Black Students in Higher Education

This data shows the number of Black students enrolled in institutions of higher education in the US in 1924. Although Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges did not yet admit Black students at the time of the 1924 conference, data compiled by the editor of The Crisis, W.E.B. Du Bois, shows that many peer institutions had enrolled Black students in 1924.¹

This shows the importance of the 1924 and 1931 conferences. These conferences were organized by students to enable students to talk about racial inequality at institutions of higher education, among other topics. Organizers invited Black and white students from many institutions, including institutions now known as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). For example, HBCU Lincoln University had 59 Black students graduate in 1924. The 1924 conference is important to Bryn Mawr's history in showing that some of its students were engaging with issues of race and education, even as their institution refused to admit people of African descent.

The data visualization above shows HBCUs among the top ten schools with the highest number of enrolled Black students. Howard University had 78 students, Fisk University 48, Lincoln University 53, J. C. Smith University 18, and Morehouse College had 18. Several institutions located near Bryn Mawr College enrolled Black students: Temple University had 48 and the University of Pennsylvania, one of the conference's leading organizers, had 58. Oberlin College admitted Black students as early as 1835,² and had 54 Black students in 1924.³ Although many institutions of higher education were similar to Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, and Haverford Colleges in not enrolling Black students in the 1920s, many other institutions, as shown in the above data, did diversify their student bodies ultimately for the greater good of the institutions, although that may not have been part of their original motivations.

^{1. W.E.B. Du Bois, "The Year in Higher Training", The Crisis, Vol. 28 No. 3, July 1924. p 108-116, 122-24 ↩}

^{2. Ibid. ↩}

^{3. Oberlin History, "A Town of Firsts," Oberlin College and Conservatory. ↩}