ATTEMPTS TO CREATE AMERICA’S FIRST HBCU

As early as the 1830s, New Haveners were dreaming of establishing higher institutions for learning for Black students. At a time where there were still enslaved people in New Haven and where “free” Black people were still severely oppressed, Black New Haveners and their white allies were “creating freedom” by building community organizations and networks that supported each other, despite neglect from the government and dominant power structures.

As former Metro High School student Flor Jimenez writes: “In 1831, two men came together, Simeon Jocelyn a white abolitionist, and Peter William, a black minister of a New Haven Church. They had an idea of making a college for black people in New Haven, which they referred to at the time a ‘Negro College.’ They decided to pitch the idea to the mayor of New Haven, Dennis Kimberly. Simeon Jocelyn pitched the idea because he thought New Haven was a perfect place to have a first ‘Negro’ College.”

The city ultimately stopped the college from materializing. However, a quote from the resolution to vote down the college highlights what the college stood for: “a dangerous interference” to the enslavement and oppression of African Americans.

A Black, Indigenous, and Latinx People’s History of New Haven and “What Could Have Been”