WestConn's First African-American Students

It would not be until the late 1960s that the composition of college and university student body populations began to numerically reflect the African-American populations around them in the U.S.  In a 1969 photograph in the WCSU Archives, members of the then newly-formed Afro-American Club can be seen giving the Black Power fist salute for their yearbook photo, signaling an overt change in the culture at WestConn; however,  earlier in the century, the educational possibilities were quite different for those Afro-American Club members’ parents and grandparents.  The population of African-Americans was small in Danbury in the early 1900s; in 1895, there were only 14 registered births in the City of Danbury of persons listed as "black" under race.  Furthermore, based on photographic evidence, a very small number of that small community entered Danbury High School in the early decades of the 20th century. 

Yet, standing in the back row of the 1906 senior class picture for the Danbury Normal School (first graduating class of the precursor to WestConn), there is a lone African-American woman.  Who was she?