Blacks At Princeton

 Looking Back: Reflections of Black Princeton Alumni is a 75-minute documentary that was written, produced and edited by Melvin McCray, a member of the Princeton class of 1974. In 1995, Calvin Norman, a schoolmate from the class of 1977, approached McCray with the idea of producing a program on Blacks at Princeton for the university’s upcoming 250th Anniversary. McCray realized that Norman’s original idea of a panel discussion would be limited in scope and instead proposed a full length documentary chronicling the history of African Americans at Princeton from it’s founding in 1946 to the present. They approached 250th Anniversary Steering Committee members Dorothy Bedford, class of 1981 and Robert Durkee, class of 1969 and served as university vice president and secretary. With their support the program was completed a year and a half later and became one of the highlights of the university’s anniversary celebration.

     McCray interviewed over 35 black alumni, three black administrators and three presidents including Robert F. Goheen (President1957-1972), William G. Bowen (President 1972-1988) and Harold T. Shapiro (President 1988-2001). The first two black graduates, John Howard ’47 and James Ward ’48, were interviewed and were found to have had very different experiences at Princeton. Howard, who spent two years at Columbia University prior to coming to Princeton, found no racial discrimination at all. Ward, who spent two years at Lancaster College, a historically Black college, found a racially charged and alienating environment. Although Harvard University admitted its first Black student in 1870 and Yale in 1874, Princeton had never admitted a black undergraduate, with the exception of students privately tutored by John Witherspoon in the late1700s. The university was forced to integrate in 1944 when the federal government sent Howard, Ward and two other blacks to Princeton’s Naval V-12 Training Program. In the documentary the experiences of black alumni run the gamut from loving every minute of their time on campus to hating every minute and almost every emotion in between.

Looking Forward: Reflections of Black Princeton Alumni, was produced, directed and edited by Melvin McCray in 2009 and was first screened at the 2nd Black Alumni Conference, Coming Back and Looking Forward that same year. This 32-minute film is composed of interviews of Black alumni recorded at the 1st Black Alumni Conference in 2006. The film also contains segments called “historical moments in Black Princetoniana,” that briefly examine black historical figures at the university. Among them was  James “Jimmie” Johnson, an enslaved African from Maryland, who escaped and fled to Princeton, New Jersey. He became a vendor on Princeton’s campus beginning in the early 1840s and remained until his death some 50 years later. The film also describes a racial incident that occurred in the late 1870s when three black Princeton Theological Seminary students enrolled in Professor James McCosh’s class.

Dr. Cornel West was awarded the first Dr. Carl A. Fields Memorial Award for Social Justice on May 5, 2010, at Princeton University.

Musician, Stanley Jordan, preformed before a crowd of hundreds at Princeton University's Richardson Auditorium at the conclusion of the Black alumni conference in 2006. During the concert he reflected on his experience as an undergraduate. 

In September 2006, Princeton University held a conference on campus titled "Coming Back and Looking Forward:  A Princeton University Conference for Black Princeton Alumni." Over 500 alumni and their guests participated in two days of discussion and dialogue about the University, higher education and issues of importance to black alumni. This 58 min. video shows highlights of the conference and features John Rogers and Mellody Hobson of Ariel Capital Management, Princeton Provost, now President, Chris Eisgruber, Professor Cornel West, Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Princeton President Shirley Tilghman and many others.