Edward Mitchell was the first student of African descent to attend Dartmouth College. In 1824, students protested the Board of Trustees' decision not to admit Mitchell because of his race. The students’ activism was supported by the faculty, the Board relented, and Mitchell took his rightful place in the student body. Born in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, in 1792, he had been a sailor and a porter before coming to Hanover. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1828, was ordained, and moved to Georgeville, Canada, where he found community and his calling in ministry.

This collaborative project is digitizing and bringing together primary documents surrounding Mitchell’s life from the McCord Stewart Museum in Montreal and from the Dartmouth Library. This robust digital collection and associated online exhibit will make documentary evidence from Mitchell’s life available to students, scholars, and the general public.