Urban League, he was assistant to the Massachusetts Attorney General and Chair of the Massachusetts Parole Board. A loyal alumnus, he established a Dartmouth scholarship to honor his parents.

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Born in Helena, Arkansas, the son of a physician, John M. Marquess completed undergraduate studies at Fisk University and joined Dartmouth as a junior with the Class of 1904. He was a member of the college choir, the Glee Club with fellow Black classmate Matt Bullock, and the varsity track team. After graduation, Marquess began a busy academic career with positions at mid-Western schools before assuming the presidency of Langston University (Oklahoma) for nearly a decade. In later years, he was active in the Elks Club of Philadelphia and national Republic Party affairs. He is remembered for seconding Herbert Hoover’s nomination at the Republican National convention of 1932. Marquess died four years later at the age of 54.

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In Ernest E. Just's biography, The Black Apollo of Science, author Kenneth Manning recalled Just’s shameful oversight at the 1907 Dartmouth commencement. “Just ranked as a Rufus Choate Scholar and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa; he alone graduated magna cum laude, but he did not deliver a commencement address. Perhaps it would be a faux pas to allow a black man to address the crowd.” Born in Charleston, SC, and a graduate of Kimball Union, Just dazzled Dartmouth professors and challenged dogma and convention during his brilliant scientific career in the U.S. and Europe. His research prefigured the modern field of epigenetics. Some said, “he was condemned by race to a restricted field of practice despite ranking among the most eminent biologists of his time.”

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Talley R. Holmes, a lawyer and educator from Washington DC, was among the American Tennis Association (A.T.A.) founders in 1916 and its first national champion. The A.T.A. was formed in response to Jim Crow exclusion from mainstream tennis organizations. Holmes won twelve A.T.A. championships. Following him in later years, Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson began their careers on the A.T.A. circuit. A prominent figure among Washington elites, Holmes was an owner of the historic Whitelaw Hotel, just off U Street N.W., a center of African American culture frequented by Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.

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Leslie L. Pollard, a star high school athlete from Chicago, played halfback at Dartmouth. His brother, Fritz Pollard, had preceded him to the Ivy League at Brown. Both brothers were standouts on the gridiron. Leslie had a stellar game against Harvard in 1909, and Boston papers noted that only his weight kept him from being chosen All-American. After college, a short career in semi-professional football, and several years coaching at Lincoln University, he began a promising career in journalism. He died from accidental carbon monoxide asphyxiation in Brooklyn at age 29.

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William R. Granger grew up in Newark, NJ, the eldest son of an American-educated physician from Barbados and a teacher. He set local and national track records in high school and college. After earning his M.D. at Columbia and interning at Freedmen's Hospital in Washington DC, he settled in New York City for a 52-year career in medicine and public service. Granger was the first of five brothers to graduate from Dartmouth. Three became physicians, and one a dentist. The fifth, Lester '18, served as Executive Director of the National Urban League from 1941 to 1961. Today, Dartmouth's Tucker Foundation annually presents The Lester Granger '18 Award to a Dartmouth graduate for exemplary commitment to public service, social activism, or nonprofit professions.

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John A. Shelburne from Boston excelled at Dartmouth in track and football, earning All-American recognition. Afterward, he played with the Hammond (IN) Pros as one of the first five Blacks to integrate professional football. He then coached Lincoln University's football team to winning records before returning to Boston as youth director with the Robert Gould Shaw House. Boston dedicated a day in his name to recognize his thirty years of service to the Roxbury community. An honorary degree from New England College read, "Yours has been a life characterized by excellence; an excellent mind in a hugely excellent body; an excellent heart welling with warmth for the thousands of young people who have often had great need of a friend. These excellent tools you have used with a humility that is always the hallmark of greatness."

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Born in west Tennessee, “Gus” Poindexter always wanted to be a doctor. After graduating from Lincoln University, Dartmouth and Harvard Medical Schools, and specializing in tropical medicine, he earned his Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology at Columbia. Appointed Chief of bacteriology, preventive medicine, and public health at Howard University, Poindexter served as Chief of American Foreign Aid Health Missions in African and Far East countries, and won numerous honors. In his autobiography, he wrote, "I have traveled widely and have some appreciation of why people laugh and cry. I believe that one God, one wife, one Church and one profession are best for me. I believe that the 3-score and 11 years of living, the 900,000 miles of official foreign travel, and 20 years of service to people in under-developed countries when added to the 23 years of professional service here in the U.S. make for a content demise."

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Frederick D. Stubbs wrote W.E.B. DuBois ahead of an invited Dartmouth lecture, "This college of supposed liberal thought has long needed a speaker of your ability to disillusion it from fallacious ideas and concepts." DuBois did not disappoint, nor did Stubbs, who compiled stellar academic records at Dartmouth and Harvard. He became the first Black physician boarded in thoracic surgery. Sadly, Stubbs' promising career ended in sudden death at age 39. Colleagues wrote, "He had won a Phi Beta Kappa Key at Dartmouth, an A.O.A. Key at Harvard; had passed the American Board of Surgery; had become a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons; was Chief Surgeon of Mercy and Douglass Hospitals in Philadelphia. We do not honor him for his accomplishments alone, but for his willingness to join with us in our common problems wherever they arose."

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Charles I. West, born in Washington, D.C. and educated at Williston Academy, Dartmouth, and Howard Medical School, was a field surgeon and wounded veteran. He established a hospital and nursing school in Liberia before returning to the U.S. to practice in Detroit. Count Basie urged him to move to Las Vegas, then known as the "Mississippi of the West" for its oppressive racism. Over the next two decades, he became the city's most influential advocate for racial justice. A final tribute read, "The freedom fighter has lost a true champion – a healer of bodies, minds, and souls as he attempted to reverse the ugly political and spiritual environment of Southern Nevada in the early 1950s."

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Charles T. Davis studied American literature at Dartmouth, where some alleged he was denied a Rhodes scholarship in 1939 because of his race. After Ph.D. studies at N.Y.U., he was the first Black granted tenure in the English department at Yale and led its Afro-American Studies program to national prominence. He died at age 63 from cancer. At his memorial service, Yale President Giamatti said. "He never imposed upon you; he summoned you out of yourself. Charles never bid you be his loyal friend; once you met him, you could choose no other course. To be with him or around him was an education in how to be faithful to the best you could possibly be. He brought out, effortlessly, the best you had, and like everyone else, I loved him for it."

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Lisle C. Carter was born to prominent professionals in New York City and educated in Barbados before Dartmouth. Afterward, he served in the Army and studied law at St. John's University before assuming leadership roles in the nonprofit sector, the federal government, and academia. He was the National Urban League's lead counsel for a decade, an Assistant Secretary of HEW helping implement Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, and an innovative president of the University of the District of Colombia. Dartmouth awarded him an honorary degree in 1979 and named him a Trustee in 1983.

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Born and raised in Washington DC, Charles A. T. Duncan was a student leader and a member of the ski and tennis teams at Dartmouth. Graduating with honors, he studied law at Harvard. New York law firms told him, “Mr. Duncan, we are ready to have our first Negro associate, but our clients are not ready.” Returning to Washington, he held high-level appointments in the federal and D.C. government for 50 years. He was one of the city’s ranking Black lawyers, beginning in the turbulent Civil Rights era when he was the District’s first Black chief legal officer and a close advisor to the city’s first Black Mayor. He served as Dean of Howard University Law School and was a board member and advisor to public and private organizations, including the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Education Fund.

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Fritz W. Alexander, a government major, was center on Dartmouth's football team and the 1945 heavy-weight boxing champion. He became a highly successful attorney and distinguished judge in New York and, in 1982, was the first Black appointed to a full term on the Court of Appeals (N.Y. State's Supreme Court). Maintaining lifelong Dartmouth ties, Judge Alexander was the first President of the Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association in 1972. He led Black alumni negotiations with the College to consolidate gains achieved earlier by Black student activism on campus. A forceful advocate for change, Alexander convinced Dartmouth in 1973 to name its first Black trustee, R. Harcourt Dodds (1957). Late in his career, he served as Deputy Mayor of New York.

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A graduate of Washington’s D.C.’s famous Dunbar HS, Richard “Dick” Fairley came to Dartmouth in the earliest days of 1950s Civil Rights activism, a cause he embraced after graduation. Popular on campus, he joined a Jewish fraternity and was a basketball team member. After graduate studies leading to a Ph.D., Dick began a three-decade career with the U.S. Department of Education and its Office of Civil Rights to oversee interventions to integrate southern schools. Later, his influence expanded in his work with the Agency for International Development. Dick received numerous honors and awards and served on many public service and corporate boards. His family maintained close ties with Dartmouth and established a three-generation legacy. Ricki Fairley ‘78 and granddaughters Amanda Brown ‘07 and Hayley Brown ’14 followed him as Dartmouth alumni.

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R. Harcourt Dodds, the son of Barbadian parents, graduated from New York's Stuyvesant High School. At Dartmouth, he completed a remarkably successful four years, graduating as a Rufus Choate scholar with Phi Beta Kappa honors. After Yale Law School, he returned to New York and began a long career in public service. Dodds served as New York's Deputy Police Commissioner, Executive Assistant Corporation Counsel, and Executive Assistant District Attorney for Kings County. In 1973, Dodds was named Dartmouth's first African American Trustee and served 15 years. He was an overseer at the Tuck School of Business and a founding member of the Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association. He died in 2009 at age 71 from complications of a heart disorder.

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The well-born son of distinguished Trinidadian parents, McShine explored a full set of humanities studies at Dartmouth before settling into a remarkable 50-year career as senior curator at New York's Museum of Modern of Art and The Jewish Museum. Credited with mounting "landmark" installations and illuminating novel conceptualizations of artistic forms, he became a "towering figure" in the art world. In his final years at MOMA, he held the unique position of Chief Curator at Large. At his death, the artist and curator, Anne Umland, remembered McShine for his "inspiring love for art and for the Museum of Modern Art and all that it stands for. His mark on the institution and the history of modern and contemporary art is indelible.”

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Born in Harlem, Noel Day entered Dartmouth at age 15. A football injury led to his joining the Dartmouth Outing Club's Woodsmen's Team, where he excelled at every event, including fly and baitcasting and logrolling. Throughout his life, Day pursued numerous business, political and social endeavors. After graduation, he directed street-level youth programs in Harlem and Brooklyn. In 1961, Day moved to Boston and pursued progressive causes, including an unsuccessful run for Congress in 1964 and co-founding the 1966 Boston Freedom Schools movement with Jim Breeden ('53). Moving on to San Francisco, Day founded a company to assist government agencies and community organizations in implementing programs for affordable housing, family planning, energy conservation, drug abuse, and AIDS prevention. He died of lung cancer at 61.

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A lifelong educator and civil rights activist, Rev. James P. Breeden was noted for his expansive intellect, memorable eloquence, calm presence, and steadfast commitment to social justice. After Dartmouth, he attended Union Theological Seminary and became an ordained minister. Soon afterward, he joined an Episcopalian group to assert the Church's role in the civil rights movement. In 1961, Breeden bussed with the Freedom Riders to test Mississippi's "Jim Crow" caste system. Later, he was a leader in the struggle to desegregate Boston Public Schools. During a march of thousands in Boston, he commented, "There's very little they can do to us now; we've all been in jail. We have a Freedom Movement in Boston at last." Breeden earned a Harvard doctorate in education and taught at universities in the U.S. and Africa. Late in life, he was Dean of Dartmouth's Tucker Foundation.