Upending the Ivory Tower. Stefan M. Bradley

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      At the turn of the century, Princeton president Woodrow Wilson (in a foreshadowing act to his time in the White House) ensured that the institution would remain exclusively white. Reared as a southerner in a family that once enslaved Africans, Wilson frequently embraced racial stereotypes associated with black people and disregarded them as innately inferior beings. A fellow Princeton alumnus remembered Wilson’s great ability to tell “darky” jokes.17 Like many southerners of the period, Wilson strongly opposed the mixing of races on the grounds that it would taint the pure white race. In 1904, Wilson discussed the potential presence of black students at Princeton: “While there is nothing in the law of the University to prevent a negro’s entering, the whole temper and tradition of the place are such that no negro has ever applied for admission, and it seems extremely unlikely that the question will ever assume a practical form.”18 Wilson’s words were not encouraging.

      Five years later, a black student from the Virginia Theological Seminary and College wrote to Wilson, stating “I want so much to come to your school at Princeton.”19 Wilson quickly referred the letter to his secretary, who replied on the president’s behalf that the aspiring student should either attend a university in the South or apply to universities like Harvard, Dartmouth, or Brown, where he would be more welcome.20 It came as no surprise to many when Wilson, who in 1912 was elected president of the United States, resegregated all government offices or when he endorsed the glorification of the Ku Klux Klan in D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation. Furthermore, Wilson, who had received a doctorate in government and history from Johns Hopkins University, claimed that the movie, which demeaned black citizens, was like history written in lightning. The irony of the matter was that Wilson, while president of Princeton and the nation, pushed to advance democracy. He waged a campaign to change Princeton’s class caste system by attempting to abolish the exclusive eating clubs. The clubs provided many of the social activities on campus, but they also denied students of lower economic ranks. Wilson believed it was wrong to turn away students because of their economic class, but did not go a step further by removing de facto Jim Crow barriers to the admission of black students.

      Wilson had support from his fellow alumni. As one alumnus put it, “Princeton must remain the shining citadel of white supremacy and set an example for all of the world to see of the tolerance and intelligence of the white man.”21 Indeed, to state that there were no African Americans on Princeton’s campus during the first part of the twentieth century would be fallacious. There were black cooks who prepared food for the exclusive eating clubs (which was characteristic of eating facilities at nearly all the Ivy institutions) and, in at least one case, a black man acted as a servant for one of Princeton’s premiere constitutional scholars.22 Until the 1940s, those were some of the only black people Princetonians saw at the university. In some ways the auspicious presence of black people almost exclusively in the role of cooks and servants was reminiscent of images from the institutions of the Old South. A Dartmouth College president in the 1920s claimed that at Brown, Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Harvard, few black students were admitted but those who did attend could participate in the bulk of college life. At Yale, he explained, black students were admitted but did not have the opportunity to socialize with their white classmates. The Dartmouth president observed that with regard to Princeton University and black students, however, “the color line is drawn with the utmost rigidity and the [black] man [is] not even given access to the curriculum.”23

      In 1939, Princeton town resident Bruce M. Wright applied and won a scholarship to attend the university. Although he was talented as a high school student, he happened to be black. Wright had not seen any reason to share his race with the admissions office and no officials thought to ask. The underpinnings of the sacred white institution nearly came loose when the stand-out student arrived to register for courses. The white registration officials, using their innate powers of racial perception, immediately recognized Wright as black. They mobilized to protect the sanctity of Princeton by refusing to enroll the scholarship-winning teenager in any courses and by expeditiously shooing him off the yard.24

      Crestfallen, Wright knew why he could not attend, but he wanted the Princeton officials to explain their broken logic. In response to a letter Wright wrote, the dean of admissions reasoned that as someone who had “very pleasant relations with” the “colored race,” about which he was “particularly interested,” he believed that Princeton would be too lonely a place for a black student and that such a student would not be “happy in this environment.” He further explained that there were a great number of southern white students there who held close to their “tradition.” Overall, he concluded, it would be best for a black student to not challenge the culture.25 His letter did not read any differently from those of the noble white men who had previously denied black applicants. If anything, it provided a superb example of white paternalism and racism wrapped into one document. Further it made clear the position of those who had the power to make decisions on behalf of the institution.

      World War II forced officials at American institutions to reflect on their policies of excluding citizens. The U.S. military is as steeped in tradition as any American institution; yet, the military in some ways outpaced the rest of American society as it concerned racial progress. In the case of Princeton, the actions of the military helped to change the admission practices of the Ivy League institution. The U.S. Navy, in partnership with Princeton University, instituted the V-12 Navy College Training Program on campus. The program allowed naval cadets to take college courses in the hope of increasing the number of eligible officers for service during war time.26 In 1945, the partnership resulted in admission of four black naval cadets. The efforts of northern civilian activists of the NAACP, who waged the “Double V(ictory)” campaign during World War II, also had some influence on Princeton’s policies of allowing black students as undergraduates. Those activists sought to defeat fascism abroad and to dismantle racism at home.27 With black serviceman attending Princeton, they achieved both goals.

      In the midst of World War II, some Princeton alumni could not justify making the world safe for democracy and rescuing Jewish victims from Nazi concentration camps while their university rejected American citizens who wanted to attend an American university. Norman Thomas, member of the class of 1905, explained that Princeton men claim that their alma mater “is for the nation’s service” and is “dedicated to ‘democracy,’ … to ‘the liberal spirit’—in complete opposition to fascist standards. Yet Princeton maintains a racial intolerance almost worthy of Hitler.”28 Thomas decried the fact that “a race which is furnishing an increasing number of artists, musicians, scientists, can send no man be he as versatile as Paul Robeson … to the fourth oldest American institution of learning.” Thomas chided that “Negroes may go to, and make good in Harvard, Yale, Columbia … indeed all leading American colleges and universities except Princeton.”29 Between 1928 and 1948, Thomas ran as a Socialist candidate for president of the United States. He also received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Princeton.30 Another alumnus echoed Thomas’s sentiment. Ralph J. Reiman, from the class of 1935, stated that “Negro students have much to offer Princeton and Princeton has much to offer Negro students.”31 Reiman eventually graduated Harvard Law and served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer during World War II.32

      Two students from the class of 1945, W. F. Weaver and J. L. Webb, exclaimed that “to make democracy come true we must begin at home.”33 For Weaver and Webb, manifesting democracy at home meant allowing black students to matriculate at the university. Another student hoped for racial progress at the institution: “Princeton, a leading university with a strong Southern tradition, could seize this opportunity to take the lead in working out the only alternative to eventual revolution—that alternative is [racial] cooperation.… Lest we forget, Princeton is the last of the leading institutions outside the deep South which still adheres to this faith in racial superiority.”34 Although few in number, there was a contingent of concerned Princeton affiliates pressuring the university to evolve.

      In some areas of post–World War II American society, the race problem tempered. Jackie Robinson signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which СКАЧАТЬ