World War II forced officials at American institutions to reflect on their policies of excluding citizens. The U.S. military is as steeped in tradition as any American institution; yet, the military in some ways outpaced the rest of American society as it concerned racial progress. In the case of Princeton, the actions of the military helped to change the admission practices of the Ivy League institution. The U.S. Navy, in partnership with Princeton University, instituted the V-12 Navy College Training Program on campus. The program allowed naval cadets to take college courses in the hope of increasing the number of eligible officers for service during war time.26 In 1945, the partnership resulted in admission of four black naval cadets. The efforts of northern civilian activists of the NAACP, who waged the “Double V(ictory)” campaign during World War II, also had some influence on Princeton’s policies of allowing black students as undergraduates. Those activists sought to defeat fascism abroad and to dismantle racism at home.27 With black serviceman attending Princeton, they achieved both goals.
In the midst of World War II, some Princeton alumni could not justify making the world safe for democracy and rescuing Jewish victims from Nazi concentration camps while their university rejected American citizens who wanted to attend an American university. Norman Thomas, member of the class of 1905, explained that Princeton men claim that their alma mater “is for the nation’s service” and is “dedicated to ‘democracy,’ … to ‘the liberal spirit’—in complete opposition to fascist standards. Yet Princeton maintains a racial intolerance almost worthy of Hitler.”28 Thomas decried the fact that “a race which is furnishing an increasing number of artists, musicians, scientists, can send no man be he as versatile as Paul Robeson … to the fourth oldest American institution of learning.” Thomas chided that “Negroes may go to, and make good in Harvard, Yale, Columbia … indeed all leading American colleges and universities except Princeton.”29 Between 1928 and 1948, Thomas ran as a Socialist candidate for president of the United States. He also received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Princeton.30 Another alumnus echoed Thomas’s sentiment. Ralph J. Reiman, from the class of 1935, stated that “Negro students have much to offer Princeton and Princeton has much to offer Negro students.”31 Reiman eventually graduated Harvard Law and served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer during World War II.32
Two students from the class of 1945, W. F. Weaver and J. L. Webb, exclaimed that “to make democracy come true we must begin at home.”33 For Weaver and Webb, manifesting democracy at home meant allowing black students to matriculate at the university. Another student hoped for racial progress at the institution: “Princeton, a leading university with a strong Southern tradition, could seize this opportunity to take the lead in working out the only alternative to eventual revolution—that alternative is [racial] cooperation.… Lest we forget, Princeton is the last of the leading institutions outside the deep South which still adheres to this faith in racial superiority.”34 Although few in number, there was a contingent of concerned Princeton affiliates pressuring the university to evolve.
In some areas of post–World War II American society, the race problem tempered. Jackie Robinson signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which desegregated the U.S. military, and the Supreme Court ruled against the segregation of public interstate transportation and restrictive covenants. Robinson’s entry into the major leagues, the desegregation of the armed forces, and the rulings of the Supreme Court occurred because of the constant efforts of black citizens who wanted to ensure their nation lived out its creed.35
As U.S. officials and heroic American citizens made history, so too did one of the four naval cadets whom Princeton admitted in 1945. While on campus, these black student-sailors did not join the exclusive eating clubs and rarely socialized outside of class with their fellow white students. Despite the social isolation, in 1947 John L. Howard became the first African American to receive a bachelor’s degree from the university.36 Howard, who had attended integrated schools in New York, noted that his was a “very mellow experience.” He explained that he was not attending “traditional” Princeton University but rather a “wartime Princeton” that catered to students from the military.37 Howard eventually became an orthopedic surgeon. By 1948, another black cadet, James E. Ward, also received a bachelor’s degree. Ward eventually worked for the Texas Commission on Human Rights as an investigator and legal counsel. Another of the cadets, Melvin Murchison, became the first black athlete to play a varsity sport (football) at Princeton. Along those lines, the fourth black cadet, Arthur “Pete” Wilson played two seasons of varsity basketball, and even acted as the team captain.38 Interestingly, high-achieving black students who were admitted literally had to be “in the nation’s service” to attend Princeton.
Figure 2.1. In the nation’s service, James E. Ward (left) and Arthur J. Wilson, both class of 1947, took advantage of the U.S. Navy’s V-12 officers training program to become two of Princeton University’s first black graduates. Courtesy of the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University.
White veterans, who witnessed the service of black men during the war, moved to alter Princeton’s racial policies of admission. In 1946, several white soldier-students in coalition with several civilian-students formed an organization called the Liberal Union. In an attempt to enlighten the campus with respect to the abilities and equality of black people in general, the Liberal Union brought NAACP Executive Director Walter White (who had Caucasian physical characteristics) to campus to speak to the general student body. Sixty-two years later, Robert Rivers, a black observer from the town of Princeton, remembered the shameful treatment the executive director received upon arriving at campus. Rivers, who eventually attended and graduated from the university (and became its first black trustee), recalled “the scene where Princeton [University] students taunted and threw snowballs at the NAACP executive director.” The Walter White scene is notable on at least two levels. On the one hand, if Princeton were a place that pledged to forge the leaders of the future, it appeared that those future leaders had not yet matured. Indeed, heaving snowballs at an actual societal leader could be characterized as nothing more than juvenile. On the other hand, the fact that a dogged advocate of integration who happened to be black could speak on campus marked a shift in Princeton’s history.39
Even if slow and incremental, Princeton’s culture changed with the times. The first black undergraduate student that Princeton University admitted without impetus or assistance from the military was Joseph Ralph Moss. A resident of the town of Princeton, Moss arrived at the university in the fall of 1947. While he did not participate wholly in campus events, he did eventually join a campus eating club and even lived on campus at one point. The admissions officer who interviewed Moss noted that the student had a light complexion and a mother of “very high-grade.” The officer further observed that Moss’s brother, Simeon, had attended the graduate school as part of the G.I. Bill. Joseph Moss graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1951.40
Although Princeton desegregated in the immediate post–World War II era, it may not have done so out of sheer goodwill. An article in the Princeton Alumni Weekly pointed out that in 1947 state legislators rewrote the state’s constitution to explicitly prohibit racial discrimination.41 In doing so, state-funded institutions were required to adhere to the new policy regarding discrimination. Although Princeton was a private university, it did receive some funds from the state of New Jersey. Subsequently, Princeton more freely admitted black undergraduates.
One of those new black students was Robert Rivers (class of 1953). Like Robeson and Moss, Rivers grew up in Princeton. He, however, actually enrolled in the university. Rivers’s father worked at an eating club for decades and his mother was the maid for a professor for years; so the Rivers family understood full well what white students and faculty were capable of and what the very few black students who attended the university had to endure.42 Rivers arrived at the university embracing the spirit of pioneers like Jackie Robinson,