Struggle AND Success: Decoding the DNA of Northwestern University in the Archive
Student activists gather outside the original Black House on Northwestern University’s campus to protest for increased racial equality measures, 2015.
Like most experiences, being a Black student at a predominantly white institution (PWI) has its ups and downs. At many PWIs, Black students have tight community, forming bonds due to being in such short supply on campus. Many universities provide resources and opportunities to Black students to address historical and present inequalities, making the Black experience at some schools incredibly advantageous. However, much of the experience is a struggle. When your professors and nearly half of your fellow students are white, it is very easy - and necessary - to remember your Blackness. In fact, it is impossible to forget. Nearly every day, new obstacles arise which, at best, separate, and, at worst, silence Black students. Black students at my own university, Northwestern University, know this experience all too well. As a part of its orientation experience, Northwestern instills the phrase ‘AND is in our DNA’ into the minds of incoming freshmen. Students major AND minor, join a club AND take a class, work AND play. However, Black students must accept a different addendum onto the typical student experience: we undergo a unique struggle AND incredible success. Despite this experience, Black students can take solace in the knowledge that other Black students and alumni have gone before us and experienced similar things. The stories, experiences, struggles, and successes of a number of Northwestern University alumni can be found in The HistoryMakers Digital Archive.
Students pose for a picture in the original Black House, 1979.
There are a number of HistoryMakers who attended Northwestern University and who learned from Black history on Northwestern’s campus just as I, a current student, am doing now. EntertainmentMaker Daphne Maxwell Reid is an actress who starred as Aunt Viv in the later seasons of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Reid graduated from Northwestern in 1970. She recalls being one of 18 Black students in a class of 5,000, and spoke about a racist student who would have been her roommate during her freshman year. She said that the Black community at Northwestern was incredibly close due to its small size. During her sophomore year, Reid became Northwestern’s first Black homecoming queen; she was incredibly shocked that she won, but remembered it as a largely positive experience, until the entirety of homecoming was largely excluded from the yearbook, no doubt due to the race of the homecoming queen. Because of this experience, Reid distanced herself from Northwestern after graduating, never participating in activities as an alumna. Learning about Reid’s experience on campus illuminates the relationship between success and struggle. While Reid broke a barrier for all Black women on campus, her success was invalidated by white students who were not ready to see a Black woman win.
HistoryMaker and Northwestern alumna Daphne Maxwell Reid holding her homecoming queen trophy, 1967.
MediaMaker Sidmel Estes was a media consultant and television producer who was the first woman elected president of the National Association of Black Journalists. Estes started at Northwestern in 1972. She recalls how Northwestern gave her a better financial aid package and was further along in its journey to be inclusive than other universities. Compared to similar colleges in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States, Northwestern made more strides to make its resources more accessible to Black students. While at Northwestern, however, Estes devoted energy to protesting against some of Northwestern’s unethical financial involvements. Students at Northwestern in the 1970s disagreed with Northwestern’s Board of Directors continued financial engagement with corporations supporting apartheid in South Africa. Estes, though grateful for her time at Northwestern, expressed disappointment in Northwestern’s lack of response to its students’ protests. A perfect representation of the relationship between success and struggle at Northwestern, Estes’ story seems reminiscent of the experiences of many Black students at Northwestern today. While many, if not most students, are grateful for the resources, connections, and experiences they gain while at Northwestern, political and economic strife creates tension between Northwestern’s administrators and its Black students.
Students from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, and Integrated Marketing Communications display their National Association of Black Journalists Student Chapter of the Year Award, 2015.
From the time the first Black student graduated from Northwestern University in 1903 through today, Black students have demonstrated incredible resilience in the face of struggle while shining brilliantly in the midst of success. These experiences, among many others, can be discovered in The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. As Black students continue to pursue education at institutions which were never built to help us in our pursuit, let us reflect on the history of those who came before us and prepare to make our own history in the years to come.
