PLEA TO ADMIT EDWARD MITCHELL, CLASS OF 1828

A group of students wrote the board of trustees after it refused to accept Edward Mitchell. Mitchell had been admitted to the freshman class by the faculty, but the board rejected his admittance. C.D. Cleveland, class of 1827, was a dark- skinned Caucasian who argued on Mitchell’s behalf, saying that if skin color excluded Mitchell from the College, then Cleveland himself would not have been admitted. The trustees reconsidered their decision, and Mitchell was admitted to the College in 1824, 40 years before any other Ivy admitted a black student. He became the first black graduate of Dartmouth.