Introduction

Before the turn of the twentieth century, Northwestern Law graduated several Black students, many of whom led illustrious political and legal careers in Chicago and beyond. Unfortunately, the Pritzker Legal Research Center has not historically collected detailed records concerning individual students, even those whose admission and graduation marked historical milestones for the Law School. Virtually no first-hand accounts survive about their student experiences, leaving us with a tragic gap in the historical record. Only recently have librarians identified the Law School’s first Black alumnus and several other Black men who graduated before 1900, but this list is likely not exhaustive—and some alumni may yet be discovered. We believe it is crucial to reverse our historic shortcomings and collect and share as much information as possible about our school’s Black history, and this project marks an early stage of this ongoing process. 

A Note Regarding Language

Some of the resources featured in this exhibit use language in ways that were accepted at the time, but that we recognize today to be insensitive and even offensive. By featuring these works, we are not condoning this language or the views it expresses regarding racial and/or ethnic identities. Rather, we believe that in presenting history as it was, we can more fully see the challenges our early Black graduates faced and learn from the errors of the past.