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“Princeton College Bought Me”: The Life of a Fugitive Slave in Princeton
Many nearly-forgotten legends surround James “Jimmy Stink” Collins Johnson, who lived in Princeton for most of his life after escaping from slavery in Maryland. Today it is impossible to completely separate fact from fiction, but this is our best reconstruction: The sources tell us that two slaves in Easton, Maryland, welcomed a baby on October 2,…
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Princeton and Apartheid: The 1978 Nassau Hall Sit-In
Princeton di-vest! Oh yeah Just like the rest! Oh yeah And if you don’t! Oh yeah We will not rest! Oh yeah We gonna fight And fight And keep on fightin’ some more Princeton di-vest! (Student protest chant, quoted in Princeton Alumni Weekly 24 April 1978) Following the recent “Coming Back: Reconnecting Princeton’s Black Alumni”…
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This Week in Princeton History for October 6-12
For last week’s installment in our ongoing series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its students and alumni, click here. For the week of October 6-12: Toni Morrison is named a Nobel Laureate, an undergrad gets international attention for a physics paper, and more. October 6, 1938—Princeton University is selected as one of…
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This Week in Princeton History for September 8-14
For last week’s installment in our ongoing series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its students and alumni, click here. For the week of September 8-14: The College goes coed, a NASCAR champion talks with engineering students, the first African American joins the faculty, and more. September 8, 1969—The College goes coed, as 171 women join the…
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This Week in Princeton History for September 1-7
For last week’s installment in our ongoing series bringing you the history of Princeton University and its students and alumni, click here. For the week of September 1-7: The Princeton Bulletin marvels at the novelty of getting Labor Day off, a student competes in the Miss America pageant, and more. September 1, 2010—The Carl A. Fields Papers are…
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Lost and Found: Segregation and the South
By Dan Linke and Brenda Tindal A recently donated film long thought lost has been digitized and is now viewable online. “Segregation and the South,” a film produced in 1957 by the Fund for the Republic, reported on race issues in the South since the 1954 Supreme Court decision in the Brown v. Board of…
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Access to Higher Education: A National and Princeton Timeline
In light of the Trustees Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity that is working to develop recommendations for strategies to attract and retain more diverse campus community members, (including people of color and women, in areas where the University’s efforts to advance diversity have had more limited success), we offer this historical timeline. The mid to…
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“Your True Friend and Enemy”: Princeton and the Civil War
Civil War exhibition reveals sectional fissures within college and town. “Your True Friend and Enemy”: Princeton and the Civil War, a new exhibition at Princeton University’s Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, examines life at the college and within the town of Princeton against the backdrop of the War Between the States. Through the eyes of…
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The founding of the American Civil Liberties Union, 1920
by: Professor Samuel Walker School of Criminal Justice University of Nebraska at Omaha This is the first part in a series that was introduced earlier. World War I ended on November 11, 1918, but the repression of civil liberties continued unabated. The most well-known event was the so-called “Palmer Raids,” which actually involved two sets…
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IMLS Archival Fellow: Brenda Tindal
Brenda Tindal is one of nine archival fellows chosen from a very competitive applicant pool to participate in Increasing African American Diversity in Archives: The HistoryMakers’ Fellowship, Mentoring, Training and Placement Institute, described by Harvard University Professor and pre-eminent African American scholar Henry Louis Gates as“a wonderfully innovative program.” The program addresses the “appalling low…