Richard Jason (Joachin) Temple is believed to have been the first Black man to graduate from Denison. After graduating in 1884, he returns to his home state of Mississippi and becomes a pastor of the First Baptist Church in Natchez. No picture of him has thus far been located.
Pictured here is his gravestone, as well as a photo of his daughter Ruth Janetta Temple, who founded the Temple Health Institute in East L.A. (now The Ruth Temple Center). She credited her success to her parents, who always stressed education and encouraged curiosity. (Source: The Black Women Oral History Project).
William Ambler Meredith of Zanesville, Ohio, is believed to be second Black student to graduate from Denison. He attends Doane Academy for three years and graduates from Denison in 1886. He goes on to study medicine at the University of Michigan. The cause of his untimely death in Detroit is unknown.
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Carter Harrison Barnett of Huntington, West Virginia, graduates and goes on to become a teacher at Frederick Douglass High School. He serves for a year as principal of a school in Perkersburg, the first public free school for Black children in West Virginia.
(Sources: Early Negro Education in West Virginia, 1921; Brewer, Charles. "The Woodson-Riddle Families: Enslavement, Emancipation, and Education," 2013.)
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Charles Henry Turner came to Denison in 1894 as a doctoral fellow to study morphology under Clarence Herrick. Trained as a zoologist and animal behaviorist, he is known as the first Black psychologist. "His contributions included the development of techniques to measure learning. . . of several invertebrate species. . . placing an emphasis on how training variables. . . influence performance." He initiates the first controlled studies of color vision and pattern vision in honey bees. He is also the first Black man to be published in the journal Science.
(Source: Oklahoma State Psychology Museum)
Bessie Leone Gulley of Selma, Alabama, is believed to be the first Black woman graduate of Denison. She graduates in 1906 and goes on to become a teacher.
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Thomas Lloyd Hickman graduates and goes on to become one of the first Black YMCA secretaries during WWI (France).
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