Princeton University Offers a Walking Tour of Its African American History

Filed in African-American History on May 30, 2018

Princeton University in New Jersey is developing as series of campus walking tours entitled “Making Visible What Has Been Invisible.” The tours will illuminate lesser-known histories of the university in order to tell a more complete narrative of Princeton’s past.

Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the Princeton University Chapel

The first of these walking tours is entitled “Stories of African American Life at Princeton.” The tour is web-based and mobile-friendly. It may be viewed while touring campus or on the web from any location.

The first stop on the tour is a building that served as the president’s house. At least 16 enslaved men, women, and children lived and worked in this building between 1756 and about 1822.

Other stops on the tour relate to Princeton’s first Black students in the 1940s, locations of key events in the civil rights movement that occurred on campus, and places on campus relating to the university’s Black studies programs.