Before 1830

1729    Anton Wilhelm Amo graduates from the University of Halle Germany (Law). In 1730 Amo enrolls in Wittenberg University, where he receives a Doctor of Philosophy degree (1734).

1758    Francis Williams, the first known Black college graduate in the Americas (Cambridge University, UK) publishes his Latin poems. Williams, born in 1702 in Kingston, Jamaica, was the youngest son of John and Dorothy Willliams.

1823    Alexander Lucius Twilight becomes the first African American to graduate from Middlebury College.

1826    John Brown Russwurm becomes the first African American to graduate from Bowdoin College.

1828    Theodore Sedgewick Wright becomes the first African American to graduate from Princeton University. John Newton Templeton, a former slave, becomes the African American to graduate from Ohio University.