“Princeton’s history is American history writ small,” said Martha Sandweiss, the history professor who led the project. But Professor Sandweiss said she hoped it would foster a broader, more fully informed conversation about history and racial justice. On a recent morning, Professor Sandweiss paused in front of the likeness of Samuel Stanhope Smith (1751-1819). But they also zeroed in on one of the distinctive, and fateful, aspects of Princeton’s history: its heavily Southern student body. In town, Southern students (as well as many Northern ones) encountered something unfamiliar: a proud, and longstanding, free black community.

Source: New York Times November 06, 2017 15:04 UTC