Another
Light on the Hill: A History of Black Undergraduate Students at
Tufts, 1900-present
October 3 – December 14, 2003
Koppelman Gallery
Another Light on the Hill is a pictorial exhibit of the
history of black male and female undergraduate students at Tufts
from 1900 to the present. First displayed in 1988 and again in 1999,
the expanded and updated exhibit offers a panoramic treatment of
the history of black undergraduates’ experiences over the
course of the last century.
To date, there is no written evidence as to when the college’s
first black student enrolled or graduated. However, as W.E.B. DuBois
did note in 1910, Tufts was an institution that had “sent
forth Negro graduates of power and efficiency” although the
Medford School did not keep “any record of race or nationality
of [its] graduates.” The exhibit chronicles the experiences
of black male and female students through their visibility in campus
publications, in the university’s Melville Munro Photograph
Collection, and through national and local black newspapers and
magazines.
While a study of the history of black students at Tufts, the exhibit
is also a study of changing patterns of race relations and interracial
contact over time. Although Tufts may have enrolled approximately
one hundred black male and female students in the decades before
the mid-1960s, these students distinguished themselves in the classroom
and on the athletic field. Since the mid-1960s, the total number
of black students who have attended Tufts has risen exponentially
and has become more diverse in terms of ethnicity and place of birth.
And, as the exhibit depicts, black students have been involved in
any number of campus organizations and sports teams.
— By Curator Gerald Gill, Professor
of History, Tufts University
Opening Reception:
Thursday, October 9, 5:00-8:00pm in the Remis Sculpture Court
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