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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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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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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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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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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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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."