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Tensions between Unionist and Secessionist students reached their peak in 1861, shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War.

As tensions over slavery led to sectional crisis in the first half of the 19th century, Princeton’s commencement addresses became increasingly pro-slavery in tone.

In September 1835, a crowd of students descended on Princeton’s African American neighborhood to apprehend an abolitionist. The assault underscored the presence on campus of a large number of students committed to slavery and white supremacy.

In 1895, African American Princeton resident John Collins shot and killed white Princeton student Frederick Ohl. The racially biased news coverage surrounding Collins’s trial illustrates racial tensions still present on campus and in town thirty years after the end of the Civil War.

African Americans were a constant presence at the College of New Jersey as servants, support staff, research and teaching assistants, and students. They labored under harsh conditions on a campus dominated by racism and white supremacy.