Richard T. Greener '1865

The discovery in 2009 of a steamer trunk stuffed with old documents has revived the largely obscured legacy of one of the 19th century’s leading black intellectuals. Greener graduated from Andover in 1865 and Harvard in 1870, then quickly became a member of what W.E.B. Dubois called the “talented tenth,” the black “aristocracy of character and talent” whose mission, as Dubois saw it, was to help empower black Americans in the wake of the Civil War. Greener’s personal acquaintances (some were friends, some were adversaries, all were admirers) included Dubois, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Ulysses S. Grant. Because he spent much of his life in the public eye, his work as a prominent educator, diplomat, lawyer and intellectual was well-documented. Greener’s time at Andover, however, was given little notice. For more about Greener at Andover: https://www.andover.edu/news/2018/richard-t-greener-at-andover
By Amy Morris