Daniel Hale Williams, Class of 1883, and Emma Ann Reynolds, Class of 1895
Who were the first black alumni at Northwestern? That’s one question Northwestern University Black Alumni Association members Jeffrey E. Sterling ’85 and Lauren Lowery ’89 try to answer in their book Voices and Visions: The Evolution of the Black Experience at Northwestern University, and it’s one that University Archives has researched for years.
Lawyer Taylor
While several black students attended the University in its first few decades, it is difficult to ascertain with absolute certainty which student graduated first. However, in 1903, Austin-native Lawyer Taylor graduated from Northwestern with an undergraduate degree in mathematics. The Commencement program that year included this note: “Let us give nine rahs for a fellow who has fought his way thro’ college under more difficulties than any of us have encountered, who is the first of his race to receive a degree from Northwestern; let us give him a cheer as he goes forth to lead his brothers in the South. Here’s to Lawyer Taylor!”
Charla Wilson, the university archivist for the black experience at Northwestern, says the University suspects Naomi Willie Pollard was the first black undergraduate alumna. She graduated in 1905.
Naomi Willie Pollard
Several black students graduated from professional schools that eventually became part of Northwestern. For instance, Ferdinand L. Barnett graduated in 1878 from the Union College of Law, which eventually became Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.
Another such alumnus is Daniel Hale Williams. In 1883, Williams graduated from Chicago Medical College of Northwestern University (now the Feinberg School of Medicine). In 1893, Williams performed the first successful open heart surgery in America. He continued to make history as the first African American member of the American College of Surgeons.
In 1891, Williams, along with other graduates, founded Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses, the first black-owned hospital in America. One of the first graduates of the training program was Emma Ann Reynolds, who had been denied admission at each of the city’s other nursing schools. Reynolds decided to continue her medical education and earned her MD from Northwestern University Woman’s Medical School in 1895—the first black woman to ever be awarded an MD from Northwestern. You can read more about Reynolds, Williams, and the other founders of Provident Hospital here.
Their legacies live on today. Northwestern has a Lawyer Taylor Professorship (currently held by Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences Professor Galen Bodenhausen and McCormick School of Engineering Professor Monica Olvera de la Cruz). And Feinberg School of Medicine established the Daniel Hale Williams Society in 2018 to focus on the recruitment of African American males into the medical profession.
Photos courtesy of University Archives and Galter Health Sciences Library & Learning Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA.